Final Project

XXXII.

"Why is everyone staring?" Tori asked lowly to Beck as they walked through the doors of their high school.

Beck looked around, but noticed that not a single person was looking at them. He shot a glance at his girlfriend and saw the worried look in her eyes, "Tori, no one's staring, it's just your imagination. I'm sure no one else even knows what's going on."

This just made Tori feel like everyone was avoiding eye contact with her for a reason. Did they feel scared to acknowledge her presence because of what Jade might do to them? She couldn't blame them. The janitor's closet was straight ahead, and if Jade dragged anyone in there…well, it became an unspoken rule that whatever happens in there, stays in there.

"Tori Vega!" Tori jumped upon hearing her name screamed so loud and her nails dug into Beck's shoulder out of fear. But when she looked, she saw that it was only Helen walking toward her. She was holding a clipboard and strutting as though she wore a crown on her head.

Before Tori had time to respond, Helen started: "I've been going over the list of what song needs to be marked "The Graduation Song" for this year," she put the title in finger quotation marks, seeming annoyed that she had to worry about such trivial things, "And the one I've decided on is your and Andre Harris's song "Here's 2 Us." Sounds like as good a graduation song as I've ever come across. So on graduation night, the two of you will perform, okay?"

Why…why, why, WHY did Helen have to come to her with this now?! Didn't she have enough to worry about without adding this to the pile?

"Umm…" she only slightly loosened her grip on Beck, "I don't know, I'll have to talk to Andre about—."

"It wasn't a request," Helen stated firmly, her eyes remaining wide but her tone becoming firm, "I didn't waste a week of my life to change it now."

Tori and Beck just stared at the terrifying woman for a second, even jumping when she very suddenly put on a huge smile and waved her fingers goodbye at them.

Tori turned a terrified glance to Beck, but Beck tried to offer a small smile of encouragement, "Hey, look on the bright side. Andre will have to talk to you now, right?"

Groaning, she looked around to see if she spotted anyone she knew, and when she didn't, she basically sprinted over to her locker, but stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes fell on the horror that occupied her locker space.

Instead of her beautiful "MAKE IT SHINE" words amidst a number of bright stars, there was the horrid "MAKE IT ROT" with slightly more greenish stars surroundings the horrible words.

Tori's bag dropped from her shoulder to the floor and she felt her heart jump into her throat. Her chest began rising and falling at an alarming rate, and she was sure she'd never been so absolutely terrified in her whole life. Her body went numb and her eyes blurred over into an almost blackened state.

"Tori, what's wrong?!" Beck asked as he rushed over to her, but when he followed her eyes, he saw what he previously thought she only imagined all those years ago.

"She's back…she's back!" Tori yelled, trying to get her body to react to her distress by reaching into her pocket to take out her phone and call the cops.

But then she heard familiar laughter come from around the corner, and when both her and Beck looked, they saw Jade leaning against the wall and clapping slowly, a smug smile on her face, "Bravo. What a performance, truly."

Slowly, Tori began to get feeling back in her body parts, "You…you did this?"

Jade crossed her arms, "Don't look so relieved. You of all people should know that I'm worse than that crazy girl you put behind bars."

In a way, Tori knew she was right, but her experience with Ponnie had been the most deeply unsettling thing that had ever rested itself inside of her psyche, and seeing that it was Jade was confusingly a relief.

Beck shook his head and quickly picked up Tori's bag, "Jade, that was completely uncalled for," he said with surprising hatred, his blood boiling with anger.

"Oh, really?" Jade uncrossed her arms and stepped toward the couple, "I can think of many reasons that called for it. Morning amusement for one."

"You know that—," Beck started but Tori held up her hand for him to stop, because they were already making a scene and she didn't want to have this conversation in front of the rest of the school, especially when she was still trying to get her heart rate to become normal again.

Beck stopped for her, mostly because he was worried she would have a heart attack. He watched her swallow roughly though, before she spoke evenly, "Where did you find this?"

Jade shrugged, "It was around. But I quite like this locker better, don't you?" She asked with false pleasantry, turning to admire the upgrade, "I mean, it really describes what you do to people's relationships, doesn't it?"

"Jade—," Beck started again, but Tori once more held up her hand. She shook her head at him, her eyes telling him to let it go.

This didn't go unnoticed to Jade, who became enraged by it, "Oh, I see. So you tell me I'm too controlling, but she holds up a hand to shut you up and it's all dandy?"

Beck opened his mouth to reply, but Tori beat him to it, "I'm not doing that to disrespect him…I'm doing it so we all keep our respect…" Tori glanced around slowly, realizing that what she was dreading was coming to light when a few people stopped to see if there was going to be a fight.

"Don't you dare act like you have any respect!" Jade yelled, taking a huge step forward so she was standing right against Tori, "Who the hell do you think you are talking to me about respect?!"

Not wanting fists to fly, Beck tried to step in between them, but Jade pushed him back as hard as she could, "I wouldn't suggest you come near me again, Beck."

Tori was terrified, there was no denying that, and there was no doubt in her mind that she would leave the school with a bruised eye or two. But by now, a huge crowd had gathered around them and she knew without even looking that most, if not all, of them were recording it on their phones.

