Chapter seven

"You make me powerless

You make me weak

It's intoxicating

Almost like I can't breathe," Tori turned to Jade as if looking for approval.

"Too optimistic," Jade said keeping her lips pursed and legs crossed.

"Oh, come on! I'm talking about not breathing, aren't I?"

"Vega, you have a lot to learn about the dark side of love before tackling a love song with me."

"Alright," Tori gestured to the piano, "show me, Master." Jade paused. Tori didn't know what that word did to her. She did her best to brush it off and proceed.

"I'm tied up in lies

Hoping, waiting, falling

Standing beside you

With this desire to touch you

But this might be the end." Tori raised an eyebrow.

"Too slow this time," she said.

"UGH!" Jade threw her arms into the air and flopped back onto the table behind her. "No pleasing you. No pleasing you at all."

"I'm sorry. My taste in love songs is all about, ya know, we're happy and it's upbeat and everything in the world is fine…"

"You've never encountered love and lust at it's finest, Vega. That's the problem. You've never been in that situation where you see something in front of you and you want it so badly that you'd do anything to have it. That sexual tension that builds between two people dancing on the brink of attraction…" Jade looked over at Tori who was hanging on every word she said. "Hypothetically speaking of course."

"Well, well," Tori said smiling and shaking her head, "Jade West, wouldn't have pictured you as a romantic."

"What're you talking about?"

"The way that you talk about sex and love is very romantic indeed. If I didn't know any better your cynical outlook on life just might have more feelings attached to it than I thought."

"Yeah, well, it hasn't always been a bed of roses," Jade confessed sitting up and moving back towards the piano. She started playing around with a few chords.

"What do you mean?" Tori asked watching her fingers play across the keys.

"I mean I had a rough childhood. Doesn't everyone?"

"Not really…unless you count being related to Trina a rough childhood…"

"Your parents never fought and stuff like that?"

"No, not really."

"Hmm…" Jade had perhaps said too much for one night.

"If you don't mind me asking…"

"Well, I do mind so…" she started humming a tune that could work for the refrain.

"Do you not talk about it a lot?" Tori asked. Jade sighed and turned to look Tori dead in the eyes.

"Vega, I'm starting to like you. If you want to keep it that way I suggest you stop sticking your nose in places where it doesn't belong."

"Then I guess I don't want you to like me anymore." Jade never broke eye contact with Tori as she attempted to get her to back down. "I'm just saying that maybe it would be healthy for you to talk about it with someone since you and Cat…"

"I'm perfectly aware of what Cat and I are, thank you very much."

"There's that bitterness coming out again."

"Okay, Vega, you win! When I was a kid my parents fought a lot because my mom had problems. She ended up dying when I was about seven leaving my father and I alone and cold to one another. There ya go, ya happy?" Tori seemed a little taken a back but still just as keen on learning about Jade as before.

"What kind of problems?" Jade slammed her head on the piano.

"She…she was never really satisfied with her life. She was always chasing something new. One week it would be that she wasn't in love with my father and she needed a new boyfriend. Another week it would be heroin. Another week it would be exercise or not eating at all. She was always just trying to move onto this big, new something that was never going to happen because she was trapped in this world as a mother and wife."

"Was she a good mom?"

"On the weeks where she felt like she'd found something to tie the time over before she got bored of the high, she was a great mom. During the time she felt worthless and cast away by the rest of the world, she was an utter nightmare to be around. All she and my dad did was fight when she got like that." Jade felt something start to warm up inside by sharing this with Tori. It was almost like the physical reaction of emotional walls coming down was happening inside of her.

"What happened? I mean…"

"How'd she die?" Tori nodded. "She overdosed. She was running around with this new boyfriend who was getting started in the meth business and my mom was his taste tester. She ended getting a bad batch that left her dead in a bathtub. This guy didn't even have the decency to drop her off in front of a hospital. He ended up leaving her in some alley near his lab. That's how he got caught."

"You don't usually talk about this?"

"No. I remember going to the police station with my dad when he needed to identify her. He was sad and all but he sounded so relieved when he came out and told me that mom wasn't coming home with us this time. He said that we'll always know where she is from now on but it's somewhere we can't get to…" Jade smiled. "She used to take me to IHOP when I was a kid. Once a month when she was on a high note. She would take me to IHOP and beg for me to sing to her in the car on the way there. She told me she was going to be there at my first Grammy acceptance."

"You and your dad kinda had to make it on your own from there."

"We did. But he was never the same. She wasn't actively addicted to anything when they first started dating. She promised him that she wouldn't break him. She wasn't going to be like the rest. I mean, she was half right about that one. He hasn't been the same. He's always been afraid to show affection and let people in. He doesn't…he can't take being shattered into a million pieces again."

"I feel terrible that I haven't ever had to go through something like that…"

"Don't feel terrible. Just don't take it for granted either."

"Jade West, I think I'm seeing sides of you I though I'd never see before."

"Don't get used to it," Jade said snapping back into her normal self. "This song isn't going to write itself."

"I still think it would do better being more upbeat."

"The point is to make the melody haunting just like desire is."

"Desire doesn't have to be haunting if you have the ovaries to pursue it."

"But…" Jade didn't have a come back for that one. She watched as Tori played around with her chords in a major key with a pick up in tempo. It was as if she was seeing her in a whole new light. Tori wasn't just some girl in her song writing class that she was paired with. She now knew all these deep, dark corners inside of Jade's heart. It made her scared…it made her excited…it made her feel…

"See. That's so much better," Tori said. Jade hadn't been listening at all.

"Whatever."