..So, it's been 3 weeks, huh? Sorry about the wait, I was really unmotivated and life got a little hectic. Thank you so much for the reviews, alerts, and favorites! We're getting pretty close to 100 reviews, which is really exciting.
Enjoy!
.x
Tori received a text at 12 on Thursday night. She woke slowly, cursing whoever texted her that early. She anger faded as she looked at the sender. Trina Vega.
She opened the text and started reading, wide awake.
"I remember growing up with your laugh. First, as a baby, giggles so infectious that I'd immediately start laughing along with you, then as a toddler, child, and finally, teenager. You were there in my first memory, in all of my vacations, at my school, and in my home. We practically lived and breathed each other. Nobody knows each other like a sister does. I've seen you at your worst, cranky and angry and violently lashing out, and at your happiest, with your friends, on Christmas, as well as all of the times in between. I've dealt with your messiness and you've dealt with my long bathroom visits. You stole my makeup, and I borrowed your clothes and shoes. Because Mom and Dad weren't around much, I used to make you lunch and help you tie your shoes. Sure, I knew Mom and Dad liked you better, always fawning over you. Did it matter much to me? No. We were always pretty close…. until I went to HollyWood Arts. Were you jealous of me? Is that why you suddenly stopped hanging out with me? Okay, we weren't inseparable or anything but we'd have a little sister time every now and then… until you were too busy to. Instead of painting our toenails together and having a 'sleepover' a.k.a going on our phones in the same bed until we wanted to go to sleep, you said I hogged the nail polish and that you didn't feel like it. I kept asking, though, to go to the movies, the mall, something, until I realized I was annoying you. Or in your words on the phone to someone, "suffocating" you. I didn't understand at first. Until you started getting madder and madder at me for small things, saying how much of a nuisance I was. I've never felt more like Ramona Quimby in my life. It took me a while to get over that, that burning embarrassment I'd get when you were around, until I had distanced myself from you completely. And then you got to come to HollyWood Arts, taking my territory, making me even more isolated from my classmates, who openly wondered about how I got none of the talent that you had, among other things. You shone there, thrived, become popular and prettier and more perfect. And then when I tried to hang out with you and your friends you badmouthed me, and didn't bother defending me from them! I was voted off of the Cupcake float, poker games, and Yerba! I admit, sometimes I was a vain brat, but I tried to help you a lot! With Ryder, your Secret Santa gift, your prison sentence, getting you your glue remover, and countless other times. Can you remember when you've ever helped me, besides getting Helen to let me stay at HA? And I didn't even ask for the help, you know. Ever think that maybe I wanted to get out of that school?
So, I have to wonder. Did you like it, Tori? When you heard me cry at night every once in a while? I know you could hear it, because how couldn't you? Did it give you some sort of sick satisfaction that you had done this to me, isolated me, making me feel fat and ugly and worthless? Because really, this all comes back to you. Without you, I wouldn't have been friends with Cat in the first place, or known Robbie. If I'd had your support, I wouldn't have binged with Lindsay, or needed a job from Mrs. Lee, or given up completely on André because I could see he loved you. There's a hundred things I would've never gone through if it weren't for you. Before I go, let me ask you one last question. How does it feel, Tori Vega, to know that you were the one who put the last nail in my coffin? Because, let me tell you, from this side, it doesn't feel very good at all."
That night, Tori cried herself into a restless slumber.
x.
Friday started with a visit from the one and only Jade West. At 6 a.m.
"Trina's dead. Stop moping about it. You're freaking Cat out." Jade announced, letting herself into Tori's house.
Tori was sick and tired of people saying that. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night, after André had left in silence. She knew she should have tried to comfort him, but she hadn't known how. Trina in love with André? The idea itself was absurd. So she set herself up for a fight, because knowing Jade, this wouldn't end peacefully.
"I know it's hard for you to believe, but you're wrong! Trina's alive, hiding somewhere, waiting for me to find her! I know she is! I know it!" Tori shouted at her, standing tall and proud despite her messy appearance. She couldn't crumble, she wouldn't, because it was true and why did nobody believe her?
"Then who's in that coffin, Tori?" Jade asked, her voice hard, but not out of anger. "Why did she send people her reasons for suicide when she didn't die? Why would she do it? And why wouldn't she find you after 2 months, then? Even if she's still alive, what makes you think that she still wants you in her life after what you did to her? Tell me why, Tori, give me one good reason, and then maybe we'll get somewhere in finding her."
Tori didn't know how to say it. It was a mix, of instinct and of just knowing what Trina did, and why. It was because she's Trina, and she did weird things and wore tall shoes to make herself feel important and had the shortest attention span ever to hide the fact that she listened closely. Trina was the person that grudgingly brought her soup when she was sick because her own parents didn't bother to and helped her out when she could. To Tori, it was a fact, as simple as the sun rising from the East and setting in the West. But Jade, she didn't know this side of Trina. She couldn't possibly understand. No one could because Trina had grown up practically alone. So Tori heaved an angry sigh and lashed out.
"You know what? You're just jealous. That's what it is. Nobody ever loved poor Jade West, so you take it out on everyone around you. Well, I'm done." Tori said, walking to Andre's car, which had pulled up outside. She clambered in, ignoring the oatmeal smell the car held.
"Not so fast, Tori." Jade smirked. "I noticed you never answered my question."
Tori didn't look back. (If she had, she would've seen something almost akin to worry on Jade's face.)
xx.
Cat approached her next, visibly nervous outside of HollyWood Arts. André paused, ready to stick by her, but she gestured for him to go on. Jade might be infuriating, but Cat? She could handle her.
