Jade was no stranger to the throws of heartbreak. And by the time she was nineteen years old, she had already been through more than her fair share of it. Her tumultuous relationship with Beck had seen to that.

It had been several months since they finished high school and the arguing was getting out of hand again. Minor disagreements quickly spiraled into huge fights and before she knew it, they couldn't even have a simple conversation without it turning into a shouting match. Their once loving relationship was now overshadowed by tension and frustration.

Beck admitted to making her jealous on purpose because he needed more from her - more proof she wanted to be with him and not just because it was all they'd ever known. Jade wanted to give him that, she just didn't exactly know how. And Beck didn't seem to understand that baiting her only pushed her further away. She would become possessive and insecure and he would accuse her of being dramatic. In turn, she would accuse him of disloyalty and distance herself from him to protect herself. They were trapped in a destructive cycle of emotional turmoil, leaving them both drained and unhappy.

She knew he loved her, and she loved him; she had never doubted that. But she doubted whether they were actually meant to be a couple. Because if they were, then why did they always seem to bring out the worst in each other?

Everything came to a head at a stupid party. Beck hadn't acted in a way that Jade felt someone in a committed relationship should, resulting in a huge blow-up that made Cat faint and Robbie cry. They caused an absolute scene and Jade literally smashed a wine glass on the table in front of him. Andre was forced to intervene and separate them before they killed each other. The argument lasted for an entire week before they decided to call the whole thing off. In the end, she was relieved. She knew their relationship couldn't continue the way it was. But it still stung like a bitch.

She questioned why she kept letting the same boy do this to her. Why she kept taking him back only for it all to fall apart exactly the same way it did all the previous times. But Beck Oliver had a hold over her that she truly couldn't explain.

She had to give credit to their friends, who had once again stuck by them through yet another messy breakup. Eight weeks passed and she was still finding it hard to go about life without him. She figured it was normal to fall apart in this situation but she was completely depleted of energy. Her appetite tanked and she lost a noticeable amount of weight since Beck moved out. Cat and Tori kept randomly dropping by her apartment with dinner to make sure she actually ate something. But everything tasted like literal trash and it was a struggle to force any food down without wanting to bring it back up.

She also kept bursting into tears at inconvenient moments during her shifts at The Cove. She'd fought tooth and nail to secure a stage manager position at the indie rock music venue and they'd decided to take a chance on her. But her heart just wasn't in it anymore. She wasn't surprised when her boss called her into the office and informed her that she was being let go with immediate effect. She wasn't even sad about it. She simply emptied her locker and left without so much as a wave goodbye.

It wasn't like she even needed the job. Her dad was loaded and would pay her bills for as long as she needed him to. Money was her father's way of showing love, and his twisted way of making up for the fact that he was completely absent from her life in every other aspect of it. She knew her mom would give her money too if she asked, albeit with a judgmental rise of the eyebrow. Despite their ugly divorce, her parents were united in their disapproval of her choice to go into the music industry. But they had long given up arguing with her about that. They were much too wrapped up in their own careers to care about hers. They simply tolerated her life choices.

For now, the only people she felt she could confide in about her newfound unemployment were Cat and Tori. She typed out the message "I just got fired," in the group chat she had with the other girls, hit send, and started her drive home.

Of course, Cat immediately called her and scolded her for self-sabotaging. Jade zoned out while Cat talked at her rather than to her. If there was one thing she could rely on her oldest friend for, it was her ability to talk so much that it would drown out her own spiraling thoughts. By the end of the call, Cat had informed her that she would be over in an hour and that they would be getting wasted on a bottle of whiskey she'd snuck from her parent's liquor cabinet. Jade rolled her eyes but didn't decline the offer.

She struggled with the stiff lock on her front door, eventually letting herself in and dumping her stuff on the floor. The apartment was hot and stuffy and still smelled like the toast she burned before leaving for work earlier that evening. She flung herself onto the ugly green couch they'd picked out from a thrift store when they first moved in here - Beck's idea, definitely not hers - and tried not to think about him.

When they first got this place, their relationship was the best it had ever been. They filled the apartment with quirky and unusual artwork and furniture; a constellation of their two personalities adorned the floors and walls. They danced in the kitchen while they cooked their favorite meals and slept soundly in each other's arms each night. She would never forget how happy they were in those first few weeks. How the apartment felt like home so quickly.

And when he moved out, how quickly it didn't.

Cat did her best to cheer her up that evening but it was a major fail. Cat was convinced that Jade just needed a good cry and that alcohol was the obvious solution. But Jade wouldn't even attempt a single shot of whiskey, insisting she had a headache. She shut down all of Cat's attempts to discuss her mounting personal problems, preferring to sit there with her arms and legs crossed defensively.

"I think you just need to let it all out," Cat suggested sympathetically. "It's not healthy to keep everything bottled up like this,"

"I'm not," Jade rolled her eyes.

"Yes, you are," Cat disagreed, nudging the bottle across the coffee table toward her. "I know you find it hard to talk about your feelings and I get it, this has been a crappy time for you."

"Look, I don't want to drink-"

"It will just loosen you up a little," Cat insisted.

"No," Jade replied irritatedly

"Come on-" Cat shook the bottle once again.

"Cat, I'm pregnant," Jade blurted out. Cat's jaw dropped as she scrambled to figure out what she was supposed to say to that. This was completely unfamiliar territory for them both.

"Are you sure?" Cat cleared her throat. Jade nodded.

"I'll just, put this away." Cat anxiously stuffed the whiskey back into her purse while Jade pulled at the fray on the sleeve of her top. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. None of this was how this was supposed to go.

"Have you told Beck?" Cat asked nervously. Jade shook her head.

"Are you keeping it?" Cat asked the big, scary question. Jade shrugged, her eyes glassy with tears.

Cat finally seemed to snap out of her shock and shuffled along the couch to comfort her friend. "It's okay. You don't need to decide anything until you're ready."

Jade couldn't believe she had actually managed to tell someone about this. It had been her secret for a couple of weeks now, and she was still struggling to wrap her head around how she felt about it. She usually landed somewhere between shock and despair. She glanced around the apartment, her damp eyes flitting between the artwork and photographs of her and Beck and all their friends, and landed on their framed high school diplomas. When she left Hollywood Arts not even a year ago, this was not the life she had envisioned for herself. None of this was.

"What do you need?" Cat asked sincerely. Jade exhaled, wiping her eyes on the corner of her sleeve. How the fuck was she supposed to answer that question?