~ Friday, April 8th - 6:52 AM ~

She felt warm.

Safe.

Comfortable.

As if all of her troubles had just disappeared.

It was almost unreal.

Last night, Jade West had endured one of the most embarrassing nights of her life, yet here she was waking up from one of the best night's rest she has ever had.

Opening her eyes, she yawned and looked around the room.

It was quiet.

Dimly lit.

Gazing toward the window, she could tell that the sun hadn't risen yet.

Must be around six o'clock.

As she slowly got up, she could feel André's grip gently brush her shoulder.

He was sound asleep, completely unaware that Jade was awake.

She smiled at this.

Slowly moving his arm off of her and making sure not to wake him, she got off of his bed and placed her boots back on.

I really don't wanna leave, especially after sleeping in that bed. I haven't felt that way since...

She briefly thought about the times that she and Beck would snuggle together in his bed, but she quickly shook it off.

I have to get back home and get ready for school.

Grabbing her phone off of the bedside table, she was just about to sneak out of the window, when she stopped herself.

She turned around and peered over at the slumbering André.

He was completely out of it. You could have played some power chords on his electric guitar and he would have still been knocked out.

Jade crept around the bed and hovered near him. Lightly grazing her fingers against his soft dreads, she slowly caressed the side of his face.

Leaning closer to him, she gently kissed André on the cheek.

Tip-toeing away from him and towards the window, Jade carefully opened it and sneaked out of André's room.

But not without unintentionally leaving something behind...

~ 7:03 AM ~

Casting a purplish-orange hue across the morning sky, the sun was gradually starting to rise.

When Jade arrived at the backdoor of her house, she realized that she had left her key in her room.

Looks like I have to sneak in again.

Getting into the house wasn't hard for Jade.

She's done it loads of times.

All she had to do was climb up the oak tree that had the thick branch that hung closest to the attic window...

Carefully lift the window while watching out for bits of old broken glass...

Walk across the creaky attic floor until she got to the rug that covered up a huge hole...

Remove the rug, and carefully climb down the well-positioned ladder that's in the hole...

And finally, exit out of her bedroom closet.

See? It wasn't hard at all.

After taking a quick, refreshing shower, Jade felt much better.

It wasn't enough for her to be eager to go to school, but she still felt pretty good.

Entering her room, she noticed that her phone was buzzing.

As she checked it, Jade saw that there was a notification from The Slap.

{Beck Oliver is no longer in a relationship with Jade West}

She gripped at the towel that she was keeping wrapped around her.

A feeling of sadness and regret swept over her.

This is really happening... Might as well accept it.

With every keystroke, Jade felt more and more heartbroken.

She never thought that she would see those words again.

{Jade West is no longer in a relationship with Beck Oliver}

There. It's done.

~ 7:14 AM ~

The sun was now shining brightly over the city.

Morning commuters were on their way to schools and businesses.

An air of busyness rushed through the air.

He felt so relaxed being splayed out across his bed.

The warm sunlight woke him, causing him to instantly turn away from it.

All he wanted was five more minutes of sleep.

Five more hours wouldn't be that bad either.

But André knew that he had to get ready for school, so he slowly turned back around and stretched.

As he yawned, he noticed something wrong.

Someone was missing.

"Jade?"

Looking around the room, he saw that she was nowhere to be found.

Quickly jumping out of bed, André made his way around the house, looking for any sign of his Goth friend.

With her nowhere to be found, he returned to his room.

"Was she really here last night or was I..."

As he walked towards his window, he stepped on something metallic.

Looking down at his feet, André saw that he stepped on some scissors.

Crouching to pick them up, he examined them.

The handle color was originally orange, but someone tried to color it with a marker or something to make them black.

Turning them over, André noticed the letters "j.w" were carved into the plastic grip handle.

She was here! She must have dropped these when she left.

Still holding the scissors, he looked out of his window at the bright morning setting.

"She could have at least said-."

At that moment, a feeling of warmth overcame André and it wasn't from the beaming sunlight.

He didn't know why, but he gently felt the right side of his face.

Particularly his cheek.

It was rather strange.

He couldn't put his finger on it.

Just then on the other side of the room, his phone began vibrating.

Checking to see what it was, he saw that there were two status updates from Beck and Jade.

He didn't know what to think of it.

It was as bittersweet as you can get.

Looks like they've made it official. Beck and Jade are no more.

