Final Project
I.
"I just can't believe we're going to get to see another country…for free!" Tori exclaimed as her and Andre entered her house. They both threw their backpacks on the nearest couch as Tori practically skipped into the kitchen to get them a drink.
"It is pretty exciting…" Andre trailed off as he slowly followed Tori further into her home.
Tori raised an eyebrow at him as she grabbed two waters out of the refrigerator, "For some reason, I hear a large but at the end of that sentence."
Andre hid a small smile behind his hand, "Large but…now that's funny."
Rolling her eyes, she threw one of the bottles at him, Andre catching it faultlessly, "Seriously, what's the but for?"
He was still smirking, "For sitting down on?" As soon as Tori gave him a look, he quickly wiped his smile away and got serious, "Sorry. Anyway, it's just…you know, we're going to be apart for a whole month."
"Aw," Tori began, flopping down on the couch nearest the kitchen, "You gonna miss me?"
Sitting down next to her, he looked a bit hurt, "You mean you're not gonna miss me?"
Tori slapped him playfully, "That's not what I meant! Of course I'll miss you…but just think of the opportunities that can come from this! You could even make a name for yourself in a totally different part of the world."
Andre took in a melodramatic breath, shakily letting it loose as he averted his gaze to the floor, "I suppose you're right…"
Tori was beginning to feel bad for being so excited over their awesome final project when Andre seemed so bummed out by it. She quickly tried to think of a way to cheer him up. Suddenly, she remembered a moment when Andre had to cheer her up and the song he made up on the spot to do so.
"Hey…" she began, scooting a little closer to him. She cleared her throat, then commenced to show her beautiful voice, "Don't let your brown eyes turn blue…"
Andre immediately recognized the song, his smile returning as he too remembered the time he sang his song to her.
About two years ago…
Tori pushed open her front door with all her might, the slam of the door hitting the back wall seeming to echo throughout the house. She tried to get her backpack off her shoulder, only to realize that the strap got slightly tangled in her shirt. Letting out an almost growl like yell, she violently tore the bag away from her and threw it across the living room. She then proceeded to pace back and forth.
Andre was right behind her, having witnessed Tori's bad attitude all day long. He calmly and gently closed the front door and didn't even dump is backpack on the floor, but rather, set it down like it was a fine piece of china. He was afraid to make any sudden movements in fear that Tori would attack him like she was a lion.
"So…now that you're home, care to tell me what's going on?" Andre started again after having failed with the question about ten times throughout the day.
"I…I don't know!" Tori yelled, still pacing, "I mean, I have no real reason to be upset! I have no right to care! I should be happy! Yes, happy!" She forced a smile at Andre, which only made him take a step back because it instead made her look insane, not happy.
"Can you maybe start from the beginning?"
"The beginning!" She yelled, but offered nothing more.
"Um…not really sure if that was a question or a statement…" He continued to watch her pace for a moment before finally walking to her. He grabbed her by her shoulders and forced her to sit down, "You need to stop with the pacing…you're making me more nervous than my grandma makes me."
She sucked in a deep breath, looked like she was about to start rambling, but then hid her face in her hands and started to cry.
"Hey, hey…don't cry, Tori, that's not…" But it didn't seem like Tori was listening to what he had to say. Awkwardly, he watched her cry for a few minutes until it sounded like she was calming herself down. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her piano and, trusting fully in his talented ability as a song writer, he went over to it.
Effortlessly, he began to play a brand new tune he created on the spot, "Pretty girl, you're in this condition….I don't know—your situation. Got your heart broke? Pretty girl, tell me your tears, but don't let your brown eyes turn blue…"
Tori stopped crying long enough to listen to his song, watching him from the other side of the couch. She gave the best smile she could as she wiped at her eyes, "How do you come up with this stuff?"
He shrugged and rested his elbow on the piano, "Guess you're just an inspiration. An awesome inspiration."
She tried to keep her smile after that compliment, but instead it looked like she wanted to cry all over again. Andre noticed this and came back over to sit next to her again, "So now you wanna tell me what's going on?"
The look she gave him blatantly said she didn't, but was willing to, "Beck and I almost kissed."
"What, today? But I thought—."
Tori cut him off by holding up her hand. She didn't want him to end the sentence the way she knew he would: with "Beck and Jade were back together."
"This happened about a week ago….right before the Platinum Music Awards. You know…before today, when they all of a sudden got back…" she trailed off.
Andre saw how much she was hurting, so he didn't bring up their relationship status again, "Okay…well, why didn't you guys kiss?"
Tori leaned back and shot her eyes up to the ceiling, "Because I couldn't bring myself to kiss Jade's ex-boyfriend. I knew she still had feelings for him and…I didn't want to hurt her."
Though Andre was still very surprised to hear this news about his two best friends, he tried to keep her talking, "Yeah, but if Beck wanted to kiss you, that means he has feelings for you…"
"No, had, Andre…had!" She yelled as she stood up again, running her hand through her hair, "It obviously wasn't that big a deal to him if he's back with Jade again!"
Sighing, Andre stood up next to her, putting a hand on her arm, "Look…you have to analyze the whole situation, right? Did you really want to kiss Beck, aside from the fact that he was Jade's ex?"
"Well….yeah, kinda."
"And you told him that's why you couldn't kiss him?"