Tori's flight-or-fight instincts were going into overdrive, and while her hands twitched to throw a punch, her feet ached to turn and run.

"HEY!"

The loud, male scream echoed throughout the hall, causing everyone to hush and break apart slightly to see who was yelling. Tori turned around as well, hoping that it wasn't Helen just using her deepest voice possible to show how pissed she was.

But when her eyes landed on Andre, who looked flushed and pissed just as much, she was only slightly relieved. Andre only held her stare for a very brief millisecond before he glared around at everyone else, "There's not going to be a fight, so you might as well just go about your own mediocre lives!" His words seem to burn for most of the school's population, as they immediately began walking away from the scene.

Andre then turned his eyes back to the two girls, though made sure not to make any direct eye contact, "And y'all are stupid for wanting to get suspended one week before graduation."

With that, he shook his head and walked to his locker with annoyance, pounding on his keyboard combination to open it up.

Tori…was in shock. She really didn't know how else to feel. Between being seconds away from fighting with the strongest girl in school, to having the whole school know about her problems, to Andre basically saving her life (or at least her face), the day was not going exactly as she had planned.

Jade now only had unrelieved anger built up inside her, and when Beck wrapped his arm around Tori, it only burst with pressure, "You better watch your back, Andre! You're next on my list!"

Andre didn't even give her the satisfaction of looking at her, but this outburst seemed to only make Tori upset, "Why are you taking your anger out on Andre?! He never did a single thing to you!"

Jade glared at her, taking small, threatening steps toward the gentler girl, "You're even stupider than I thought if you truly believe that," she noticed that Tori went rigid and it gave her great satisfaction that she was so intimidated by her, "He's the one that brought you here. He's the reason I lost Beck to a gank like you. If it wasn't for him, I would have never met you and my life would be much…much better."

Saying all this with a normal tone sent a chill down Tori's spine. She wanted to defend Andre…to tell her that her actions had nothing to do with Andre, but hearing Jade's side of the argument, Tori couldn't argue against her causal accusations

She did know one thing, however: Jade was definitely not Andre's new girl.

Jade shot one last look of hatred at them before stomping away. Tori sighed deeply and looked at the revolting thing that was her locker.

"You okay?" Beck asked as he ran a hand up and down her back.

"Yeah, I just…" She shot a glance back over to Andre as he got books out of his locker, "Hey, I think I'm gonna try to talk to Andre, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, okay," Beck said quickly, moving his hand up to her shoulder and giving it a small squeeze, "I'll see you in class, okay?"

Tori nodded, meeting him half way for the quick peck he planted on her lips, but as soon as he walked away, Tori looked around to see if anyone had been paying attention. Practically the whole hallway averted their gaze from her at once. She sighed. So much for keeping on the down low.

Biting her bottom lip, she almost glided her way over to Andre, afraid her footsteps would make him run for some reason.

She stopped five feet away from him. Getting any closer to him without asking permission seemed so taboo right now. She wringed her hands together, opening her mouth to speak, when she suddenly jumped out of her skin when he slammed his locker shut and turned to head to class.

He obviously didn't know she was standing there, because he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. She was given a chance to speak in this moment, but she waited a few seconds too long, and before she knew it, he was walking past her without evening giving her another look.

Closing her eyes to ask for courage within, she spun around to face him again, "Helen wants us to sing at our graduation ceremony."

Andre stopped suddenly, and Tori could clearly see his back tensing up. She was almost relieved when he turned around to face her, but then she saw the annoyed look in his eyes as he said, "Really, Tori? That's what you have to say to me?"

He didn't wait for an answer, but instead continued on his way to class, his figure disappearing around the corner. Tori sucked in a deep breath and looked around again, realizing that all eyes averted away from her immediately again. School was clearly not the place to have personal conversations.

To Andre's credit, bringing up what Helen said was a crappy conversation starter when it came to everything else she wanted to say to him. She wanted to try to explain herself. She wanted to know about his new girl. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. She wanted to know what Jade told him when they were in different countries. She wanted to know what she could do to keep his friendship. She wanted to know why he sent that text to Beck.

During the weekend, Tori managed to ask Beck about that text. Beck confessed that he asked Andre if his new girl was Jade by chance. Beck was very reluctant to let her see what Andre texted back, but Tori was adamant about it and finally, Beck just gave her his phone instead of having to read it aloud.

Tori was shocked at the words on the screen:

Andre: Unlike you, I don't do sloppy seconds.

Tori realized that Andre said that out of anger, but it still hurt.

She was going to have to go over his house later…it was going to be the only way she'll ever be able to talk to him without worrying about eves droppers. She just had to get through Sikowitz's class, then the rest of the day should go by fairly uneventful (she hoped).

As she made her way to class, Cat and Robbie finally came out of the janitor's closet, hoping that any and all fighting was temporarily over so they didn't get pressured into taking sides.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

Hello, everyone. Sorry for the long delay. School's in full force, so my time it eaten away pretty easily. I honestly meant for this chapter to be longer, but I got out what I could and did my best to set up for the next chapter. I'm still sad about how Victorious ended. I don't think I have anything else to say...