02/10/2012 - Tuesday

Beck

My parents house is very nice, I always think about that when I come here which is basically every day. It looks like one of those TV-show houses that always host big holiday parties and always look clean and proper. Nice is the word of my choice, because it is what people say when they visit for the first time. It's two stories high and very well decorated, and it's all my Mom's merit. I don't know how she manages to keep a full time job, plus the housekeeping, because I know my Dad's not helping.

I figure this is because while my father grew up with my saint of a Grandma who spoiled him rotten, my Mom didn't have as much luck. My Grandparents move to the US only a year before she was born. Imagine being a child of an arranged marriage, in a country where your parents barely speak the common tongue. It doesn't sound fun.

"What's on your mind?" My Mom asks, looking away from her laptop. I shrug. "Is it that girl that's living in your RV?"

I nod my head, as she raises her eyebrows. "She's not living there."

"Beck."

"Mom." I rest my hand on my forehead, and I actually feel embarrassed. I really hope she's not trying to somehow turn this into a sex talk. "What?"

"Tell me about her!" She insists, and I roll my eyes.

"Why are you all of a sudden curious about this?"

"Not 'this'." She takes off her glasses, and looks at me with a great 'I'm your Mom but I also want to be your friend' look. "Her."

"But you never asked about any hers before…"

"And the fact that you're so reluctant only makes me more curious."

I don't know what it is, but I think kids are programmed to not want to talk about anything that remotely relates to sex with their parents. But this is torture. "Mom…"

"I need to know if she's your girlfriend or if she's actually homeless." I laugh, and she smiles back. I know this is her way to try to make me feel comfortable.

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

She puts her laptop aside, and I'm already regretting this. "Basic details, name, where do you know her from, her current living situation…"

"Tori, school, and she lives thirty minutes away, with her parents."

"Tori? Isn't that the girl who does plays with you?"

"That's her." She nods her head, silent.

"It's nice to put a face to her, but do you know what would be even nicer?"

"What?"

"To get to know her!" My Mom smiles. "Invite her for dinner, I'll make cinnamon rolls for desert."

"Mom..." I don't have any arguments, so I try my best avoidant expression.

"C'mon, your Dad and I have never been embarrassing parents." I raise my eyebrows, and she does the same. "Everything cool about you, came from our DNA."

I need to find an excuse, and gladly my phone does it for me. "Oh." I say, taking my ringing phone. The screen reads Andre's name, which is odd. "I have to get this, Mom."

"Don't forget to ask her to dinner while you're at it." She says, going back to her computer.

I get up from the kitchen table, and as I pick up I make my way out of the house. "Andre?"

"Dude, you HAVE to do something…" I hear him say, but he drags his words so much it takes me a second to understand. "I don't know!"

"What?" I ask while walking back to my RV. "Can you put Tori on the phone?"

"Tori!" He yells, and flinch. "She's uhhh still on the floor." Oh shit. "Can you drive?"

I turn around as I'm walking up the first steps to my place, and go straight to my car. "I'm coming over."

"Beck?" I'm surprised to hear Cat's voice. "Can you drive? Because we're all reeeeally drunk, and my brother…" She stops talking, and now I'm considering calling 911. I don't know what's going on, and she called Tori and got no answer. Maybe Cat's too drunk to even know whether Tori is there or not, but calling 911 would be the responsible thing to do.

I'm just going to keep driving there. I leave the phone on speaker and put it down on the passengers' seat. I hear Robbie laughing followed by Cat screaming of what it sounds like joy. "Jade! Jade! Here!" I hear him say. "Jade! Say hi! Jade!"

"SHUT UP!" Jade finally yells back. "What?!"

"It's Beck." I say hoping she's sober enough to tell me Tori's alright.

"Urgh, you've caused enough problems."

I'm so confused I feel like I'm drunk. "Jade would you pass the phone to Tori?"

"I'm not an enabler, Beck."

"What?!" I don't understand that girl, she's always so angry you would think alcohol would alleviate that.

"Robbie just ask Beck about his thing, and stop annoying me!" What the fuck is happening. "What?! Now you're shy?! Urgh, you annoy me so much."

"Jade!" I try getting her attention, but am left without a response. This is so frustrating.

There is no point in reasoning with them through the phone, since they're clearly not at all sober. And all of this in a school night, honestly I don't understand how they manage to drink so much and still live with their parents. That would never happen in my house.

It takes me another ten minutes to arrive at Andre's house. I park the car across the street from his house, and walk towards the front door. I can hear Cat singing from outside, and yelling between Robbie and Jade, although I can't make out their words. I ring the doorbell, and immediately hear Robbie celebrating.

"Beck, my friend!" He yells as he is opening the door. I take a step inside, and he hugs me so tight my arms are pinned down to my body. "It is such a relief to have you here." He says, patting me on the back.

I wait a couple seconds and he doesn't let go, so I forcefully push him away. There's no one in the living room beside us, and I can't hear anything but Cat's singing now. "Do you know where Tori is?" I ask.

"I'm so glad to see you, you driver." He tells me, his eyes welling up in tears.

I make sure to walk away from him before he started crying. I follow Cat's and end up in the kitchen, to find her by herself. Fuck, are they playing a practical joke on me?

