Dog Days of Summer

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N:

Chapter 13 (Breakdown)

"How long is he going to be here for?" Jade asked while nestling up beside Beck. Her head raised up above his back as she peered over to Tori. "Did he mention anything about that?"

"Could be a week. Not sure." Tori rolled her head to the right as she watched the three people at the table. She was waiting for the proposal, anticipating it with both eagerness and anxiety. Of course Trina would say yes, she clearly loved this man and had been with him for three years now. Not counting the time Trina went off to that camp. "It's been three years since our thing at Sikowitz's house, right?"

"I think so." Jade squinted her eyes to remember and tore her head from Beck's back. "Maybe four. Why?"

"Just gauging how long Trina and Jason have been a couple. Three or four. It's been at least four years since her going to that camp and meeting him there."

"You don't have a problem with him?" Beck's question was surprising, but yet she remained unaffected. He looked over to her with an arched brow and she shook her head. "Cat seems to think you would have been upset because you saw him and thought he was so great that one day."

"I think a lot of a good looking guys I see, are attractive and he is. There's no denying that. But no." Tori stood up and walked around him, shrugging once. "I have no problems with the fact that he's with Trina. They're happy together, that's what counts."

Jade's lips twisted and her curious gaze fell onto Tori. "Since when do you care about whether or not your sister's happy?" Tori rolled her eyes and sighed, she was truly tired of Jade's constant questioning of whether or not she was being genuine. "Sorry, I just don't get how you're already forming a different view."

"It's not different, Jade. I've always wanted my family to be happy. My dad, mom, Trina…Hollywood Arts just isn't there as a distraction anymore, my friends aren't a distraction anymore." As she walked out of the kitchen, Beck and Jade followed her in silence.

"Distraction?" She heard Beck's hushed question and turned to face him. There was a lot of history she didn't want to talk about, that she didn't want them knowing about. Rather, she wanted to talk to Shadow because either way he was a part of the family. He knew when her parents separated the first time because Clarence offered David a place on the farm.

"Yes Beck, a distraction. All the attention, all the applause and love or whatever that I got from singing...that was a drug to me." A bad one at that, but she never thought of it as such until now. "Maybe that's what it's like for a lot of actors and singers-fame and stardom is their drug."

Jade breathed in sharply and stared with a great deal of skepticism. "Are you sure you're not the one being overdramatic now?"

"Of course I'm not, Jade. For all the talk I may have done, there's still a lot you don't know about me." She bowed her head for a second, then turned away. "I'd rather it remain that way."

"We're your friends aren't we? You can talk to us."

"I don't know if I can, to be honest. I'm trying not to push you guys away, but you know it's not just me that's in this form. You guys have a tendency to think only about yourself too."

Jade exchanged an upset look with Beck and closed her eyes, sighing heavily. "I won't say you're wrong, Tori." She hesitated in her step and narrowed her eyes onto an object in front of her. Tori held her breath, waiting for Jade to say something more, to see where this was going. "I just can't imagine it being your drug, but maybe you're right. Maybe we don't know anything about you either."

"Maybe."

"But I do know how you feel. Both of us do. It is a drug, it is a distraction. It's easy to throw all your cares aside when you have crowds of people chanting your name, making you feel loved. Special. Don't know what your problem is, but I do understand the feeling." Jade stepped in front of her and stared into her eyes with a serious expression. "I never cared about pleasing someone else-making them feel good or be happy-because it was useless. My mother could never be pleased and my dad's just-well you've met the man. So when I got into that school, was it good for me? All the applause I got up until you ended up going was my life."

"You don't say."

"It's just easy to forget anything and everything else. You know Beck went to the school because it was easier than his last?" She raised an eyebrow and Beck's head dropped with a slight laugh.

"I failed everything at my last school. Hollywood Arts gave me some worth. Of course, the idea of it being a drug? Sure, especially if you're trying to forget something. Giving a damn about anyone else may bring back something you don't want, so you make everything about yourself and soon the habit of pushing people and things away becomes part of your character."

Tori twitched her nose and shook her head. "Surprises me Cat and Robbie aren't more like that." The two hadn't seemed to be using it as an additive, but then, they weren't the ones getting all the fame and applause. They were the ones that got ragged on most of the time. "There's nothing there to make them forget their troubles."

"I bet they'd like to forget us." Beck laughed once and started to breathe out. "Listen Tori, we're sorry if we upset you. You said you regretted having met us, and well, we don't know what we've done in the last few days but that statement's probably on something older than that, I'm guessing."

"It's not you guys, really. I've not been in the best of moods. I feel like my family's breaking apart, and I can do nothing to stop it. I was just looking for someone to blame that wasn't me, but, maybe it is me."

Jade and Beck scrunched their noses and Tori turned away to continue her walk. She didn't know where she was going to go, though part of her wanted to find Shadow. "Then out there, I don't know what it is, I heard Trina say she wanted me to live here. I don't know why she would say that. Especially if I'm such a bad person."

