~ Thursday, April 7th - 7:46 PM ~

"Exactly what is your problem?"

"My problem? My problem is that I'm tired of hearing you whine about that dumb game show. You've been at it all day."

"Well can you blame me? We can't have one conversation without you yelling at me."

"Just stop with it. You're giving me a headache."

"Not as bad as the one I've had all day."

It was your typical late April evening.

Beck and Jade were driving around looking for any sign of their friends.

Friends who were obviously trying to keep as much distance away from them as possible.

Why?

For several days, the two have been at each other's throats.

Sure, they were known for their occasional bickering… but this was different.

Almost every time you would see them together, chances are they would be arguing.

And last night didn't make things any better.

During Sinjin's game show, Beck admitted that he wasn't happy with their relationship.

It was an embarrassing moment for Jade, which only furthered her bitterness.

"You just keep going on and on and on about our problems."

"Well, aren't you tired of arguing? 'Cause I know I am."

"Couples argue. We're arguing. This is normal. Get over it!"

Beck grew tired of hearing Jade completely twist the conversation around.

It was like she didn't want to take anything seriously.

"Ugh, you just… drive me crazy sometimes."

"So what are you saying? Do you wanna break up?"

"Jeez, you keep saying that like a broken record! 'Do you wanna break up? Do you wanna break up? Do you wanna break up?' It's annoying."

Jade became even more enraged after hearing Beck mock her.

"You did not just mock me."

"Uh, I just did."

"Listen smartass, I'm sick of this. This conversation is over."

"Fine by me."

The brief moment of silence was something that Beck hadn't felt in a long time.

He only wished that it had lasted longer.

"Where the hell are we going anyway?" asked Jade, trying to figure out where they were.

"We're going to Tori's house. They're bound to be there." Beck answered, trying to focus on driving and avoiding starting another argument.

But Jade didn't need Beck to start a fight.

She could do that herself.

"Why do you even care about hanging out with them?"

"Because they're our friends, that's why."

"Who gives a shit about them?"

"So you're honestly saying that you don't care about any of them?"

"Yup."

"What about Cat?"

"She's like any annoying little sister. I tolerate her. So she doesn't count.

"Trina?"

Jade simply scoffed.

"Robbie?"

"Hell no."

"Tori?"

"FUCK NO!"

"André?"

Hearing that name caused Jade to hesitate. She found it hard to even think.

It didn't take long before Beck caught on.

"So you do care for someone! You actually care about André."

Jade began to panic, she had to come up with some excuse. Something to get Beck off her case, but her mouth wasn't moving. For the first time in days, Jade was speechless.

"I'm glad to see you actually care about one of your friends."

…one of your friends…

"Uh… yeah. André's a good friend. A really good friend." sighed Jade, feeling relieved that her panic attack had ended.

That was a really close one. Too close for comfort.

In order to keep the conversation from going back to André, Jade did the only thing she knew would keep the focus away from him.

"Why can't we go somewhere else? I really don't feel like seeing the Prissy Princess in all of her prissiness."

"Why must you always pick on Tori?"

"Why must you always defend Tori?

"Please don't start this again."

For the next few minutes, Beck and Jade constantly bickered about numerous things.

Their argument didn't even falter when they finally reached Tori's house.

"Let me hold your keys, I left my phone in the car," ordered Jade, as they stopped halfway up the front lawn.

"Why do you always forget something in the car?" asked Beck, handing Jade his car keys.

"Because I fuckin' can!" she shouted, unlocking the passenger side door and grabbing her phone from out of the cup holder.

Once Jade retrieved her phone, she met up with Beck and the two continued towards the front door.

"I bet you anything that all of them are in there," Beck stated, as he rang the doorbell.

"When are you going to realize this? I. Don't. Care." said Jade, wishing that she was somewhere else.

"Can you please get over yourself? For once?" asked Beck, as the front door opened.

And if it isn't the Prissy Miss herself…

Jade had a feeling that tonight would be horrible. If only she knew just how horrible it would become.

~ 8:03 PM ~

"1!" she yelled, waiting for Beck to come out of the house.

He knows I'm not joking around. He'll come out soon.

"2!"

He'll open up that door around 3 or 4.

"3!"

Here it comes, he's about to open the door.

But the door didn't open.

He'll open it at 4, I'm sure of it.

"4!"

The door still didn't budge and Jade began to worry.

Come on, Beck… you know I'm being serious.

"5!"

I'm halfway to ten… I get it, he's toying with me. Typical.

"6!"

