Estrangement

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N:

Chapter 14 (First Morning Alone)

The next morning Tori awoke to the sun shining in on her, practically blinding her. She was sprawled out on the bed and listening to the alarm clock beside her buzzing out rhythmically. Her eyes drifted to the window and a moan left her parted lips. "Note to self…buy curtains…" She smacked the alarm clock and slowly rolled out of the bed, groaning as her hand brushed through her messy hair.

It was six thirty in the morning, she had to be in at nine. She hoped Trina would have the water turned on in the apartment by now. So far she didn't have much in the way of clothing, aside from what she brought with her initial luggage.

The busy streets of New York were too much for her to worry about using a car, and besides, why would she need a car when everything she needed was in walking distance? Tori scratched her stomach as she stood in front of her window, yawning loudly at the street below her. "How am I going to pay rent for April 30th?" It was now March 28th. As she thought about needing rent, she realized that the paychecks would come every other Friday. This meant April 12th, and April 26th, she'd receive her paychecks. "Work five days a week, $92 each day…makes 460 each week. So my first biweekly paycheck is 920…not bad. At the end of the month I've got 1840, without estimating taxes…" So in reality she likely would have closer to 1750 each month." She blew a strand of hair from her face and pressed her forehead against the window, groaning softly. Her eyes drifted to the pavement below and a slight chuckle escaped her. "I wonder if a fall from this height…probably wouldn't end well."

As she grabbed her clothes from the suitcase and made her way into the bathroom, she had to stop and ponder for a moment just how long this prison sentence could possibly last. How could she convince her sister to help her? There had to be more to it than just going from zero effort to 100% effort. "Mom gets lucky because she actually is too old to take care of herself. Me? No, I get nothing." She had a feeling this had to do with the way they treated Trina back in the teenage years. Now Trina was the parent, Holly was getting the royal treatment while Tori had to work to earn any respect and attention from Trina. Which, for some reason, sounded gravely familiar to her. "This sucks…this sucks, this sucks, this sucks."

When she stepped into the shower and turned it on, she felt a rush of freezing cold water. The instant it made contact with her skin, she let out a violent scream and jumped out of the shower, breathing heavily. "Shouldn't that be hot?!" Her eyes drifted to the counter where she saw a folded piece of paper. Snatching it up, her eyebrows rose and she muttered under her breath at Trina's handwriting. Hot water is out, there will be people over on the 5th to fix it. Until then, you have to do without. "Oh come on, Trina!" She kicked the wall and winced as pain vibrated through her leg and body. She hopped on one foot and sat down on the bathroom counter, groaning as she buried her face in her hands. "Okay hot water, not Trina's fault it's out. Just…something I'm going to have to deal with. For the next week. Damn…"

After the shower, Tori searched the cupboards for anything she could make for breakfast. As expected, she found nothing. "Add shopping to the list of things I have to do…" Fortunately she still had the one hundred given to her upon her first visit with Trina. Jade wouldn't accept the payment from her, and she didn't tell Trina she held onto it. "Maybe I can buy some groceries after work. I won't be getting paid until the 12th."

She rubbed the back of her neck and grabbed a journal from one of the drawers beneath the kitchen counter. She took a pen and started to write down what she thought she was going to need. "I have one hundred dollars…can't go over that." She tapped her pen on her chin and frowned. "I have some money in my bank account, but not much…" With all the waitressing, she thought she'd have more. "I need pots and pans, silverware, dishes and glasses…The stores should have those in boxes for about sixteen dollars." There were boxed kitchenware sets that had a few bowls, a few plates, a few glasses and some silverware. It was a good starter kit. "I need fruits, vegetables, and meats…I'm probably going to be living off bloody soups for a while…" She wrote down ramen noodles, pancake mix, and cereal. Bread was an essential, as were dairy meats such as turkey, ham, and bologna. Her next items were milk, juice, water, eggs and cheese. In total, she predicted the food would bring her up to a rounded estimate of $72 for all the bare essentials.

"Okay! Should last me until my first paycheck!" There was no room for other things she wanted, like alcohol such as margarita mix or wine. Besides, she didn't want to be getting drunk and having to call off work for legitimate reasons, because that could leave open suspicion that she was falling into old habits that she was trying to break. The last thing she wanted was Trina visiting her and telling her how badly she was messing up. Of course, when it came to work, she was trying to figure out if she stepped up the pay scale ladder or down it. Considering the work was gross, yet she was making more money than she had been as a waitress.

