Hi everyone! Here's chapter #4, I hope you enjoy!

"Guys, guess what?!"

The table's occupants swivelled round to face an excited-looking Tori.

"What?" Asked Andre.

"I got the part!" She exclaimed, jumping up and down.

"Congrats, girl!" Andre beamed, standing up to hug his new friend.

"What part is this?" Beck asked quizzically.

"Moonlight Magic. I auditioned and got the lead!" Tori replied.

"Oh, right." He replied, lacking the same enthusiasm that she and Andre shared. She couldn't help but feel hurt that the person that she cared about the most at the school hadn't even congratulated her.

"Congratulations." Robbie said from across the table, with genuine happiness for her.

"Yeah, congratulations to your understudy because you gonna be dead when Jade finds out you got her part." Rex added, as amused as an insentient being could be.

"Who's Jade?" Tori asked, sitting down and biting into a carrot stick.

"She had the part before they recast it." Robbie replied, helpfully.

"Oh, the one who dropped out?" Tori commented, continuing before anyone could correct her. "Well, I'm not planning on dying and we don't even have understudies, so you better look forward to seeing me on that stage next month." She finished, with an air of finality.

"Okay." Andre laughed. "As long as you promise to sing my songs well, I'll be looking forward to it."

"Is this the first play you've written the music for?" Tori inquired.

"Well, I've done a few songs for other productions but this is the first time I've scored the whole thing." Andre replied proudly.

"Congrats, dude. I'm sure it'll be awesome." Tori smiled.

"And even if it wasn't, it still wouldn't be the worst play this semester." Robbie snorted.

"How come?" Tori inquired curiously.

"Haven't you seen the flyers for Trina's one-woman play?" Robbie replied.

"That's gonna bomb." Rex taunted.

"Oh, god, don't remind me. She's been practicing loudly all week." Tori groaned.

"She better keep on practicing, that girl has no talent!" Rex laughed.

"Rex! That's my sister!" Tori complained.

The boys all raised eyebrows at her.

"Okay, yeah. She has no talent." Tori conceded, stabbing carrots into her dip.

"Hey guys!" Came a voice from over her shoulder, and she turned to see Cat skipping towards the table, burrito in hand.

"Hey, Lil' Red." Andre replied.

"Oh, I get it! Because I'm short and my hair is red!" She squealed.

"Uh, yeah. Pretty much." Andre replied awkwardly.

"You're in a good mood." Tori said to the cheery redhead.

"She's always in a good mood. You can never shut her up." Moaned Rex.

"Rex!" Robbie cried, clamping his hand over the puppet's mouth as if he wasn't really the one who had spoken.

"Rex is so mean to me." Cat complained, turning to Tori as if informing her of the fact. "Anyway, you're right - I am in a good mood. Does anyone want to guess why?" She grinned, scanning the table for volunteers.

When nobody responded, she continued unfazed. "I'm going to New York next week!"

The group made noises of appreciation, commenting on how that sounded fun and some expressing how they'd like to go one day.

"How come you're going to New York, Cat?" Asked Robbie, eagerly.

"Well, last week my brother didn't take his medication so he had a meltdown in the shopping mall and pushed over an ice cream cart so now he has to go to New York for 'special testing'." Cat said, accompanying the last two words with bunny ears.

There was a pause as no one quite knew how to respond to such information.

"Anyway, my nonna is out of town so I get to go too and go to Times Square and the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty and all those cool things. Isn't that so exciting?" Cat continued, completely oblivious to the air of apprehension surrounding her.

"Uh, yeah, that sounds great, Cat." Beck replied, patting the girl on the arm.

"I've never been to New York before!" Cat exclaimed, seemingly becoming more excited by the minute. "My brother has, though. One time, he and my cousin Jesse went to this market and they started selling all kinds of fruit but they were actually made of-"

"Okay, Cat! I don't think we wanna hear that." Tori interrupted. "I'm sure your trip to New York will be really cool though."

"But you didn't hear about my brother and my cousin Jesse at the market." Cat pouted.

"Yeah, maybe you can tell us later." Tori nodded, a little condescendingly.

"Kay kay!" Cat smiled, back to her bubbly self and the conversation returned to normal, Cat's wild anecdotes seemingly forgotten.

Throughout the rest of the day, Cat attempted to bring the story up once again, only to be repeatedly shut down. She couldn't understand why Tori didn't want to hear it. It was a really funny story - most of the time she couldn't even finish it without bursting out laughing, but Tori just kept making excuses not to listen. Before she knew it, it was the end of the school day and Cat's head was still full of stories with no one to tell them to.