Jade felt herself choking up a little when she said-

"7!"

She was in disbelief. She'd never seen Beck behave like this before.

He should be out here already.

"8!"

Beck, where are you?

"9!"

Beck…

"10..."

She stood there.

Waiting for her boyfriend to open the door.

After a brief moment, she reached for the door handle, hoping that Beck would open it.

But her hopes were dashed and she decided to just leave instead.

Leaving seemed to be the only way to spare the embarrassment from increasing any further.

As Jade got into Beck's car, she pulled out his car keys; which she still had on her.

Turning on his car and leaving, she tried to fight the urge that was creeping up on her.

But she didn't have the strength to.

As she stopped at a red light, she yelled, "Fuck!" and began crying.

She had just broken up with her boyfriend and taken his car.

Sounds like a pretty good night.

~ 10:31 PM ~

Jade spent the next two hours driving around the city and hanging around some of her favorite places to be alone.

Trying to clear her mind of what had just happened.

But she found this hard to do while she still had Beck's car.

So she decided to take the car back to his house and leave it in the driveway.

After leaving his car keys in the car's sun visor, Jade texted Beck about where his car was.

{Your car is at the house. Keys are in the visor. Please don't text me back. You've said enough.}

As Jade walked to the end of the driveway, she began thinking about what was going on and what she was going to do.

Is this really happening? Did we really just break up?

Looking at the time on her phone, Jade saw that it was now 10:34.

She really didn't feel like going home at the moment.

There were too many memories of the times that she'd spent with Beck there.

It was the last thing that she needed to be reminded of.

So she decided to call home.

{Hello?}

"Hey… mom, listen. I'm going to be spending the night over at Cat's, okay?"

Mrs. West could clearly tell that something was bothering her daughter.

{Jade, are you alright?}

Fighting back tears, Jade replied, "I'm good, I'm good. I'm just spending the night with Cat."

{Are you sure? Do you want to talk about anything or...}

"Yes, I'm sure. I'm fine. I'll see you in the morning."

{Okay… But remember to be safe out there, and tell Cat I said hey.}

"I will."

{Love you.}

"Love you, too."

{Bye.}

Once Jade got off the phone with her mom, she called up a Drft driver to pick her up.

After being picked up and driven to the neighborhood where she lived, Jade was dropped off at a pale blue bungalow.

But there was only one problem: this wasn't Cat's house.

~ 10:58 PM ~

André Harris was getting ready for bed.

He just had a very long day and witnessed a drama-filled night.

So he was definitely looking forward to getting some sleep.

But as he lie in his bed, he couldn't shake the thought of what happened earlier that night.

Jade and Beck broke up, they actually broke up… and I had nothing to do with it. We could all see it coming from a mile away, yet it still was a surprise.

André turned over to face his window.

I'm not even sure how to feel about this. I'm upset to see the two of them like this, but-

Tap-tap-tap... Tap-tap-tap...

André could see the silhouette of someone projected against the window.

Quickly jumping out of bed and turning on the lights, he grabbed his old baseball bat from out of the closet and walked cautiously towards the window.

Slowly pulling back on the curtains, André prepared for the worse.

Gotta be ready for anything. Gotta be ready to swing!

But as he pulled the curtain back, he noticed that it wasn't a burglar at his window, it was a troubled dark-haired girl.

"Jade?" asked André, putting down his bat and opening up the window, "What are you doing here?"

As Jade climbed through the window, André could tell she was trying to hide the fact that she had been crying.

"I didn't feel like going home just yet," replied Jade, as she sat on André's bed.

"How come you didn't go to the front door?"

"It's late… and I didn't want to wake up your mom."

"You do know that my mom works at night, right?"

Shaking her head, Jade remembered, "Yeah, forgot about that."

Getting back on his bed and sitting up against the headboard, André further questioned her.

"Does your mom know that you're here?"

"No, she thinks I'm at Cat's spending the night." answered Jade, taking off her boots, "I decided to come here after I spent most of the night wandering the city."

"You could have called me earlier, I would have given you a ride after I had dropped Beck-"

André quickly stopped himself from finishing his sentence.

He could see that Jade was still upset and didn't want to bring up Beck's name anytime soon.

"It's okay, I'm not going to get all upset from hearing his name," Jade stated, as she moved towards André and sat next to him against the headboard.

"Oh… cool," uttered André, as Jade looked at him.

He hated seeing her depressed, by anything.

So all he wanted to do was make her happy again.

"Is there anything that I can do?" he asked, trapped in her enticing gaze.