"Yeah…"
"Then that's probably why he got back with Jade so fast," Andre began to explain, trying to get into Beck's head, "Everyone could see that Beck had feelings for you, and since it didn't work out for him and Jade, he wanted to give you guys a shot. But once he found out that you couldn't do that because you didn't want to hurt Jade, he probably figured that you would never give him a chance. And everyone can also see that Jade never got over Beck, so you know…Beck probably used his Beck charm and got Jade back."
Tori's head was whirling, "So you're saying the only reason he got back with her was because he couldn't have me?"
Andre shook her head and held up his hands in defense, "I never said only reason, Tori. It just gave him the push to try Jade out again."
Tori laughed sarcastically, "You make dating seem like trying on outfits."
He shrugged, "Well, I mean…it kind of is, right? You try dating someone and if you realize you don't want to date that person, you let them go….or take them back to where you found them, however you want to use the outfit analogy."
When Tori didn't say anything, he continued, "That's why people date before they get married: To try that person out; Get to know them on a personal level; To see if they'll work out against all the odds."
Tori stared hard at him. So hard, in fact, that Andre was beginning to feel awkward again. He licked his lips out of nervous habit, "But if you don't like my analogy, then you don't ha—."
Andre got cut short as Tori, very quickly and unexpectedly, closed the gap between them and pressed her lips against his. He was so shocked he simply stood there with his arms outstretched on either side. Neither of them moved, in fact, it could hardly be called a kiss since it was more like lips on other lips.
When the shock began to wear off, Tori popped her eyes open and finally broke contact.
"I'm so sorry, Andre, I just…"
She was hoping he would say something to comfort her, even something as simple as "No, it's okay," but there was nothing. Andre only waited for her to finish her thought.
She threw her arms up in defeat, "I just think…you know, that we should try each other out! I mean, why not, right? We get along perfectly, we tell each other everything, we make beautiful music together…you're comfortable to be around."
Andre blinked a few times. He couldn't deny that she made some good points, but the thought of even dating Tori surprisingly never crossed his mind. And that's saying something, considering he even fantasized about dating Jade before. And as far as he could tell, it never crossed Tori's mind to date him, either…it was the most spur of the moment thing he's ever witnessed.
"Say something, please!" Tori exclaimed suddenly, breaking him of his racing thoughts.
"Um…whoa?" Was all he could offer.
Tori slumped forward to slight defeat, "C'mon Andre, why not? Look, I know you still have some feelings left for Jade that never really went away, and I have some feelings for Beck that need to go away. We're not mean, so we're not going to try to break them up again. Let's help each other."
While saying this, Tori thought the last bit needed a little bit of oomph. She put on one of her best sly smiles and inched towards him, "You never know…it might be fun."
Andre stared as he watched her try to put "the moves" on him. If anything, it made him smile in amusement, "Baby Girl, I think this is the craziest idea you've ever had."
Tori looked hurt and defeated.
He quickly continued, "And I think I like it."
With that, he pulled her forward to give her a real kiss.
"Ah…" Tori started with a humorous smile, "I think that was the most unromantic hook up I've ever experienced."
"And now look at us…two years later," Andre added, scooting as close as he could to her while wrapping his arm around her shoulders.
"Craziest and best idea ever."
Tori Vega: About to find out my country!
Mood: Super-Excited
Tori and Andre entered Hollywood Arts the next morning to find a chaotic crowd in the main hallway as all the seniors tried to look at the postings at the same time.
"Come on, let's try to get up to the front," Andre said before him and Tori basically dived into the mob.
Somehow, they made it up to the front without too much hassle, not too surprised to find that Jade made her way to the front, too.
"Jade, did you see what country you got?" Tori asked excitedly, just as curious to see where all her friends were being put.
Tori was shocked when Jade glared daggers at her instead. The pale girl stepped right in front of her, her eyes piercing something fierce. Tori was about to cower or duck, thinking Jade was about to swing at her, but instead, Jade just turned sharply and made her way out of the crowd.
"What was that about?" Andre asked her.
Tori shrugged, but quickly dismissed what was basically normal Jade behavior anyway. She and Andre focused on the sheet posted on the wall.
"Oh, Tori, I got Argentina!" He thought about it for a moment, "Is that like Mexico?"
Tori shot him a weird look, "Um, kind of, sure." She continued to look for her name, and when she finally found it, her eyes bulged with excitement, "Oh my God, I'm going to Japan!"
"All right!" Andre looked again, "Oh look, Cat got China. She's so tiny, she'll fit right in!"
Tori laughed and was interested in where Jade was being sent, "Jade got England. You would think she would be happy about that…isn't that where a lot of Gothic architecture is?"
"I know why she's mad," Andre declared, looking at her with slight discomfort himself. He pointed to the paper on the wall.
Tori looked right where his finger landed, her eyes widening even more than they did when she found out her country. She couldn't help but read it aloud:
"Oliver, Beck: Japan."
()()()()()()()()()()()()()
Wow…so I finally decided to update. Like many of you, "Tori Goes Platinum" rekindled my interest in my story. In fact, I think waiting for this episode even added something better to this story that I wasn't first expecting. I'm sorry if some of you don't like Tori/Andre and read this, but I had to add backstory (Sikowitz would appreciate it). Plus, I was trying to give it a twist in such a way that it wasn't mushy. In coming chapters, Beck will get to tell his side of the story.
Thanks for reading!