Beck wasn't really sure whether he actually wanted to go to the party, or whether he wanted to be the kind of guy that wanted to go to those kind of things. His stunt double, Jace, had invited him, saying that there would be "tonnes of hot college chicks" there. Bashfully, Beck had waved off that prospect, and had been told that he had to "get back out there, man". Jace knew that Beck had recently broken up with his girlfriend. What he didn't know, however, was that there was a seven-month-old irrevocably tying the pair together. Safe to say, he had far too much baggage to be straight out there looking for a new girlfriend.

But Jace was cool and he wanted his colleagues to see him as the kind of guy that socialised at a whim, and could be the life of the party. Connections were the key to success, after all.

His colleagues didn't know about his responsibilities behind the scenes, nor did they need to. Going to this party was one way of suggesting that he was just a regular, if not cooler-than-average, sixteen-year-old.

Besides, Andre and Robbie, especially, were raring to go. Robbie, in particular, was practically buzzing with excitement as Jace jovially let them in, loudly informing the rest of the house that "the moviestar" had arrived.

Beck blushed as a crowd of girls turned to look at him. Their eyes drank him in, weighing up his hair, his face, his height and his clothes. He surprised himself by being relieved whey they generally seemed to approve, leaving no judgmental stares. He wasn't sure when he had started caring about others' opinions, but hey, it wasn't hurting him, was it?

If she hadn't been staring practically into hos soul, he might've missed the pretty blonde girl leaning against the back wall. Flanked by the crowd of similarly-dressed girls, she was a striking figure, but for Beck this was for a different reason to most.

He knew those eyes just a little too well.

With a gulp, he grabbed Andre's arm and pulled him and Robbie into a different room before the imposing figure of Amber Moore could get to him.

"Did you see that?" Beck practically panted, pulling a bewildered Andre in between himself and the direction of the door.

"I did not. What's going on, man?" Andre asked with a light chuckle, already eyeing up the beers on the table beside them.

"Amber's here."

"As in...?"

"Jade's sister, Amber, yeah."

"Shit, man." Andre raised his eyebrows as he reached for a bottle opener. "No girls for you tonight."

Beck shot him a look, although this went unnoticed as Andre focused on unsheathing his poison for the night. With a sigh, Beck reached for his own. With a timid glance at his friends Robbie followed suit.

"I'll just try to stay out of her way." Beck said, more to himself than the other boys. "She doesn't even like Jade so I don't know why she'd want to talk to me."

"Don't even stress, man." Andre said, once he'd taken his first swig of beer. "How often do we get to go to a college party. Come on, let's enjoy ourselves."

With a grimace, Beck followed Andre out of the room, taking note of the fact that they left via a different door to the one through which they had entered.

This aura of calm worked for a little while, to Andre's credit. With a few beers in his system, Beck was feeling lightly warm and good-spirited. People were interested in him, listening intently to what he had to say, even when it didn't involve the show. It was nice to have the spotlight, he had to admit.

He'd lost Andre pretty quickly, leaving him to play tonsil tennis in the corner of the room with a leggy photography student, whilst he was pretty sure that Robbie was hiding in the bathroom somewhere after a girl had asked him his favourite position and he had replied "I usually sleep on my back."

At present, he was stood by an old couch in what must be Jace's living room, although the discarded bottles and wrappers in every direction made it difficult to discern the different areas of the house.

He had just been considering going to grab another beer, and seeing if he could find Robbie on his way, when a short brunette girl practically weighed down by gold jewellery sashayed over to his corner.

"Cool party, huh?"

Beck grinned and nodded.

"How'd you know Jace?" She smiled, flicking her hair behind her shoulder and placing a hand on her hip.

"We work together."

"On the TV show?" She asked, looking even more interested.

Beck nodded.

"You're a stunt double?"

"I'm an actor." Beck replied, flashing her a million dollar smile.

The girl's mouth practically dropped to the floor. She leaned in to Beck's ear, so close that he could feel her warm breath on his skin. Her hand wrapped round his arm.

"I love actors." She whispered, with an umistakably flirty tone.

Beck pulled away and smiled goofily at her. In his uncertainty regarding what to say, a voice beside him got there first.

"Shouldn't you be looking after your baby?"

It was obvious who this would be without Beck even having to look. With a sigh, he turned to the side and looked into eyes so similar, yet somehow so different, to those he was so used to.

"Sorry?" He asked Amber.

"Why is my sister not sleeping so you can party with college kids?" Amber asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Since when do you care about Jade's sleep schedule?"

"I don't. But I care about deadbeat dads."

This garnered a few looks from around the room. The brunette girl looked a little uneasy, but remained stood in front of Beck. After a moment's consideration, Beck grabbed Amber's arm and pulled her into a nearby room, finding unexpected luck in the fact that it was empty.

