And here we are with the last official chapter of "You Don't Know Me."

I hope you guys enjoyed the story. I really enjoyed writing it. So thanks for appreciating my work by favoriting, reviewing, alerting and just reading this. It means more to me than you could ever imagine.

Here you go.

CHAPTER 13
Tori's POV

I'm not going to lie.

When I first got into Jade's room, I was shocked to see her condition. Her left shoulder was wrapped in white, and she looked paler than normal, which was saying something. Her face was splotched with purple bruises and bright red cuts. I was on crutches, my right leg dangling above the floor. André, Cat and Robbie pushed past me, leaving me with her and Beck, just like we had planned.

"Hi, Jade," I said, moving towards her. Thankfully, the doctors had managed to fix my nose, even though I now had to wear an awkward tape-thing across the bridge of it to keep the bone from shifting around. At least I could talk normal again, although I did get a kick out of how I pronounced things.

"You're alive, Vega," Jade said, her blue eyes strangely dull, even with her boyfriend by her side. "Glad to see that I didn't sacrifice myself for nothing." She pointed to her shoulder with the bandages on it.

Well, she certainly still has her attitude. That hasn't changed.

I limped over to her side and sat down in one of the chairs next to Beck. I put my crutches on the floor next to me. That was Beck's cue to start the conversation.

Over the past two days, while Jade was still unconscious, Beck and I talked to the police about her father. I had learned that Mr. West had 'banished' Beck from his home, and forbidden to talk to Jade ever again, although that rule obviously didn't go through. But if Beck (and André) hadn't come over that night, we both probably wouldn't be alive.

The police had gathered enough evidence to send Jade's dad to prison, but we both still had questions. And now was our time to get our answers.

"Why did you never tell anyone before, baby?" Beck asked softly.

"About what?" Jade was either playing stupid or seriously had no idea what Beck was asking of her.

"The fact that you've been abused by your own dad for the past twelve years." He hadn't even let go of her hand yet.

Jade sighed. "You know, I'm not really feeling so good right now…"

"You need to tell me," Beck repeated stubbornly. "Well, actually, you need to tell us. Tori wouldn't even need to be here in the first place if you had fessed up earlier. And this is really serious stuff. I don't want any playing around, okay?"

Jade looked confused, and her eyes narrowed. "What does this have to do with Vega?" she countered, avoiding Beck's question.

Beck's tone was sharp. "It doesn't just have to do with her, Jade. Why in the world would you stay quiet about something this horrible? I know you, and the things that you can tolerate. You are not the kind of person that doesn't speak up for themselves when they're in danger."

"And that was my mistake."

That totally caught me off guard, and I almost said something, but I knew it was Beck's turn to talk to her. I could ask my questions later.

"Your mistake?" Beck repeated.

Jade nodded slowly. "See, after my dad starting abusing me, I knew I had to think of a reputation that would cover up the fact that I was weak and wouldn't tell anyone what was really going on. So this 'bad girl' attitude was the only thing I could think of."

Beck mumbled something that sounded faintly like, "And I love it."

"But I later realized that that was a huge mistake. Now if I tried to tell my friends what was going on, they'd probably be like, 'What? Jade West is afraid of her own father? That can't be right.' And no one would take me seriously."

"You do make a lot of assumptions, huh?" Beck chuckled. "Being your boyfriend for a while, you should know that you can tell my anything. I probably would find it hard to believe at first, but you've got a lot of proof that it's true.

"And I would totally chew you out for not coming clean about this sooner, but you're still pretty sick right now, so I'll just wait until you're feeling better to do that."

Jade grinned sheepishly.

"I love you," Beck whispered, leaning towards her.

"One-four-three," Jade answered, reaching up and kissing him. I looked around the room awkwardly, feeling like I was intruding.

When they finally pulled apart, Beck announced, "Okay, babe, now Tori has some questions for you."

"Don't leave," Jade mumbled, settling back on the bed.

"I won't," Beck assured. He patted her hand gently and pulled away, dragging his chair to the far corner of the room, where he sat down, legs crossed, watching us intently.

I paused for a few moments and finally said, "Why'd you do it?"

Jade gave a dry laugh. "What is this, twenty questions?" she snorted.

"Your dad was going to kill me…you left…and you came back," I choked out.

"Oh, right." Jade looked down at the blankets covering her body awkwardly. "Yes, I did come back. Are you upset that I saved your sorry butt? Because if you are…then you know…sorry," she said exasperatedly. "You should've told me ahead of tim—"

"No. I'm really glad that you came back," I interrupted, "It's just that, I want to know why you did. I mean, I know you always fantasize about what your life would be like I weren't there and…"

Jade had stopped blinking altogether, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Beck stiffen in the corner. I felt myself shrinking down in the plastic chair uneasily.

"What I'm trying to say is that I need to know why you rescued me if you hate me so much," I summarized off the top of my head.

"There's a side of me you never knew, Vega, like I've been trying to tell you for the past week, in case you didn't notice that," Jade replied dryly. "And like I said earlier, the whole 'bad girl' attitude is just a cover-up, although I do quite enjoy it. But anyway, you should know that I don't repeat myself for no reason."

"Oh, hey," Beck said suddenly, standing up and walking over to us, "I have to uh…" He started shuffling towards the door awkwardly.

"No, wait!" Jade begged.