~ 3:07 PM ~

At school, Jade isolated herself.

She didn't feel like talking to anyone, including André, who decided to just keep his distance from her.

It wasn't until the end of the school day that Jade got a surprise.

Walking to her car, she was surprised to see something on the hood.

It was her scissors, the ones she had been looking for all day.

Underneath them laid a note.

You left these at my place.

I accidentally stepped on them, so I hope that they're not too bent.

If they are, then I would be more than happy to buy you a new pair.

Taking a look closer at the blades, Jade did notice that they were slightly crooked.

Normally, this would enrage her, but not this time.

After placing both the note and her scissors into her messenger bag, she got into her car and drove out of the school's parking lot.

As she left, Jade gradually entered a complete state of serenity.

Similar to how she felt when she was lying in André's bed.

Things will get better... always.

~ Wednesday, May 11th ~

It was now a month after the breakup.

Not much has changed...

Except that André was now in a relationship with Hope Quincy.

For some strange reason, he kept this a secret from his friends.

Maybe he was embarrassed or something.

Whatever it was, it did little to excite his bleak relationship with her.

Behind that pretty facade was something unimaginable.

He never anticipated that a girl that attractive would be so...

Harsh.

Controlling.

Overbearing.

Or any other synonym for bossy that you can find in a thesaurus.

Like the word tyrannical.

But whatever word you use to describe her, it'll never hold up against that one word that fits her perfectly.

Horrible.

Of course, there were times when she was somewhat... okay.

But those were brief and they usually lasted for just a few minutes.

Even making out with Hope felt like a chore.

She would occasionally criticize him by saying:

"Hold me like this. "

"You're kissing too lightly."

"It's like you're not even trying to turn me on."

and "How can you not be in the mood with someone like me?"

What made this even worse was the three reasons why André was even putting up with this shit.

#3) He was terrified of her

Now before you say, 'She can't be any scarier than Jade.', hold up a second.

Jade and Hope were in completely different categories when it came to the art of frightening people.

Jade is the type who thrived off of making you fearful of the inevitable and then leaving you in a constant state of sheer panic.

Hope, on the other hand, is the type where she made you feel like an incompetent child who's incapable of doing anything right in her eyes.

But there was an even bigger difference between the two.

Jade had a gentle and caring side... she just didn't like showing it to every Tom, Dick, or Harry.

André was one of the rare few who was privileged enough to have seen that side of her.

Hope, however, has not shown any sign of a sweet or tender side at all.

Which made being around her in private, more of a living hell than in public.

#2) Her father was Shawn Quincy, the world-famous music producer

André knew that dating Hope in hopes of getting a record deal was wrong.

It ate at him nearly every time he would kiss her or when he got to talk with her father.

André was using his girlfriend for his own personal gain!

Like seriously, what the fuck?!

That's like... okay, I can't think of any clever examples to explain that, but you know it's wrong.

#1) It was to distract himself from the newly single Jade.

Yup, you heard right.

Ever since the night of the breakup, André felt the urge to just go for it.

He constantly told himself that it was too soon; that he needed to wait just a bit longer.

Purely because he had no intentions of being the rebound due to Jade's lingering feelings for Beck.

But it was too much... Jade was too much.

~ 4:57 PM ~

After a very uneventful day at school, André met up with Hope over at Jet Brew.

It was pretty quiet for the afternoon crowd. Usually, there would be more people around that time.

The couple sat on one of the sofas that were in the lounge of the cafe; the scent of coffee, lattes, cocoa, and baked goods filled the air.

Hope was strangely at ease at the moment. She was just talking about her day and blah, blah, blah.

It was one of those "Look at me. Listen to me. This is all about me."moments.

All André could do was tune her out at times and occasionally gaze out of the cafe window.

"...so she has the nerve to ask if she was invited to my birthday party. Which is stupid, because she didn't invite me to hers last year. She claimed that she had misplaced my invitation, but that's bullshit. That bitch didn't send me one because I dated her ex two years ago, and she was always jealous of that..."

This had been going on for what felt like two whole hours, but it was just two minutes.

André was inching closer to the edge of madness.

That was until he saw someone walking outside...

Her dark hair glistens in the bright sunlight.

Her skirt moved to and fro as she walked with purpose, eager to smell the aroma of freshly made coffee.

As Jade West entered the cafe, André found it rather difficult to even fake paying attention to Hope.