Sighing, she took her place on the bus stop seat, waiting for the number seven that had taken her home over the past few weeks. She hated the bus too. She hated the bus, she hated no one listening to her stories and she hated being alone in half her classes.

She hated school without Jade.

Despite constantly complaining that Cat was 16 now and should be able to drive, Jade would always pick her up in the mornings and drop her off in the afternoons, and Cat knew there was no conviction behind those words. She knew Jade well enough to know that she didn't do anything she didn't want to.

She and Jade had known each other for five years, and they shared most of their classes. Jade always listened to Cat's stories when she was driving, even if she did roll her eyes or make disparaging comments. But Cat knew she was listening, that she was interested, because every so often she would ask a curious question, and once or twice she had pulled over to ask Cat if everything was okay at home, like really okay?

Cat thought that Jade was probably her best friend.

She never let Cat go home without finishing her stories, and if she shut Cat down in front of the others it was because she'd already heard the story that morning or she would allow Cat to bring it up again on the drive home. Tori didn't do that.

The number seven bus rolled up beside her and she ambled on behind the other passengers, taking a seat by the window so she could stare out at the people walking by and wonder what interesting things might be going on in their lives.

If Jade was here then Cat could tell her what she thought the passer-by's jobs and families were like, and Jade would describe the gruesome ways in which she thought they would die. Cat would cover her ears and screw up her eyes when Jade went into disturbing levels of detail about eye-gouging, but she liked the game. Jade was humouring her, something which not many people did.

But Jade wasn't here. Jade was at home, not replying to Cat's invitations for sleepovers or her friendly texts describing her day, like she had been for weeks. And in return, Cat's head filled with stories and colours that her diary, with its limited amount of pages, simply couldn't absorb. She had hoped that her new friend Tori, who had seemed really nice, would be a great alternative to Jade; she seemed like the type of girl that would love to hear Cat's wonderful stories, right? But Tori didn't understand her like Jade did. She smiled and chatted but shot her down and laughed in a way that Cat felt made her the subject rather than a participant. She liked Tori, but she couldn't shake the vulnerability that seemed to have crept up on her since Jade had gone, and how it had seemed to increase ever since this new girl's arrival.

The faces whirring by on the other side of the window gradually began to come into focus as the bus slowed down and, recognising the surrounding houses, Cat realised they had arrived at her stop and jumped off, making sure to thank the bus driver first, just like Jade had instructed her all those weeks ago.

She walked the short distance up to her house and unlocked the door with the pretty pink keychain Jade had bought her to make sure you don't drop your keys and have some murderer break in or something.

Sidling into the kitchen, she sat down at the island in the middle of the room and pulled out her phone, texting hopefully.

When r u coming back? I miss u :(

It was hours later when she received a reply.

Soon, I promise.

Tori didn't care for Cat's stories. Bless her, the ditzy girl had an overactive imagination, but Tori could do without having her bites at lunch punctuated by tales of how Cat's brother once blew up a pizza stand in Lithuania. She half-wished that Beck was equally as vocal about his experiences; she'd had to learn that he was Canadian from Andre, for god's sake. She'd been at the school for nearly a month now and felt like she still knew next to nothing about the boy who inhabited her dreams. But part of her thought that perhaps it was this sense of mystery that made him even more attractive to her.

"What are you smiling about?" Tori's mom asked, looking over from the driver's seat.

"Oh- er, just my classes today. I have a really good timetable." Tori stumbled, suddenly over aware that her daydreaming had become obvious to the driver of the car.

"Oh," Holly beamed, seemingly convinced. "I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself at this school, Tori - you seem like you're always dreaming about it. I never saw you this happy at Sherwood."

"Oh, well, you know, I just can't stop thinking about the acting and... the singing." Tori laughed nervously.

"I'm so proud of you." Holly smiled widely. "And look," she said, gesturing out of the window to the school outside. "We're here, so you don't have to daydream any more."

"Uh, yeah, great." Tori replied, awkwardly stepping out of the car. "Bye mom, love you."

"Um Tori, are you forgetting something?" Came a voice from the back of the car.

If there was one thing that she had forgotten, it was, for one blissful moment, that her older sister was also in the car.

"What, Trina?"

In response, her older sister shoved a large cardboard box full of orange flyers into her hands.

"Thanks, sis." Trina said, waltzing off towards the school.

"Trina!" Tori yelled after her, but the older girl had already gained quite some distance. Attempting a different approach, she wheeled around with a "Mom!" but Holly had already made it halfway down the street, with her "Bye, Tori!" merely lost in the breeze.