"Don't even start." Tori rolled her eyes, digging through her bag. She could still feel Cat hovering, and groaned. It would take more to shake her off. And Tori was not in the mood.
"Look, I just want to make sure you're okay." Cat said carefully. "I have a banana, in case you skipped breakfast."
"Of course you did." Tori snapped, feeling guilty almost automatically. "Now will you go running back to your babysitting service and stop pretending to care?"
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that because I know you didn't mean it. I've always cared." Cat stood there for a few minutes, waiting for Tori to acknowledge her before leaving. "Bye Tori."
"Bye Cat." Tori whispered a few seconds later. She rubbed her temples. She felt a headache forming.
xxx.
Tori waited for Robbie to approach her at her locker, but either he didn't care enough to or he knew he wouldn't get anything out of her because he didn't even bother.
Right before lunch, she heard him and André talking near the courtyard.
"She's almost as scary as Jade." Robbie told him, and it took all Tori had to keep from laughing. She reminded herself to snap at Robbie at some point in the day, because being mean was kind of fun. She could see why Jade liked it so much. She tried to ignore the guilt when she sat down at the lunch table and the subsequent silence, Robbie squeaking in fear. Cat, surprisingly, was sitting with them. She had taken to sitting with some new friends, André had told her on the ride to school, and Tori noticed that Cat was perched on the edge of the seat, looking uncomfortable and inching away from Robbie.
They sat like that for the rest of the period, with Jade occasionally insulting passerby and Cat making random remarks that went uncommented on.
Tori made it a point to be mildly unpleasant for the rest of the day, keeping people from interacting with her too much. She knew people were itching to ask about the funeral but she held strong, even snickering halfheartedly when Robbie ran away from her when she had approached him between classes.
Tori wanted to see how far she could go, so she blatantly took out her phone during classes and pretended to text. She ignored teachers and anyone trying to get her attention, because she knew they'd be asking her about the funeral, about invitations, about homework she didn't do, about Trina.
When she started feeling guilty, she thought of Lindsay, and Mrs. Lee. Of Sinjin Van Cleef, and Ryder Daniels. Of her sister, confused and lost and hurting and lonely. She thought of nights spent with her headphones on and her head under the pillow, trying to block out her parent's arguments and the sound of muffled sobs from the other room. She thought of Trina desperately latching onto a guy, only to have them cancel their date or blatantly insult her before walking away. She thought of late nights and hearing the door to her sister's room closing quietly and the way Trina almost never ate at the table, and barely remembered her eating at all. Long gone were the days the Vega sisters had been close, and she used this fuel for her anger to drive people away.
It kind of hurt that she wasn't close enough to anyone for them to pry and keep talking even when she was striking at them. Popular? Her? Trina hadn't known a damn thing.
And then there was André, who came up to her after school. She didn't even try to avoid him. After all, he was her best friend, the only one who would keep pushing until her walls fell down. And, her ride home. They walked in silence to the car.
"You know, the funeral's tomorrow." André said conversationally in the car, as if he wasn't talking about her sister's burial. Tori didn't reply, and he didn't talk again until they reached her house.
"Talk to me, girl." André said as they walked inside. So she did.
She let it all spill out, how she resented that Trina had gotten out of her life and left her behind, how she felt isolated and how she wasn't even sure if Trina was still alive.
"She's gone, but she's everywhere." Tori whispered. "I look in the mirror and I see her eyes. When I'm in my house I'm bombarded with memories of her in the exact same places. At school I always end up passing her locker, and there's still a flyer for Trina! in Sikowitz's room. I can't even sleep without dreaming of her. And you!" Tori turned onto André. "Ever since I've heard that tape, I can't look at you without thinking of how Trina was in love with you! But now, I look at you and I see her, trying to get your attention, practicing for the Full Moon Jam, and crying in her room. I've been thinking all day, and I think she is dead! I think she would've killed herself to get away from this terrible life, and that she might've even been relieved!" Tori was shouting now, trying to show him how much this all affected her. Her hands began to shake, and her face was full of snot and tears. "I keep thinking about it, about her, and how I could have stopped her or helped her or something! Maybe if I had invited her out with us once, or just smiled at her! Anything! ANYTHING!" Tori began hyperventilating, and it took André grabbing her and pulling her onto the couch, breathing with her, for her to calm down. Once she was relatively calm, he spoke.
"Do you think I don't understand? Whenever I see my grandma I see an older version of my mother, and how she abandoned me. I look at Sikowitz, and I think of a crazy uncle I never got a chance to have. I see reminders of Trina too, whenever I see a piano. Or hear an animal screeching. Or see a bird. We carry parts of people around with us, bad memories and good. But what's done is done. We can't keep regrets for everything that goes wrong, because we learn from them. We wouldn't be who we are now without them, we'd be unemotionally developed blobs." Tori laughed a little at that. "Sure, now Trina's life is over, but think about it. She doesn't have to suffer anymore. She's probably happier where she is than she ever could have been."
"I'm sorry for pulling you into all of this André." Tori said, her breakdown over. "I guess I always knew she was dead, it… it's just so hard to absorb. With the funeral and me getting sick and god, it's still so confusing and I can barely bring myself to get up in the morning-"
She was cut off with a kiss.
Don't worry if you don't like Tandre, I won't make next chapter a love fest. And if you do like Tandre, sorry in advance.
And I know this chapter was kind of heavy on Tori's thoughts, but this whole story has kind of been leading up to Tori breaking down, so here it is! I know it isn't that good, but I scoured the internet trying to find out more about mental breakdowns and couldn't find much to make it very interesting, so Tori had one last sobfest over her sister and finally moved into the last stage of grief. Although it will probably get emotional at the funeral next chapter...
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