"I'm not a deadbeat dad." He hissed at the girl, who looked royally pissed at having been manhandled and dragged into a different room.

Amber scoffed. They may have only shared half their DNA, but she and Jade were uncannily alike sometimes.

"Jade's dad is a deadbeat. I'm there for Toby."

"Are you?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "Because I live with her and I never see you."

"I work irregular hours."

This time she properly laughed. "Irregular hours? That's a good one. So this is another one of those irregular commitments, is it?"

Beck gritted his teeth. "I'm allowed to have a social life, Amber."

"Yeah? Jade doesn't seem to have one."

"Jade doesn't want one."

Amber looked incredulous. "You really think that? I thought you were the one that's supposed to 'get her'?"

When Beck said nothing, she continued. "Maybe if you looked after your child a little more, she could try and have a social life."

"Why are you acting like you care about Jade?" Beck asked, Amber's self-righteousness grating on his slightly tipsy mind.

"She's my sister."

This time it was Beck's turn to laugh. "Yeah, like that's ever meant anything before."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, you don't. You said it yourself - I get Jade. You think she sees you as someone who has her back? No one in your hateful family has ever had her back."

"How dare you!"

"I'm just telling the truth!"

"You have no right to talk about my family in that way!"

"You just can't face hearing the truth!"

"It's a fucking lie! Zac tried to throw you up a wall when you got her pregnant, for fuck's sake!"

"Zac? You're using him as an example? Zac only gives a shit about Jade when he can use her to make himself look big. He went from being angry at me for 'taking advantage of her' to slutshaming her in about ten seconds flat. You're all as bad as each other."

Amber was silent for a moment, taking in this information. "Yeah? And you think you're any different?"

Beck shook his head. "I've always loved Jade and tried to protect her and make her happy. None of you can say that."

"And you think she's happy now?" Amber scoffed. "She looks after that baby 24/7, she doesn't sleep, she doesn't eat, and yet you're here trying to impregnate half the Los Angeles student population."

"I'm not doing that."

"Well it sure looks like you are."

"I'm not looking for a girlfriend. And I know what my responsibilities are."

"Yeah? Why are you here then?"

"Jade doesn't want me around." Beck said, hoping that Amber wouldn't notice his avoidance of her question.

"You're just excuse after excuse." Amber said, shaking her head. "You really think that she wouldn't appreciate you going over so she could sleep or do some of that mountain of homework I bet you've never noticed."

Beck was far too ashamed to admit that he had in fact seen that, but it had only inspired feelings of disapproval regarding Jade's work ethic that he knew he couldn't voice aloud.

"Well, what's stopping you from going over there and helping her?" Beck growled, immediately on the defensive. "Oh wait, I forgot that you'd never voluntarily do something helpful for her."

"It's not my baby!"

"He's still your nephew! Not that that means anything to you, clearly - have you ever said something nice about him?"

In this moment, Amber was almost reminded that Toby was also Beck's son. Of course he would be protective over him.

"He's my nephew but he's your responsibility." Amber spat. "You'd do well to remember that."

Beck sighed irritably. "What do you want me to do, Amber? Huh? We're not together, I do what I can when I'm not working. We're kids with a kid - it's never gonna be easy."

"But it's always gonna be harder for Jade." Amber countered quickly. "I don't care if you don't like her or don't want to be with her, you could still try a little bit harder to help her with the child you created with her."

Beck stared at her silently.

"When he grows up he'll remember who was there." She said with an air of finality. She then picked up her drink and took a long swig, never breaking eye contact. The door was opened and closed, with Amber disappearing in a flash, before Beck could fully absorb what she had said.

The room felt eerily silent once he was alone in it, despite the thudding bass that reverberated from the next room along.

Beck didn't want to be alone with his own thoughts. He needed events like this to avoid the reality of his life of responsibilities, not to be reminded of them. He shook his head and pulled the door open.

The party had continued as normal, and he shot a meek smile at the couple of kids who had looked in his direction at the sound of the door opening. Those who didn't know him or Amber, or even probably some that did, had probably thought that something fairly untoward had happened in there. Certainly, if the unmissable smirk of a tall boy with a buzzcut and a letterman jacket was anything to go by.

Beck didn't have time to worry about things like that, although he did think that Jade hearing that kind of rumour really wouldn't help matters.

"You okay?" It was the brunette girl from earlier. She'd refilled her drink, and now had a second in hand. Batting her eyelashes at Beck, she held it out towards him.

"Thanks." He replied, taking the drink. He wasn't sure he was old enough to feel like he needed a drink, but if there was ever a time that that burning sensation was welcomed, he thought that it was probably now.

