A little bit of drama and hopefully not too much OOCness but it's up to you to determine that.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4
Tori's POV

I woke up the next morning, feeling very refreshed. It was a bright and early Thursday morning and I was in a great mood.

I went to the bathroom and got ready for school. As I came back to my bedroom, I spotted my blue PearPhone lying on top of my nightstand. I picked it up and turned it on.

Wait, was it really Thursday? The white letters on my phone confirmed it.

Oh great. I still needed to find Jade so we could start on the project. My heart sank considerably.

Why did Sikowitz only give us a week to do the project?

Why did my partner have to be Jade?

Why, why, why did these things always have to happen to me?

I trudged downstairs, trying of when we could work on the project. I quickly realized that I was open for the rest of the week and weekend. And I hoped Jade would be too.

So today, I would have to invite her over to my house.

God help me.

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I arrived at school with Trina and rearranged my locker when I first saw Jade walking down the hall, her hairstyle back in its usual form, Beck nowhere in sight.

"Hey, Jade!" I called, slamming my locker.

Jade stopped walking. I noticed the cuts covering her forehead. They looked pretty new, so I guess that's what she had been trying to hide yesterday. "What do you want, Vega? I actually have somewhere to go, if you don't—"

"Do you want to come over to my house later to work on Sikowitz's project?" I interrupted. She had the look of someone who had just been asked to a dance in front of an entire class.

Turning a bright shade of red, she said, "I dunno. I think I might be doing something later."

"Well, we have to start the project soon. It's due on Monday!"

"Don't get your underpants in a twist, Vega. Sheesh." Jade started walking away, and I stood there, dumbfounded on what to say or do next. "I'll think about it."

I sighed, but saw no point in going after her. Why does she hate me?

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It was the end of the school day and I was putting books into my locker when Jade approached me.

"Don't get all hyped up, Vega, but I can come to your place today," she said dully, like she had been sentenced to death.

"Okay, that's great," I replied, a little hesitantly. I turned to face her, although avoiding her gaze. "Did you uh, drive here? Or did someone else…"

"No, Beck drove me."

"Okay, then Trina can drive us," I answered, "If that's all right with you."

"Oh boy, I hope we survive," she said dryly.

I didn't know whether to defend Trina or agree with Jade. Yes, Trina was definitely not the best driver in the world—she would put on makeup and eat or talk while she was driving, and her eyes never seemed to stay on the road-they were always wandering around.

"Your choice," I told her. "But if you don't want Trina to drive us there, then you can take a bus or find another ride."

"I'll live through it. After all, I live through seeing you every day."

"All right, you know, you don't have to come over if you don't want to," I said, struggling to keep control of my temper. This was the exact sort of reason why Jade bugged me so much. She knew how to push my buttons until it drove me crazy.

Before Jade could say anything else, Trina came around the corner of the hall. "Hi, Tori and Tori's friend. Are you ready to go, Tori?"

"Yeah, and Jade's coming with us too," I answered. I noticed that Jade's eye twitched when Trina called her 'Tori's friend,' but she said nothing more and followed us silently to Trina's car.

Trying to be a good guest, I went into the back seat with Jade while Trina took the wheel.

It was silent the entire way, unless you counted the songs coming out of the radio. Jade looked out the window, her hands folded in her lap, so I looked out my own, watching the colors of the buildings and cars flash by in a blur.

When Trina finally pulled into the driveway of our house, I almost fell out of the car in my haste to get out. Jade quietly went with us inside. As soon as the front door closed behind us, Trina went straight up to her room. Mom and Dad weren't home yet. Darn.

Jade and I sat down on the bright red couches in the living room.

"So, where would you like to start?" I asked.

"I don't think we completely decided on a topic," Jade pointed out, sitting down on the couch next to me and putting her feet on the table in front of her.

"Oh, yes. Right." I sat down on the couch next to her, keeping a wary but not too noticeable distance from her. "What were some of the ideas we had in mind?"

"I say we write about death," Jade insisted, attitude coming back in her voice as she crossed her arms. I felt pale trying to argue back with her. This is going to be a long night.

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It was past dinnertime now, and we had actually made some good progress on our project. Of course, we still had a few more acts and many scenes to complete, but considering how unstable our friendship was, we were doing pretty well.

In the end we had decided to write about a famous woman who was also a time traveler. The woman travels to the future and sees the world after she has died, which is in a completely chaotic state, because she was unknowingly one of the few people that kept the world in a peaceful mind. She then travels back to the present to try and fix things so that the future has some hope.

That way we could keep Jade's storyline of 'death' in the plot but also make it more interesting (well, Jade though death was interesting enough) or appropriate as she preferred to use.

"No, I don't like how you wrote this part," Jade told me, pointing to a line on my laptop screen. "You should put, 'Gia trips running down the hall.' It makes more sense."

"Geez, Jade, I would've never guessed you were such a grammar freak," I said playfully.

Jade shot me a cold look and I shut up, even though I had meant it as a joke.

Working with her wasn't actually as bad as I had originally thought. We were getting along for the most part, at least, unless you counted the thirty-three—no, thirty-four insults—Jade had made on my writing skills.

"Do you write? I mean, like stories and stuff. 'Cause you're really good with this," I commented, typing on the laptop in front of me what Jade had told me to.

"What are you implying Vega?"

"Nothing." I couldn't even compliment the girl without getting yelled at.