Underneath her, the shiny black lettering called out that 'SHE-CAGO" written by and starring Trina Vega would be performed later in the month.

The box 'accidentally' dropped on the floor outside right there and then threatened an audience of zero for the play's opening night.

Meanwhile, Tori Vega marched up the steps towards her dream b̶o̶y̶ school.

For only the second time since she'd arrived at the school, Tori had a lesson in the Black Box Theatre. It was a short, temporary module, stage fighting, that both intrigued and terrified her. The only fighting she'd ever done was with Trina and that had stopped when the older girl had begun to take martial arts lessons. Tori was, admittedly, a little weak and pathetic in comparison.

But if there was one person she would break her practice for, it was Beck. Beck who smiled at her when she walked in classrooms, Beck who always held the door and asked her if she was settling in okay, and Beck who had had that faraway thought in his eyes when she had talked about love in alphabet improv on her first day. Beck who was currently getting attacked by a muscular man in the middle of the Black Box.

Her instincts kicked into action before she could even register her surprise at the situation. Crying "Beck!" with real passion, she launched herself at the assailant, arms grabbing his shoulders, hands pulling at the man's curls and feet kicking, hoping to get just one scratch, one pull on the man that would force him to relinquish his grip on the boy she loved.

She almost didn't hear the cries around her, of her name being called several times, by several different voices. Her mind was so focused on this man and how anyone could hurt Beck and how maybe she had just admitted to herself that she was in love with him.

"Tori, hey, what are you doing?" It was his voice to break her from the trance, of course, and she opened her eyes to see those brown ones staring back at her, full of confusion. She found herself sliding off the muscular man's back as multiple pairs of arms pulled her backwards. Spinning around, she saw Andre, and the teacher for the course, Mr Peterson, looking at her with shock plastered across their faces, flanked by the rest of the class who had ostensibly just witnessed that whole occurrence.

"Tori, what are you doing?" Mr Peterson exclaimed.

This reaction surprised Tori. "He was hurting Beck!" She he replied indignantly.

"Tori, this is Russ." The teacher explained, attempting to diffuse the situation. Russ did little to aid this by crying "I'm Russ!" towards the confused teenager.

"He's a professional stuntman who's come in to help teach stage fighting." Mr Peterson continued, and Tori's stomach dropped.

"But- but he was attacking you!" Tori spluttered, wheeling round to face Beck, a blush beginning to creep up onto her cheeks.

"It was stage fighting, Tori. I'm fine. I took a class with him last summer." Beck explained calmly, brushing down his wrinkled clothes as a slender brunette stalked towards him.

"Well, it looked like he was hurting you!" Tori replied, but her attention was waning as she noticed the girl by Beck's side. Tori had never seen her before but Beck looked unfazed as the girl snaked her fingers around his arm in a way that made Tori feel somewhat like her territory was being encroached upon. Inadvertently, she caught the girl's eye and, although she immediately looked away, she caught something in the girl's, admittedly, beautiful stare that felt like a warning.

"Who are you and why do you care?" The girl suddenly spoke, following up her intimidating gaze with a pointed question.

"Um, I'm his friend who doesn't want to see him get hurt. Who are you?" Tori replied, suddenly on the defensive against this mystery girl.

"His girlfriend." The girl replied, raising an eyebrow as if to dare Tori to form a response to that.

"What?" She spluttered.

"Are you deaf? I said I'm his girlfriend." She added, patronisingly, before turning to Beck. "Who is this chick?"

"Jade, this is Tori. She's been here for about three weeks now." Beck replied, loosely wrapping an arm around the stormy-looking girl as if to calm her down. "Tori, this is my girlfriend, Jade."

And just like that, the fantasy fell.

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend." Tori uttered towards Beck, before thinking.

Immediately, Jade's eyes grew wide and she angrily turned towards Beck. "So I've been away for six weeks looking after your child and you can't have the decency to tell Sally Sunshine here that I exist?"

"Jade-" Beck began.

"Oh, I am not interested in what you have to say right now." She replied stonily before marching straight out of the room.

"Jade! Come on..." Beck groaned, following her out the door.

Tori, meanwhile, was frozen in her tracks at the explosive revelation that not only did Beck have a girlfriend but, if she had heard correctly, also a child. Her daydreams of the two of them in movie theatres sharing a tub of popcorn, sunbathing together on Venice beach or playing mini golf with his arms wrapped securely around hers came crashing down within her head. She just had to end up crushing for Hollywood's most ineligible young bachelor.

Oh fuck.