/TORI/
"Oh cmon! Can't I peek a little?"
"No. Absolutely no peeking, Vega or I will have to kill you." I hear Jade's voice from beside me, the slight incline of the road and purr of her car engine being the only indication we were travelling somewhere uphill but that was as much as I knew. Jade refused to give me any hints about where she was taking me since I got into her car after school - well, I say got into but it was more like I was kidnapped given the fact she had tied a silk black blindfold over my eyes and unceremoniously shoved me into the passenger seat.
I moan into Jade's mouth, her hands sliding and roaming all over my body as we secretly kiss behind the cover of her car, another part of our routine we had grown so accustomed to doing. My eyes roll into the back of my head in pleasure, the entire parking lot simply melting away. Jade's black hair is tinted with dark purple streaks today, her delicious full lips kissing along my collarbone, burning along my shoulder and then I see - black nothing.
I'm guessing this was somewhat payback for my kidnap stunt.
"Okay we're here. Do not take that blindfold off until I tell you to." She shuts the door and walks over to my side, the sunlight bathing my cheeks when the car door is opened. I move to take the blindfold off but Jade stops me, putting a hand underneath my arm to help me out and my feet awkwardly stumble over crunchy gravel. Cautiously, I put one foot in front of the other, feeling my way around and I could tell Jade was struggling to keep herself from snickering at my clumsy Bambi act.
"You look so graceful, babe." Jade teases and puts her hands on my shoulders, gently pushing me further along. I could faintly hear the sounds of cars running along underneath us, the wind swirling some strands of my hair as we kept walking. I was getting anxious and I knew Jade could sense it, her lips gently brushing against the shell of my ear. "Relax, we're almost there and I want you to get the best view."
"If I take the blindfold off and look at you then I'll have it." I hear her sigh, a hand running along the back of my neck.
"You're lucky I love you, otherwise I'd have pushed you off of this cliff for that." She loops her fingers underneath the silky material and pulls it away. "Tori Vega, welcome to the real Los Angeles."
I blink rapidly to get my eyes adjusted to the light, my mouth falling open in awe.
Sure, I've seen pictures of the city before but it was nothing compared to viewing the real thing. The city sprawled for miles, the rocky landscape sloping and forming each tiny peak and crevice. We were stood at the highest point, higher than the Hollywood sign which I could see a few feet down, the frame work holding each letter upright. I squint to focus on each detail; the scenery so breathtakingly beautiful, the sky a picture perfect blue, the hot shimmering landscape stretching to infinity almost seeming to drop off the end of the world.
If I had been looking, I would have seen Jade focusing solely on me.
"This is probably my favorite place." Jade's voice breaks me out of my trance and I turn to her. She's hugging her arms to her chest, an almost far away look in her eyes, a catalog of memories flashing in those bright blue irises. I step back from the edge and take her into my arms, her body tensing against mine before she relaxes.
"I love it...it's beautiful." I murmur against her lips before we kiss, letting it last for as long as we can as the city moves beneath us.
"No one else knows about it, not even Beck. I call it the Look Out Point." Jade keeps talking once we break apart, her thumb rubbing circles over my palm. I could tell it was taking a lot for her to say all this by the way she shifted reluctantly. "I realize this looks like a scene ripped directly from a romance novel but I had to take you here to show you I was serious about us. That I care about you or whatever and - I'm shutting up now."
"No, no. No shutting up. I want to know, Jade. I want to know everything about you and... this." I gesture to the rolling city. "I love that you showed me. Really. Between this and the flowers. You're really spoiling me."
"Why do you like me?" Her question catches me off guard.
"What - what do you mean?"
"You heard me. Why do you like me? After how much of a bitch I was to you when you first got to Hollywood Arts. You shouldn't want anything to do with me." I sigh and pull us both down so she was resting in my lap, her arms tightening around me. I had half suspected this question would come up, but I wasn't expecting it until later.
"I want you because you're amazing. Okay you can roll your eyes at me but it's true." She lets me run my fingers through her hair. "You're stubborn, headstrong and beautiful. You make me happier than I thought I could ever be and even though you might have been mean to me in the past - I knew there was you, the real you, concealed underneath that armor."
"You didn't say but." I blink, taken back again by her words.
"But?"
"You said I'm stubborn, headstrong and beautiful. Usually it's I'm stubborn, headstrong but beautiful. Like being beautiful makes up for all my negative traits." I hear the bitter edge to her voice, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead.