"Don't worry, babe, I'll be back. I just think that you two should talk about that alone." He darted towards the door and closed it heavily behind him. I could hear his footsteps running quick down the hall, and almost laughed.

"Great job, Vega," Jade sulked.

But I wasn't listening to her. I was thinking about what she had said before Beck left.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

When she had come over to my house the first night we worked on the project, I questioned her about her dad and she said, "You don't know me, Vega." Then I had repeatedly bothered her until she finally left, giving me another, "You don't know me, Tori!" At school, when I had tried to ask her if I could go over to her house and she said no, I asked if it was because of her dad and she said, "You don't know me." When we were driving to her house, I asked where she had been all day, and got "You don't know me, Vega" as a response. And right before she took my phone, I had gotten the biggest "You don't know me" yet.

"Hey, Vega, are you still paying attention to me?" Jade's voice cut through my thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

Jade could probably tell that I was lying but continued. "So why don't I just explain to you a little bit of my relationship with my dad?

"He is probably the meanest person I've ever encountered in my entire life. He is the reason why I act like I do." She sighed. "I know it doesn't sound very reasonable, but that's the truth.

"When my mom left us, he assumed that I was going to be the world's worst troublemaker, so he took matters into his own hands. He 'taught' me to obey him and do whatever he said, because I would know the consequences if I didn't. And it wasn't something I did out of respect. It was out of fear. And yeah Vega, even I'm afraid of some things. Like I said before, the bad girl attitude just helped cover up the truth. But it really does take a lot to scare me."

I gave her a lopsided grin. I'm pretty sure she wasn't joking when she said that.

"So, I didn't want to get close to a lot of other people, because then they might just turn around and tell me that no one likes me or beat me up, like my dad does, or they might be able to see through my lies."

I remembered reading articles about bullies…bullies would usually hurt others because there was something in their lives that were bothering them. If only someone had noticed that earlier about Jade.

"When you kept saying things like, 'Oh, I know someone who can help you' and 'Come on Jade, you can tell me', I knew that you had no idea what you were talking about. Things were much more complicated as far as you knew, and I didn't want to believe that someone was so close to finding out the truth."

Oh really? I thought a lot of people knew about it before me.

"And that night, when I saw you on the floor…with him hurting you…I don't know. I wanted to leave you there, I'll admit. I didn't want to get hurt any more. I was sick and tired of it, every single day of my life. You were being especially annoying that week, and I wanted you to see what it was like having to live with that monster."

I suddenly felt really awkward sitting there. Was I really acting so obnoxious and nosey that it made Jade really considered leaving me there to die? I never meant to be like that, honestly. I leaned over and scratched around my cast, looking away from her face.

"But then…just the way you were looking at me…right before I ran out of the room…I felt like you understood in that split moment. I couldn't leave you there, no matter how much I wanted to." My head snapped up so fast it hurt.

"Stupid subconscious," she continued muttering. "They kept telling me to do one thing, and then the other would go against it…and geez they wouldn't shut up. So I had to make my decision without a second thought. I'm sure if I hadn't been standing there for an eternity and listening to the both of them we probably could've gotten away a little less unscathed." She looked at my messed up knee.

"Well, it's better late than never," I said, smiling a little.

There was a silence, and Jade leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.

"You know, when you left me for those few seconds to get that umbrella…I really thought, in that moment, that you weren't going to come back," I admitted quietly. Jade's eyes snapped open and she looked at me.

"Well, believe it or not, I actually had three options to choose from, Vega," Jade said. "I could either help you out, run, or just wait for Beck to get there. But in the end, it was kind of a combination of all three. I did run, but came back and helped you, and Beck arrived with André. It all ends happily ever after." She laughed sarcastically.

"Yeah, and your dad is in prison, for at least seven years."

"Yep. Freedom here I come."

Just then, a nurse with a big needle came walking into the room, interrupting our conversation.

"Sorry girls, but Jade, it's time to take your medicine," the nurse said.

"I'm not taking anything," Jade replied stubbornly.

"Well, that's okay, honey. You don't really have a choice." The nurse grabbed the IV bag hanging by Jade and inserted the needle, pushing the plunger and I saw the liquid spill into the bag.

Jade looked absolutely stunned, but there was obviously nothing she could do to stop it as the medicine swirled around and dripped down into the tube leading to her arm. "I'll be back in five minutes," the nurse promised as she left again.

"All right, I'd better go if you're going to fall asleep anyway," I said. "And thanks for what you did. It would've been a bad day for me if you didn't come back."

The tense expression on her face eased up. I laughed and grabbed my crutches, using the bed for support as I stood up. I hobbled to the door awkwardly, stumbling around over air.

"Hey Tori?" Jade called from her bed suddenly.

I turned around slowly. "Yeah?"

"You didn't know me before," Jade said, "but now I think you do."

I nodded my head vigorously, struggling back to her bedside.

I couldn't help myself.

I threw down the crutches and reached over and hugged her. It was incredibly awkward because I leaned over trying to keep my right leg off the floor and not hurt her at the same time.

And surprisingly, she hugged me back.

A real, genuine hug, and I'm pretty sure it was one of the best hugs she had ever given out to anyone, besides Beck of course.

"Keep your friends close," she whispered faintly into my ear, "but your enemies closer."

Ka-bam! I hope I ended it well with that last line. :)

Wouldn't you love to do the honors and review this last 'official' chapter of "You Don't Know Me"? Haha, I know you do. ;)