"Well, I have a journal that I write in," Jade said, scribbling something on the pad of paper I had given her. "Why don't we make Georgio say, 'What's your problem?'"

I typed that down on the document. Honestly, I would've never suspected that Jade, of all people, kept a journal. It just didn't seem like something she would do. Actually, she had told me a lot of things that I would never have guessed she does.

Like the fact that she enjoys playing video games (mostly Call of Duty or Modern Warfare though), going shopping (but only for black clothing), and cooking (just for Beck and Cat though). After hanging with her for a couple hours, I realized that she could be nice if she really wanted to. Or maybe that's because my dad was home in his upstairs office and he was a cop.

"I'm bored now," Jade finally said, standing up from her spot on the floor.

"Well, we've made some really good progress," I said, standing up with her. "I think if we keep this up for another few hours we practically have this project down. So how much longer do you want to keep working tonight?"

"It's only nine," Jade told me, looking at the clock on the wall. "I can stay for a few more hours. It's not like my dad even cares if I'm home or not. Actually, he would probably prefer it if I weren't home and so would I." She sighed, suddenly looking very unhappy.

"About your dad, Jade," I said, much to my own surprise, "Did he…I mean…your face?" My question came out in a jumbled mess.

"You don't know me, Vega," she said. I knew the words were supposed to be cold and mean, but for some reason, they sounded sad instead. "Well, no one really does. Not even Beck." She looked down at her hands.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I said as kindly as I could.

She shook her head. Of course I wanted to hear what she would've said, but I knew better that to say anything more.

"No one has a perfect life, Vega," she said, straightening up. She looked me right in the eye. I almost gulped looking back into those ice-blue depths. "But I hope you realize how nice you have it compared to me."

I didn't know how to respond. Jade was going all philosophical on me. This was very unexpected.

"So, what can we do now?" she asked, brushing hair out of her face, and I could feel more bitterness entering the atmosphere.

"You wanna watch a movie?"

Suddenly, there was a faint buzzing noise: Jade reached into her pocket and pulled out her red PearPhone. I watched her as she read the message on the screen.

"Speak of the devil," she murmured. "And he will interfere."

I almost said, "I think it's appear," but I shut my mouth. Jade was looking very upset. Her eyebrows were drawn together as she typed something into the phone. She brought it up to her ear and waited.

There was a faint buzzing noise as Jade waited for her dad to pick up. I sat there on the couch next to her, awkwardly staring at the laptop in front of me. I tried to act like I wasn't eavesdropping.

"Hello?" a man's voice said from the other side.

"What do you want, Dad?" Jade said.

"Where are you?"

"Why do you care?"

I coughed. Jade didn't even look at me, but continued to talk into the phone furiously.

"Why don't you come home now, Jade? It's getting late," her father said, in a different, more seductive tone of voice then when he first answered the phone. Jade suddenly looked terrified. I put the laptop down on the coffee table in front of us.

"No." Jade's bottom lip was shaking.

"Why not? We can have a little bonding time," her father said. "I've got just the idea of how we can do that. Come on, Jade. Come home."

"No." Jade took the phone away from her ear and hung up. "I can't go home, I can't go home. He's drunk again," she said, practically to herself like she had forgotten I was here.

"Then don't go home," I told her. "You can stay here if you want."

"No," Jade said, sounding terrified now. "I'll just go stay with Beck." She tapped something on her phone and sent a text to her boyfriend.

"And then where are you going to go after that?" I asked her as she stood up. "You'll have to go home eventually, Jade."

"Why do you care so much, Tori?" she practically yelled.

"Because technically, we're friends, and I don't like seeing my friends as terrified as you are now," I shot back, holding my ground.

"You don't know me, Tori!" she screamed every word. I heard footsteps on the stairs and realized my dad was probably wondering what was going on. I ignored that fact, and Jade continued. "I don't give a care about what happens to you. So why should you give me one?"

"Girls, what's going on in here?" my dad interrupted, who was now by the piano.

Jade's face drained of color, as did mine.

"Uh…you know…homework," I improvised. "We're acting out a scene to see how it would look like."

Jade nodded quickly.

"Okay, well, I'll be upstairs then." He clomped out of the room, and at the same time Jade rushed to the front door and disappeared outside.

"Jade!" I went after her, grabbing her arm before she could walk down to the sidewalk.

"I think I made my point inside. I don't need to make it again," Jade growled.

"Jade," I said, "I can help you. My dad is a cop. If you're having problems you can tell him and he'll do the best he can to help you. I hope you know that."

"No, Tori. This is none of your business."

There was a truck that pulled up to the curb. It was Beck.

"I don't need your help. Or anyone else's for that matter, okay?" She started walking down towards Beck's truck.

I watched silently, thousands of questions forming in my head.

"We can work again soon." She paused, arriving at the door. She opened it up and shouted back to me, "Remember, Vega. This is none of your business." She hopped in.

I waved to Beck, and saw his shadowy hand wave back. I went inside the house, sitting down on the couch. I glanced up at the staircase. My dad was there, and I could tell him what I suspected was going on with Jade and her father.

"You don't know me, Tori."

"This is none of your business."

The words echoed in my head.

It was true. I didn't know Jade, and it was none of my business really. As much as I wanted to let someone know about Jade, I knew I that I couldn't. I wasn't really clear on what was going on, and of course I didn't want to jump to conclusions.

But when I found out the truth, you can be sure as heck that it will become some of my business and other people who can help her will be finding out.

Thanks for reading! Please review. :)