"You don't have any negative traits. Those traits are what make you Jade. Defiant, gorgeous and a royal pain sometimes." I tease lightly.
"And what makes you think I'm wearing some kind of armor?" I hesitate with my answer, my fingers absentmindedly stroking up and down her arm.
"Because I can recognize defense mechanisms when I see them?" She doesn't interrupt, so I continue. "Everybody has a plate of armor - some are small and others are bigger but we use them to shield ourselves from getting hurt too much. I should know because..." I trail off softly.
"Because...?" Jade prompts.
"Because I convinced myself I was happy at my old school when I wasn't. I forced a happy smile and pretended like everything was okay."
"But it wasn't. Why?"
"I-I made the mistake of coming out to a so-called friend." My eyes start to blur with the tears and I blink them back quickly, surprised by them. "By the next day, everyone at school knew and they tortured me relentlessly for it. I hated Sherwood but I built up a wall - a resistance to the teasing and the name calling and managed to convince myself that I was fine and I could handle it."
"That's why you bolted when those girls started." I can only give a stiff nod, a tear escaping down my cheek.
"It's why I dated Danny, to get the bullying to stop but it didn't work and I wasn't happy faking it. So I broke up with him." I bring up my sleeve to wipe at my eyes, but Jade puts her hand over my wrist, her own hand reaching up to stroke my cheek instead.
"You don't have to use your armor around me, you know that?" I smile and turn my head to press a kiss to her palm.
"I know. You don't either."
"I don't think I get a choice in that matter, Vega. Mine is welded on." Jade starts to withdraw herself but I pull her back into my arms again.
"You do get a choice, Jade. You always get a choice-"
"No, no I don't." She pries herself out of my grip, wrapping her arms around herself again, looking so small and...vulnerable. I stay where I am, both of us silently watching as the world goes by, the clouds sweeping across the sky with the distant sounds of the traffic below. I hear her sigh.
"I've had my armor - my anger defense mechanism since I was seven." She plucks a piece of grass from the ground. "My parents divorced and that's where it all went to shit. Okay, so you can tell me divorce isn't so bad and that other kids have lived through it. I've heard it all before. But you try telling - you try explaining to a seven year old they're the reason why their parents split up." She starts to shake, shredding the blade between her fingers.
This was Jade, the real Jade.
"Throughout my entire life, Tori. My entire life, I went through it with the belief I was going to fuck it up one day. I had boyfriends that couldn't stay with me, wouldn't handle my moods. I'm the reason why Beck ended our two year relationship and I will always be the reason that people in my life who say they love me, eventually turn around when I get too difficult and label me as an effort!" I've taken her back into my arms at this point, my hand stroking the back of her head to soothe her, to calm her down. I feel something wet seep through my shirt and knew she was crying, her fist bunching up in my shirt.
"You're not an effort, Jade. You're not." I tilt her chin up softly, kissing away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. "All those people - if they can't handle the real you then they don't deserve you, okay? I know you use anger and abrasiveness as a defense, it's the same way I use my happiness but - we'll get through it, alright?"
"And God, that night-" She starts to whimper and I squeeze her tighter. She doesn't even hesitate to cling to me.
"Jade you don't have to. Not again-"
"Beck told me I was an effort, that I was too much. I left and went down that alleyway. I wanted someone or something to...hurt me." She takes a shuddering breath. "I wanted to feel something. They - they touched me, Tori. They didn't even think about it."
"I know, beautiful. I know. And I'm never letting anyone hurt you again." The city starts to blur with the tears. "Never again."
"I-I really love you, Tori. I've put my heart out on the front line for you."
"Jade. I promise you-"
"No! Don't make promises. I hate promises." She cuts me off sharply. "I've heard too many of them and they mean nothing to me anymore."
"Well this one is going to mean something." I move so I'm looking at Jade, staring right into those deep ocean eyes and ignoring the rest of the world to focus everything on her. My hand tucks a loose strand of black hair behind her ear, my heart thudding against my ribcage as I take her hand in mine, tears shining in our eyes.
"Tori..."
"I promise you, Jade West that I will always love you."
No fireworks in the background, no uplifting music score.
Just us, my promise, and the city of Los Angeles whose lights seemed to sparkle brighter that day.
A/N: You know it's serious when Jade gets romantic. Finally both girls seem to be stripping away their pieces of armor one by one, gaining confidence that the other will support them no matter what. I really wanted to give you all the experience of the Look Out Point (a famous landmark in the blog) I hope I did it justice - no pun intended. R&R! and Happy Shrove Tuesday!