There was just something about Jade being single that just made her intoxicating to him.

"Coffee, two sugars," she ordered, giving her order to the barista.

"Right away," they replied, rushing to start the order.

Patiently waiting, Jade began tapping her foot to the music that was softly playing in her earbuds.

Turning around, she leaned against the counter and looked around the cafe.

André truly felt captivated by what he was seeing.

Fuck, she looks so damn fine!

Almost as if she had heard him, Jade immediately caught sight of André and from what he could tell, she smiled.

Quickly looking away, André began acting like he was paying attention to Hope's continuous story.

"...the dress didn't look great on her, to be honest. Just imagine a whale with lipstick and really bad acne." continued Hope, taking a sip of her cup of coffee, "So anyway, how was your day?"

"Y-yeah. That's really interesting." André replied distractedly, as Jade got her coffee and began walking toward them.

She didn't expect to see André while she was at Jet Brew, but that wasn't what surprised her.

It was that André was there with a girl she had never seen before.

Are they dating? I mean, they are sitting pretty close to each other... wait, could she be that Hope girl that he was talking about?

"Hey." smiled Jade, taking out her earbuds and standing casually in front of the couple.

"'Sup, Jade?" replied André, giving his undivided attention to his friend, "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, to get coffee?" Jade answered, holding up her cup and giving him a puzzling look.

André immediately took this as "That was a very dumb thing for you to ask".

"Oh yeah! Coffee." he chuckled, feeling quite dumb in front of the girls.

Feeling left out of the conversation, Hope decided to jump in.

"Ahem! Aren't you going to introduce me?"

Remembering that Hope was still technically his girlfriend, André quickly replied, "Oh! Hope, this is my friend from Hollywood Arts, Jade West. Jade, this is my girlfriend, Hope Quincy."

The two girls glared at each other. It was as if they were sizing each other up; preparing for the other to strike first.

Jade didn't like Hope one bit. Not because she looked like a rude and insensitive bitch, but because she didn't look right for André.

"So this was the girl you were talking about?" Jade smirked, "Eh, I've seen better."

André's face was etched with complete shock.

While Hope's just morphed from a state of surprise into a state of pure rage.

"Jade!" yelled André, knowing that nothing good was to come from this.

"What? I can't be honest about your choice of girlfriend?" replied Jade, smugly, "You could have done much better with a Northridge girl."

"Excuse me?!" exclaimed Hope, standing up to confront Jade, "Exactly who in the hell do you think you are?!"

"Jade Fuckin' West." Jade responded, with a prideful smile, "Could have sworn your boyfriend mentioned that already."

André just sat there. Fearful of getting in between the two bickering girls.

The argument went on for a good five minutes.

Insults were thrown back and forth like it was a tennis match.

Nearby lounge patrons were either hanging on to every word of the argument or minding their own business.

"What kind of bitch would just walk up to a guy she claims to be her friend and criticize their girlfriend?" asked Hope, looking really pissed.

"This one, right here." answered Jade, taking a sip of her coffee, "What kind of slut walks around wearing that?"

Looking down at her turquoise blouse, Hope ranted, "This cost me $500! Only someone with no sense of style would say that. Then again, what can be expected from a girl who wears cheap leather and biker boots?"

"$500? Let me guess, daddy dearest bought it for his little princess?" laughed Jade, "Guess you won't have to worry about this one being a gold digger, André."

André chuckled at this, but as soon as Hope glared at him, he quickly straighten up.

"Am I a joke to you?!" snapped Hope, looking irritable, "I am your girlfriend, you're supposed to defend me!"

"Aww! Is the honeymoon phase over already?" Jade laughed, taking another sip.

But what happened next stunned André.

With a heavy sigh, Jade's smile and laughter disappeared until all that was left was a look of disappointment.

"Seriously, André... what is this? Tell me that this is some kind of joke."

Jade's plea left André feeling so conflicted.

All he had to do was stop with the charades and be honest with himself.

André could have easily sided with Jade, but he couldn't.

Not now.

Not yet.

He slowly got up and stated, "Jade... I really am in love with Hope and even though you're my friend... you're way out of line."

Hope walked over to him and placed her arms around him. She smiled gleefully as if she had been crowned the victor.

Distraught by what she just heard, Jade simply shook her head and scoffed, "Fine, do whatever you want. Be miserable if that makes you happy."