Her waitressing jobs had all brought in relatively the same amount 9.50 to 10.50. 10.50 being the higher jobs, 9.50 being the lesser jobs. Either way it was a far cry from a freakin' CEO. Trina was making at least 200 grand annually. "Damn it, my sister's the rich one…God has a sense of humor…but she's earned it, so I can't complain." She leaned against the counter and dropped her forehead to the top of the counter. She lifted her head and turned her eyes to the small round table with two chairs around it, then chuckled vainly. "One day. One day I'll be making money too. I'll show her…"

She visualized Trina sitting at that table with several open books and chewing on a pencil eraser as the sun fell and rose above her. There was a peculiar energy in the room, one that seemed to fill Tori with almost a rush of adrenaline. Perhaps it was all the energy that Trina put into this place when she was working so hard to make it to the top, to prove everyone else wrong. Tori could feel that energy rubbing off on her.

How many mistakes had Trina made? How much life had Trina lived in this apartment? With Trina being Thirty-six now and with a fourteen year old daughter, that meant she had a baby at twenty-two. She'd also been married around that time. Had Sinjin and Trina lived together in this apartment? Her eyebrows rose as she looked towards the couch, imagining many intense moments of passion and love throughout the house that could have started on the couch. "Oh god…"

Of course, the chances of that being possible were highly unlikely since the couch did seem newer than fourteen years old. "It'll be interesting discovering what secrets lay in this place…heh…" Her phone began chirping and she quickly grabbed it from the counter, it was now 7:55. She needed to move, now. Granted she had an hour to get to work, she wanted to be early on her first day, not late. "No. I'm not leaving a bad impression. Nancy and Peter will be reporting to Trina, I can't have them telling her I was late!"

On the way to work, she opted to jog, which was perhaps the first fitness-minded thing she'd done in many years. When she turned the street and made her way towards the gym, she stopped halfway to catch her breath. Across the street was where Nancy said the alleged actress was supposed to be. She raised an eyebrow and stared across the way, smiling slightly as she scanned the area, but could not see any superstar. Not that it mattered.

Although she did see Trina walking the rounds with her friends, Emma and Kate. This time Emma was in a more reserved outfit. She had a large vanilla sunhat, purple shades with diamond studded edges. She had on a white, sleeveless dress that went down past her knees, and purple high heels. Her hair was down past her shoulders and her lips were painted ruby. Kate was beside her, looking about the same as yesterday.

The three girls seemed to be taking a walk, and it was likely that Trina decided to pass by the building on the chance to see if Tori would take the bait. She smirked as the trio entered the building. "No way sister. I see what you're doing. My last boss tried that with me, you're not fooling me…" She took a deep breath and continued jogging towards the gym.

When she made it, she saw Nancy waiting for her at the front door. Nancy's eyebrows shot up and her lips turned to a proud smile. "Tori! You're early." She checked her watch. "By almost an hour."

"Yeah I wanted to be early, I don't need my first impression being late…"

"True. Lateness won't really be tolerated much, so it's probably better that you're early. Too early can be a problem sometimes, but it's admirable. How was your first night at the apartment?"

"Different. The hot water's not on, I'm going to have to go shopping, and I'm going to have to clean it up a little. I've never lived so high off the ground though, so that's different. I don't like heights too much…Trina says it was her first apartment away from home."

"Yeah it was." Nancy laughed as she unlocked the doors. "I could tell you stories of that place."

"Huh? You mean you and Trina were actually friends? Not just someone to talk to at the gym?"

"Of course, we did a lot of things together. Still do, though I'm busy and she's often busy. She spends a lot of time with Emma and Kate, and when I'm not working, so do I. But my god, the romps she and her husband had in that apartment. You wouldn't believe-"

"Oh god." Bile shot up to Tori's throat and she cupped her hand over her mouth, leaving Nancy laughing once more. "Don't tell me, I don't want to know what my sister's romance life was like!"

"Well, let me just say that guy was stronger than he looked at that age. I think Trina was about 150, maybe 160 back then, and Sinjin could lift her up no problem." Nancy smirked as Tori began to visualize what were horrors to her.

"Stop talking please!"

"Okay, okay." Tori hurried inside once Nancy opened the doors. Hopefully the entire apartment was boiled with acid by the last tenant. "To Trina's credit, she had a hard time in college. The studies never came easy with the other stuff she was dealing with."

"Like what?"

