Ooc: I'm doing Tori's point of view for now, since it's easier to write for me, considering this story is based off what I'm going through at the moment. But I can also do Jade's take on the whole situation if that's what you want! Let me know! :)

Chapter 2: Heart of Gold

Beep. Beep. Beep. My alarm clock shrieks in my ear, my eyes snapping open as I glance at the red numbers on the screen. I release a muffled groan, my heart dropping to my stomach as I realize it's time for school.

Don't get me wrong, I used to love school before Jade came into my life. My friends at Sherwood loved me and were true friends for life, but I was overcome with emotions from my showcase performance that I didn't think of the consequence of losing them after transferring. But I can't deny that I love my friends here at Hollywood Arts, but since I met Jade, my life has been slipping from my grasp.

The only thing that sneaks into my mind during my classes anymore are those damn blue eyes. How gorgeous they are and how I wish I could stare into them all day if I had the chance. I often wonder how they would look in the night, being lit up by the moon. But that brings me to the whole comparison of Jade's pale skin to the alabaster moon, and becomes the catalyst for a million more thoughts that distract me from my class.

Kicking off the covers and dragging myself out of bed in a sloth-like manner, I stand up and stretch, taking note of just how exhausted I am. Last night I stayed up until two in the morning, and guess who I happened to be thinking about?

Jadelyn August West.

Every time I hear her name my heart erupts into a sporadic beating fit, I come alive and search for those blue eyes when someone mentions that beautiful name. It's as if she could make me do anything. And I hang on her every word, helplessly. More like pathetically.

Pathetic.

That's definitely the word to describe my part in this particular situation. I have become infatuated with the girl who makes my life a complete living hell. The girl who never has a nice word to say to me, even when she tries to compliment me it sounds like a threat. As if one of these days she'll take her favorite scissors out and shred me to pieces for the fun of it.

But I keep hoping. I don't know why though, she's in love and there's nothing I can do to make her fall out of it. As selfish and narcissistic as it sounds, I want Beck and Jade to break up. I want him to do something that ruins their relationship, I want to be the one who gets Jade back on her feet more than anything.

Since all of this I find myself feeling as if I'll never find love.

Because the only one I want to be with doesn't love me and can't love me back, and I think that's what kills me inside. Jade can't love me. It took her a year to admit her feelings for Beck, and now that she's found something that seems normal or right, she'snot going to just fall out of love for me, her enemy.

Besides, I don't even know if she's genuinely into girls. I mean Cat told me that Jade made out with a couple girls at parties as dares and with Beck's consent, but she could have been drunk or there could have been a variety of details that were lacked in the development of that story. It's high school, gossip and rumors change faster than you can even spread them.

So it leaves me with a mind occupied by unanswered questions, ones that coincidentally pop up in my brain at the most inopportune times of my life.

For example, during dinner the other night, my mom was complaining to me about my grades and I completely zoned out, all because I was wondering what Jade was like or what she preferred in bed. Needless to say I was red as a tomato when my mother caught me not listening, and I needed to freshen up after the promiscuous thoughts that went through my mind during the meal.

And when I'm sitting in class daydreaming about what it would feel like if Jade came up to me, kissed me, and held my hand, not caring who was watching. Or how she would react if I did it to her. This is when Sikowitz screams "Boo, wake up Toro!" in my face or makes me do a drive by acting exercise that makes me want to hit him in the head with the coconuts he waves around on a daily basis.

But I take it, my heart caving in the entire time.

I know people have so much worse than me around the world, and I am grateful for everything I have. But there's always that hole that is left in my heart at the end of the day, making me feel like the Titanic, and my heart sinks pitifully to the bottom of my chest, never to be saved.

I despise having selfish thoughts like these, but I just want love to be reciprocated to me for once in my life. I spend my time caring too much, and people just take advantage of it and brush me to the side until they need me for something trivial, and all I am at the end of the day is recycled. Used and abused, only good for one thing. Used for my knowledge or to be someone who is forced to listen to everyone else's problems. Yet no one knows that I have a heaviness in my heart that is weighing me down like a ton of bricks.

Or that I have a heart of gold that is gradually rusting.

That I'm suffering, breaking down piece by piece, second by second.

And that one of these days I'm going to snap and not be able to take anymore.

But yet I walk through the doors and into Hollywood Arts, feigning a cheerful smile and acting as if everything is just fine.

But it's not.