"It's Beck, right?" She asked and he nodded, staring down into the dark liquid of the solo cup.

"Jenna." She said, with a smile that Beck might've seen if he hadn't been so engrossed in his own thoughts.

"I'm a friend of Amber's." Jenna continued. "We go to college together."

"Cool." Beck said, with a nod.

"You wanna go outside? Get some air?" Jenna asked, her features stretching into a tight smile.

Beck looked up and took in this girl, pretty but unsubtly lusting after him, and the party around them. Everyone here was vapid and self-obsessed. He fit right in.

"I'm good." He replied.

Jenna's features flickered, before the smile regained its steadfastness. "We could always stay here, of course." She said, a shimmer in her eye.

"I'm not really interested, sorry." Beck replied, finally understanding that he had to make certain things abolutely clear.

Jenna cocked her head. "Huh? You sure about that?" And then, after a pause. "What did Amber say to you?"

Beck furrowed his brow. "Nothing. About you, anyway."

"Well, she's a liar anyway." Jenna said, moving closer to him.

"I'm really not-"

"I'm much more well-behaved." Jenna said, sultrily, now just an inch from Beck, who found himself closer to the wall than he would have liked.

"Although, I can be a little bad sometimes." At this, Jenna pushed her body right up to Beck's, snaking her hand up the front of his shirt.

Beck yelped, both at the sensation of her unwelcome cold hand on his chest, and the discomfort of the action. He jerked away from Jenna and, after an awkward smack against the wall behind him, was able to manouver around her and hastily away.

He didn't dare look back, unsure whether he was more afraid of a sight that would be terrifying or one that would be utterly pitiable.

Ignoring the irritated looks of those he shoved psst, Beck made his way to the front door and into the cool outside air.

He took a deep breath in as he walked around the side of the house, eventually finding a small, secluded step to perch on. He hoped that this would be far enough out of sight that it would save him from the wraths of both Jenna and Amber.

Finally alone, Beck was left to contemplate everything that had been unpacked on him that evening.

He didn't have a normal life, that he had known for a long time. But perhaps his was more conventional than Jade's? If, like Amber had suggested, he really was as bad as her family, then Jade had really been going through it. But surely he wasn't on their level, right?

He wasn't lying when he said that Jade didn't want him around. On their recent exchanges of Toby, she had seemed to want to get out of his vicinity before he could even attempt any awkward small talk. So, he was more than wary of the impact an increased physical presence could have. But that was no reason for him to fail to help her in any way.

One thing that Amber had said had stuck with him more than the rest of her daggered jibes.

"She doesn't eat."

Beck hated how late he'd been to notice it, but he knew Amber was right. The last few times he'd seen Jade, she was noticeably pallid and gaunt. She'd always been slim, and her tall frame had often emphasised this, but never before had he found her bones so noticeable. It was an odd way to describe another person, but it was true. Jade was seemingly shrinking - away from others, into herself, but also physically. Her skin was becoming a vacuum around her skeleton.

He hadn't seen Jade's meals lately, which was almost a bigger concern than if he'd seen her constantly eating only salads or fat-free yoghurts. Come to think of it, he really couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Jade eat at all.

With a new sense of urgency, Beck pulled out his phone and hurried to Jade's contact.

He cringed a little as he saw the businesslike manner of their recent texts. It was all monosyllables and formalities regarding Toby; an onlooker would find it difficult to believe that they had once been each others' everything.

His thumbs hovered over the keyboard as he pondered what to say. He didn't have to be the Jade expert that he had once been to know that she was extremely prideful, loath to accept charity even when it was desperately needed. He had to play this cleverly and carefully.

Hey

He sent the message before he had fully devised a follow-up and internally cursed himself. It was past midnight; if she was awake, Jade would surely think this was some kind of booty call. Hurrying up with the second message was imperative.

Was wondering if you could do me a favour

Although it could well still be sex-related, Beck hoped that this would be more likely to pique Jade's interest than her disgust. More importantly, however, he hoped that it would extinguish her prideful impulse to immediately reject his offer.

Because I've been working so much I've got loads of uneaten food just sitting around in the RV

Don't want it to go mouldy and stink up my RV so would you mind taking it next time you're there

You can give it to Luke or whatever, up to you

He sent the final text and let out a breath that he hadn't even known he was holding. Although he didn't feel at all drunk, he hoped that no nervousness or alcohol-tinged stupidity had leaked into his words. He needed Jade to accept this offer. He didn't even care if she demanded a favour in response, so long as it meant that she was eating.

It wasn't much - certainly nothing he could pat himself on the back for - but it was a start. She could continue to hate him, but he'd much rather she did so with a full stomach.