"Beck!" Cat's washing the sink, and clearly not sober. Robbie cries when he's drunk, and Cat washes sinks. Right. "I lost a bet." She says, disappointed. "If you're looking for your sex partner, she's in the basement."

I nod. First Jade talks about my "thing", and now I'm the sex partner. Great.

I find the stairs that lead to the basement in the hallway, next to guest bathroom. I'm so focused on finding Tori that for a second I almost forget about that bathroom, and I mean almost because it would be impossible to forget. I start to walk down the steps. The light is dim, and the smell of weed is pretty strong. There's a jazz song playing but I don't recognize it. The stairs are between two walls, which means I can't see anything besides a wall when coming down. I reach the final step and find the actual basement – which I now realize it's Andre's bedroom – which looks pretty cool.

"Beck!" He says. Andre's sitting down with his back against the wall, sitting between Tori and Jade who are lying down with their heads over his lap.

"You called?" Tori sits up, and smiles when looking at me. "You're okay?!" I say, surprised.

"Yeah." She gets up from the bed, and she looks pretty much sober. "It doesn't happen often but I am."

I smile, relieved that I don't have to deal with her being passed out again, but also pissed off at whoever said she was on the ground. "So, you needed rides?"

Jade gets up from the bed, and I realize her eyeliner is completely smudged all the way down her cheeks. It looks like she's been crying but I can't image Jade West crying. Why do all of Tori's friends get so emotional when they drink?

"Let's go." She says, walking past Tori and I.

"Do you need help tidying up?" Tori asks Andre, who shrugs. She walks over to him, and leans closer to his face. "It's gonna be alright." She tells him, followed by a kiss on the cheek. They look very close, and thankfully very friendly. Not that I have anything to worry about, I think. I don't know what she's talking about, but if he's anything like Robbie he's probably emotional because he drank too much.

She holds my hand, and leads me upstairs. "Beck…" I hear as soon as we enter the hallway. It's Robbie, and his voice sounds very weepy. "Are you coming to drive us?"

"Stop talking, and drink! Damn Robbie you can't go home like that." Tori lets go of my hands, and walks towards the kitchen.

"Jade…" By her tone of voice I can tell she's very frustrated. Robbie's sitting by the kitchen table, with a water bottle between his hands and a very sad expression. Now I'm wondering if it's just his drunk persona, or if something actually happened. "Robbie, please drink you have to get sober."

"For Christ's sake…" Jade mutters under her breath, before walking out of the kitchen.

"Robbie if you don't sober up you can't go home, and you can't stay at my house today."

"What about Cat's?"

I can't stand his whiny voice. I have to remember to not ever be in the same room as drunk Robbie. "C'mon dude." I say, hoping his drunk affection towards me will persuade him. Tori sits beside him, and I take that as a sign that this is going to take a while. I join them at the table. "It'll make you feel better."

He nods, and takes a small sip. "This is making me sick."

Tori raises her eyebrows, and I get her cue. "Just ignore it, keep drinking." I insist.

"Yeah, take a really big gulp." She tells him, and he follows.

As he's mid sip, his face turns whiter than it already was. I did not know that was possible. "I think I might-"

I feel like Tori goes through this a lot with her friends, because before Robbie even finished his sentence she had a bucket underneath him. I don't know where she got that bucket from, but if her past has been any indication of her future, I might have to buy a bucket too.

Ten minutes later Robbie says he's good to go, but I make him bring the bucket to the car with him. Cat seems sober enough, and Jade… I honestly can't tell. "So, where do I go first?"

I drop Jade off first. Her house looks completely normal, more than that, it almost looks like the LA version of a classical fifties house, which makes me wonder what her parents think about the way she looks. Afterwards I drop off Cat, and lastly Robbie. He tried leaving the bucket in my car, but we forced him to take it with him. Instead of taking it to his house, he left it in the lawn. That doesn't look right, but at least that smell won't stick to my car.

"Last but not least…" I say, glancing at Tori. "Where to?"

"The house with the pretty trees." It doesn't take too long before we get to her house, and the ride is silent. I stop the car on her driveway, and she looks around. "That's weird."

"What?"

She frowns. "My Mom's car isn't here." She opens the car door, and gets out. "Don't go yet." She says, walking up to the door. I watch her from the car as she goes inside the house. "Good news!" She says, walking back to the car.

"What is it?" She rushes to the car, and grabs her bag.

"My parents are in Tennessee." I smile back.

"This is good news." She tilts her head towards the house, and I leave my car. "I can't believe you're actually allowing me to go inside your house."

I walk inside, and she takes my hand while shutting the door. She turns back around and pulls me towards the stairs. We walk up the stairs and go straight to a small hallway with three doors. She opens the first one to the right, we go inside.

"Here we go." She says, letting go of my hand, and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You know we should start Sikowitz's stupid project."

I nod, walking up closer to her. I lean down, my hands cupping her face as I kiss her. Her hands pull me down to the bed, over her. I slip my arm under her back, and pull us further down the bed. "What project?" I ask, and she smiles. We kiss.

She raises her hands to my face, pulling me slightly away from her. She has red lips and dizzy eyes. I want her so bad. I lean down trying to keep it together. Her arms wrap around my neck and I hover closer to her, my hips brushing hers.

"Beck." Her voice is husky and breathless. I look at her, and she meets my gaze. "Find me."