"Well, I remember Emma, Kate and I, we had to intervene somewhere because she wasn't doing so well in her classes. She started drinking a lot when she moved here. Sinjin was over a lot, but he was also dealing with his job a lot too. They um, I think they had a miscarriage just before her move." Tori froze and her jaw fell open.

"What?!" How could Trina miscarry? She didn't even know the girl was ever pregnant.

"Yeah, the depression almost caused her to flunk out her first year. If it wasn't for all of us, I don't think she would have made it. We all met relatively the same time. Emma and I knew each other from working out in the gym, so we met Trina then. Kate met Trina a couple months later in one of the classes at the college. We kind of banded together and helped Trina kick the alcohol before it became a problem and pushed her to study harder, helped her get out of her depression. I mean she was dealing with that, she was dealing with leaving her family behind, and a whole lot of other stressors."

"She really has earned her position, then…"

"I'd say so."

"Did she ever mention what caused the miscarriage? Or is that too personal?"

"I think she's moved past that. But it was some time before she moved. The stress of moving and cutting off her family, I think is what made her really start to get depressed. The miscarriage happened before that, like a year before that, she said. It really just started the whole thing." Nancy squinted and tapped her chin for a second. "She said she found out she was pregnant when you wanted her to join in some play you were doing. She went ahead and did it, despite being done with that school, then something happened with that wire holding her up. She hit her stomach pretty hard on something…" Tori's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes clenched shut.

"Oh god, I know what you're talking about. S-She never told us. She never told us she was even pregnant! If I knew, I wouldn't have asked her to be in that play in the first place. I was just trying to include her because I hadn't involved her in anything! I-I thought…It was Robbie that did it! He told me a few months later…but I-I didn't do anything about it."

"Well I wouldn't worry about it. Trina's definitely not bothered by that anymore, I don't think. She talks about it casually if it's brought up. It's still a sore spot, but three kids later, strong position as CEO, and I think she's doing just fine mentally and emotionally."

"I know, but still…" Tori was angry that she didn't know, and perhaps angrier upon the realization that she, nor their parents would really have cared if Trina brought it up. They would have cared, but they probably would have said nothing. "Why the hell would she just deal with it alone? I don't understand. Why not tell her family about a miscarriage? I would have pressed my friends even harder at that!"

"She always said she was alone in everything, besides Sinjin. So I think she just had that 'tough it out' mentality she has now. I don't think she mourned until after she moved here, then everything kind of collapsed on her." Nancy took a deep breath and looked over to the machines. "Okay! Moving on now! Since you're early, I'd like you to run through this place and start tidying up before customers come in. Can you handle that?"

"Yeah…I think I can…"

"Good, because I believe Trina's words today were 'do not hold her hand.' So I will not be holding your hand today."

"I'm on my own. Yeah, I got that." Tough it out? Sure she could do that, or at least, she could try. She just had to focus her mind and energy on the job. "So, was that whole thing about the celebrity? Was that a trick?"

"What do you mean?" Nancy raised an eyebrow as she sipped on a bottle of water.

"I saw Trina with Emma and Kate walking into that place you were talking about. I jogged over here, so it was on my way, and when I stopped to catch my breath, those three were walking into the building."

"No. No it was not a trick. The actress will be there for most of the day. Trina probably stopped there for a few minutes just to make sure you didn't start walking into the building. Good thing, too, since you're here and not there."

"Right. I'm going to make a commitment, at least, I'm going to try…" If anything was motivating her now, it was seeing just what Trina went through when she moved here. Trina had endured quite a bit, and she was stronger for it all. Now it was her turn, but that didn't mean Trina wasn't going to expect the same effort from her. "I have to succeed. Though…I think I'm going to give Robbie a call…"

"You know, it was a bit of a personal story. I think Trina would prefer you keep it to yourself…I probably shouldn't have even bothered, I only mentioned because you asked."

"Right, right, I know. I'm just…I'm upset, and I think Robbie needs to know what he did."

"No good would come out of making someone feel guilty about something like that, when it happened so long ago. Trina would also probably prefer you move on from that."

"You're right…I'll just get to work."

"Good idea, and you know where my office is if you need anything. I can't hold your hand or anything, but I can at least offer help and suggestion if there's anything you need."

"Thank you."

Hm, well tell me your thoughts. Tori will be learning a lot about Trina and the life she had over the last twenty years. Trina's had good things happen, bad things happen, and she's risen above it all. However, learning about her life will give Tori some insight on how to possibly communicate with her. Oh, and Nancy is correct, the actress statement was no trick, and no, Trina has nothing to do with acting.