"I don't think the issue is that you're a bad person at all. We may not know what you've got that's on your mind but I think it's clear your sister cares for you. If your family's breaking apart, well that can't be your fault. Your mom's the one having the affair, and from what it seems like, your dad's the one that hides behind his job. You have nothing to do with that. So if the family falls apart, it isn't your fault."

"I should have done something. I should have been better. They wouldn't feel the need for these problems if I was better."

Jade shook her head, stammering out a response. "Where on earth do you get that mindset from?" Tori frowned at her and drew out a heavy sigh.

"I just thought if I was good, I could make them happy and they'd stay together. If I was the best daughter and sister I could be, everything would be fine."

"Sounds like whatever the issue is, it's been going on for years. That's something a little child might think if their family's going through a divorce." Tori's heart stopped and she remained silence. As the air grew dense, Jade opened the front part of her snout to form a circle with her lips. "Tori if that's the case, it's not your fault. There's nothing you could do to stop a destructive marriage from falling apart."

"You don't know that. You've never gone through what I have. No one understands. Trina maybe, but no." Jade frowned and Tori walked off once more, shaking them off. She didn't want them to try and understand, it would be effortless. "Go back to worrying about yourselves. Be human again, you'll find a way I'm sure. I'm better off as a dog."

"So what, you're giving up?"

"I don't know! I just know that since being at Hollywood Arts, I have had a hand in breaking my family apart." She turned around, glaring at both of them. "I let the drug go to my head, got a big head and started telling everybody what was wrong with my family. I stopped trying to be good, I stopped trying to keep everyone together. Is it my fault? It must be."

"So then stop doing what you're doing and leave your family business to your family. No one else needs to know what they're dealing with. Just bear in mind Tori, it isn't your fault. Whatever's going on, whatever reason you have for problems, it is not your fault."

"Mom and dad stopped fighting when I went to Hollywood Arts." They truly stopped fighting when they got back together after the first time they separated. Why they got back together, she wasn't sure, she thought it was because she was doing the best she could to be a good daughter and good sister. "Just want them to be happy. They started fighting again after a while, sometimes coming to blows. Both sides…I don't want to say it's abuse because I don't think it is. Dad doesn't hit momma solely and momma doesn't just hit him. Their fights just become physical, that's all."

"Sounds destructive, Tori." Her heart began to pace rapidly and her body gradually heated, causing a severe pain to spread across her. "That's not your fault at all, you know." She clenched her eyes and shook her head.

"You wouldn't understand. You don't know the full thing, and I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Tori." She hurried off, ignoring them once more. Jade felt a sudden shift in the room's energy and looked to Beck with a great deal of concern. He frowned at her and shook his head.

"She's right, I'm afraid, we don't know what's going on." He sat down and looked in the direction Tori had taken off. "We can't possibly say anything because for as much as we are friends-we're outsiders to her. Whatever she's dealing with."

"Something happened-there's more to this, there always is." Reading up on her father's files was something she was not supposed to do because his father's clients have a right to privacy, but she never listened growing up. This gave her a mild interest in psychology, which was still an interest to her. "That mental state she has-it forms in childhood. Obviously she isn't going to tell us, but…"

They heard a joyous cry in the kitchen and turned their heads. Through the doorway they saw Trina throw her arms around Jason's neck, kissing him passionately. "Would she talk to Trina, or would Trina talk to her? Evidently Trina still cares-and you were there when she was talking to Jason about Tori, right?"

"The whole wanting Tori to live on the farm?" Beck nodded and cocked his head to the right. "Remember she told Clarence that there was a reason for her living here? Tori seems to think it was because of her, but if her parents relationship is as volatile as she just now made it sound…then that would be a good reason for Trina to move onto the farm."

"Then what she told Jason about wanting to bring Tori here, and how the environment was destructive for her-it makes sense. Trina would…understand what Tori's feeling. More than anyone else." She sniffed and looked over her shoulder, frowning at the door that Tori had left through. "If we weren't dogs right now."

This was a strange feeling that she had, almost like she wanted to help Tori. For the first real time she didn't want to think of her own problem, though being a dog was an issue. "I know finding a way to be human again is important, but, what good is becoming human if we're still dealing with the same problems that we all have?"

"What do you propose?" He laid down and turned his eyes up to her. "We're dogs. There's literally nothing we can do. The way you're talking, we'd have to physically go to Trina or someone and tell her something. In case you haven't noticed, humans only hear us barking."

"We're dogs, that's obvious, but we're dogs with human minds. I bet we could figure something out. Or do you think it would be in vain to try?"

"I don't know. I think you could try and figure something out, but unless you can reach somebody in a way they'll be able to help out-then there's probably not much that is going to happen. Even if you could let Trina know that Tori's having a mental crisis, how do you plan on getting Trina to talk to her? You can't just say that Tori is Cleo-for all the bashing over the years, it's pretty clear Trina is no idiot. She's not going to just believe those words without proof. Proof that we don't have."

"If only we could get Madame Fontane to say something."

Looking out for others and helping others can also mean each other in the circle. Jade's cooking up a plan, though I had a lot of fun writing a coming chapter that involved hunting. Haha, keep reading and let me know what you're thinking