"Just… keep me company," she whispered, moving closer to André.

"I can do that," he reassured, moving closer as well.

The slight awkwardness between the two had disappeared and they were acting on nothing but pure instincts.

Slowly, their lips were just about to touch.

They closed their eyes, just waiting for the moment to happen, until-

BRRRZZZT! BRRRZZZT!

The two of them snapped out of their trance; while André reached for his phone off the bedside table.

"Oh! It's Hope," he said, as he looked at the text message he'd just received.

"Hope?" asked Jade, still trying to process what had just happened.

"Hope Quincy. I met her back at the Christmas party and we've been occasionally talking ever since." André replied while responding to Hope's text.

"Oh, are you two dating?" asked Jade, curiously.

André stopped texting for a moment.

He'd only been exclusively seeing Hope for about three weeks, yet they really haven't decided on whether they were a legit couple or not.

It was just talking and texting… with the occasional sext between the two.

But as of late, things were becoming serious between the two.

"Whoa!" exclaimed André, whose face lit up.

"What?"

"She wants me to meet her dad."

"And?"

"Jade… her dad's Shawn Quincy."

"The producer?"

"The world-famous producer and I'm gonna meet him!" André shouted, filled with excitement as he jumped off his bed.

But his excitement quickly faded when he saw Jade just sitting there with a half smile.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have… especially with what happened last night."

"I told you already, it's okay. You're obviously excited about meeting her dad..." Jade replied as she paused for a moment, "But can I ask you one thing?"

"Sure."

"Are we seriously going to ignore what almost happened?"

André remembered the kiss that almost was.

The kiss that he always longed for.

"Jade... we can't. I wish it could happen, but it can't. You've just broken up with your boyfriend. Don't you remember that?"

"Of course, I do! It's the one thing that I'm trying to forget." she cried, wiping the tears from her face, "But what's bugging me the most is that… I don't know how I should feel about this."

André put down his phone and sat back on the bed next to Jade.

She just needed someone to be there for her.

No kissing, making out, or possibly having sex.

Just talking, listening, and comforting.

~ Friday, April 8th - 1:22 AM ~

After spending the past few hours talking and listening, André grew even more concerned over Jade.

"Were we really a horrible couple? I mean, we did argue a lot, but… he didn't have to tell everybody that he wasn't happy with us. It was so embarrassing!" Jade sighed, "But when I look back at it, I wasn't exactly eager to talk with him about our problems, so maybe I'm to blame for that as well."

"Stop it. I'm sick of hearing you take all of the blame for this." demanded André, "Just because you weren't willing to talk about your problems, doesn't mean that he had the right to just blurt it out to everyone."

André had to stop himself from trying to shift all the blame onto Beck. He didn't want to make it look as if he was trying to antagonize him and have Jade all to himself.

"Just look at it this way, maybe this is something that the two of you need. Give yourselves some much-needed breathing room to think and possibly reunite… and if not, you can just move on," he stated, with a bit of distaste in his mouth.

As much as he liked that Jade and Beck broke up, he also hated it.

It was difficult enough for your best friend to break up with his girlfriend, but when that girlfriend is also your friend and the one girl you wanted to be with... things become a little more complicated.

It was difficult choosing between helping Jade get over the breakup or helping her reconcile with Beck.

"Maybe you're right." sighed Jade, as she laid her head on André's shoulder, "Maybe this breakup is something we both need."

As Jade slowly began to get sleepy, she asked something of him.

"Can you do something for me?"

Not sure of what he was about to be asked, André replied, "Sure, what is it?"

"Can… can you just hold me? That's all… until I fall asleep?"

It was a strange request coming from Jade.

It took André by surprise, yet he remembered her current situation.

"Sure," he replied.

Turning over to face André, Jade wrapped her arm around him and laid her head on his chest.

Once he saw that she was in a comfortable position, André placed his arm around Jade and then turned off his bedside lamp.

After some time, Jade finally dozed off while André lie awake, still holding her in his arms.

Considering the night she had just had, she could use a good night's sleep.

The moonlight coming in from the bedroom window enveloped the room in a soft white glow that brought on a sensation of pure tranquility.

André could slowly feel the serene effects wear down on him as he lie there.

Glancing down at Jade, he uttered, "Things will get better, Jade... always."

Stirring up a bit, she lightly moaned and then went back to sleep.

André simply chuckled softly.

Eventually, he too surrendered to the calmness and finally fell asleep.

Both friends slumbering soundly within each other's warm embrace.