As she proceeded to storm out of the lounge and leave the cafe, André could have sworn that he saw Jade start to cry.

Was she really that devastated to see him with a girl as horrible as Hope?

"About time she left." Hope smirked, giving André a hug and kiss, "Let's go back to my place, I still have lots to plan for my birthday party."

"Yeah, sure thing," he muttered, as they left the cafe.

For the rest of the day, André couldn't get his mind off of how Jade reacted when he said that he loved Hope.

*sighs* Brilliant move, André. Brilliant move.

~ Monday, May 16th - 2:51 PM ~

After a weekend of dog sittings, birthday parties, earthquakes, broken guitars, and concussions, André was quite relieved that he had finally broken up with Hope.

It was like the weight of the world was lifted off of his shoulders.

He felt free and able to breathe!

Yet he still wasn't talking to Jade.

They pretty much kept to themselves and barely looked at each other.

It wasn't until several minutes before the school day ended that something finally happened.

He was alone in the recording studio.

Leaning over the piano, André was pressing random keys absentmindedly.

His mind was drawing a blank, unable to come up with any sort of idea.

The sounds of disjointed chords plodded throughout the studio.

André had no clue what his next move was or if he should even make one.

I'm so fuckin' stupid. Why did I let that relationship go on for that long? I probably ruined any last shot I had with Jade.

Sighing heavily, André slammed his fingers on the keys, causing the piano to let out a cacophony of notes.

"Not your best work, if you ask me."

Snapping out of his funk, he turned around to see Jade entering the room.

As she walked over to him, André closed the fallboard of the piano and moved over so Jade could sit next to him.

"Not gonna lie, I'm a little surprised you came here."

"Well, I may have heard a little something about you and Hope."

"News travels fast on The Slap." chuckled André.

"Yeah... so I wanted to give you your space before I confront you."

Curious to see where she was going, André wondered, "About what?"

Getting up from the bench and pacing around for a bit, Jade took a moment to gather her thoughts, before she turned around and asked...

"What the hell were you thinking? Why did you go out with her? Everyone and their mom could see that you were unhappy, so why put yourself through that?!"

André had a feeling that Jade was dying to ask him this. However, deep down, he was still too ashamed to admit to it all.

"It was all for the record deal. Simple as that. Was I wrong for using Hope in that way? Definitely, but it's all over now and I would love to move on from it all."

"Okay, let's say I believe any of that." Jade responded, crossing her arms, "There's more, isn't there?"

I have to tell her... everything.

"I wanted to distract myself. Once I knew you were single, I wanted to just do something. Anything."

"Well, why didn't you?"

"Because it was too soon! You had just broken up for goodness' sake!"

"It's already been over a month. How much time do you need?!"

Growing more and more frustrated by the minute, Jade began pacing once again before she stopped and returned her gaze to André.

"Look! I don't care about Beck anymore. We broke up, okay? He's moved on and so have I."

André just sat there, looking away from her.

"I just don't get it. Months ago, you would have jumped at this opportunity and now... you're acting like a bitch!"

André was starting to get pissed off.

There's nothing quite as fun as having the girl that you're in love with scolding you for having cold feet.

But at that moment, he had had enough.

Quickly getting up, he walked over to Jade.

The two stood firmly in front of each other. So much intensity bridged the gap that lay between them.

For a couple of seconds, all they did was look deep into each other's eyes.

Jade finally spoke up and asked, "Are you finally going to do something or-"

Catching her by surprise, André grabbed Jade by the waist, pulling her closer until...

He kissed her.

He actually kissed her!

Her lips were so soft and tender against his.

His grip around her waist was firm yet gentle.

Slowly, Jade began to ease into the kiss and placed her arms around him.

She couldn't believe that any of this was happening, but she dared not question it.

They didn't care if anyone walked in on them. This was their moment.

As they gradually stopped making out, André went back in for one last kiss.

"Does that answer your question?" he smiled, as the end of the school bell rang.

Completely speechless, all Jade could do was shake her head in agreement.

She felt so relaxed in his arms that she didn't want him to let her go any time soon.

Once the two finally separated, André went to gather his things, but before he walked out of the studio, he looked back at Jade, "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay." she smiled, as André left the room.

Jade had to sit down for a moment.

The memory of the kiss and the embrace danced through her mind.

This is really happening.

She had finally moved on.

Beck was just a thing of the past and now all she could think about was André.

No one, but André.