Melodious Endgame

III.

The next morning arrived at a snail's pace. Despite only getting five hours of sleep the night before, Tori had a hard time falling asleep. She couldn't stop thinking about that last text Andre sent and how it made her feel. If she was nervous about seeing him before, now it was nervousness times ten but also with a mixture of eagerness and something else she couldn't quite place.

Over the years, Andre's random texts had this sort of effect on her. Ever since the moment she returned from Japan, she wanted nothing more than his forgiveness. The regret of what she did to him weighed heavy on her heart and it never left, no matter how much she tried to ignore it or move past it.

Tori thought when Beck arrived in New York that she would finally be happy. It was just the two of them in a new state with a fresh slate. The first day was great; going around the city with him made her remember the fun they had together in Japan. When they got back to her apartment, she was able to introduce Beck to Lana and Jake and it made her remember when they met Shiori. Both of her roommates thought Beck was absolutely gorgeous and they questioned why she never mentioned him before.

And they were the ones that brought up him moving in with them, because splitting rent four ways was much better than three. Tori started to feel some anxiety set in at this arrangement that felt out of her hands.

The second day, Beck brought her along to check out the location where his TV show would begin filming in a few days. The show was called Diabolical. Tori thought it sounded pretty intense but was hardly surprised to find out it was just another teen drama. There were no other actors on set, but a lot of the crew were busy getting everything in place. Beck told her that if she hung around enough while they were filming, that she could likely land some sort of role. Tori reminded him of what happened last time she hung around on the set when he was trying to work.

On the third day, Tori had to go to classes. In between some of her classes, she worked part-time at the campus registrar. It was when she was filing some documents that thee text message came through. She felt the vibration and took out her phone without much thought. But then she saw the text from Andre.

Andre: Thanks, Tori

And just like that, she started keeping up with everything that he did in his career. It started off just reading through some short interviews he did with magazines or watching his appearances on talk shows. Short demo clips were teased as his album was being promoted and she swore she listened to each of them a hundred times a day.

One evening she was on her laptop at the kitchen table when Beck finally asked her what she was doing. Excitedly, she played Andre's single and told Beck about how successful Andre already was, despite high school only ending half a year ago. Beck thought this news was awesome as well, but soon started to realize that it was almost all Tori would talk about.

About three weeks into his stay in New York, he thought he finally had her back to himself. He was lying in bed, and she was sitting next to him finishing up a paper for school. When she yelled, "Done!" Beck was already wrapping his arm around her waist and burying his face into her stomach, "Now we can have some fun?"

She giggled when his fingers trailed up her side, feeling the heat when he then pressed his palm against her hip, tugging her to him. "I just need to post this and then I'm all yours."

"Finallyyyy," he moaned against her skin, already kissing wherever he could reach.

Tori opened a new tab on her computer, ready to go to her school's portal, but the news popped up first. And algorithms know what to show to users to get hits. And Andre Harris was the most searched name in Tori's browser history.

Rising Star Andre Harris: Album Release Date

"Oh my god!" Tori shrieked in excitement, and it made Beck sit up quickly, thinking her computer crashed or she lost her documents.

"What happened?!"

"Andre's album for a release date!" Tori clicked on the link and though she knew the date would be at the very end of the article, she still read over all the praise that was given before scrolling onto it: "December 6th! That's only a month away! How does he work so fast?" She snatched her phone from the nightstand, "I have to tell him congrats on the release date."

As she opened her messages, she felt strong eyes on her. She slowly turned to Beck to see him staring at her in bewilderment.

"…What?" she asked.

"Um…it's just…you're always…" Beck stumbled over his words before settling on, "I was trying to have a moment with you, and you bringing up Andre is a little…weird."

"Oh…" Tori blushed when he pointed this out to her.

"It's been weird,' he added now that they were on the subject, "Even when you come to set with me, every time I look over at you, you're looking at something on your phone and I only assume…" he trailed off.

Tori looked back down at her phone, caught between wanting to type the message but knowing she should put her phone down and talk to Beck about this. She turned her screen off and placed it back on the nightstand. She felt embarrassed to be called out like that.

"I guess I'm just proud of him…I mean, aren't you? He is your….mm, was…is your best friend, don't you want to see him succeed?"

"Tori…" Beck sighed and dropped his head back to the wall, "Yes, I'm glad he's doing so well, but…I think we have to face reality of what we did here. I don't talk to Jade anymore. And it doesn't seem like you talk to Andre, you just keep tabs on what he's doing and it's a little…" he trailed off and Tori couldn't even turn to look at him as he searched for the right word.

"Distasteful."

She widened her eyes in shock before narrowing them quickly, "Distasteful? What's distasteful is when your coworkers flirt with you and you don't do anything to discourage it!"

Beck looked at her like she lost it, "How is it my fault they act like that? They all know you're my girlfriend."

"And yet you allow them to do it even when I'm right there," Tori countered.

He shook his head, "Now you're just sounding like Jade…"

Tori could do nothing but stare at him with her mouth open. She didn't even know what to say to that. And even though he looked like he wanted to take it back, he kept silent. She couldn't even meet his gaze anymore. She looked away and stared straight ahead, "You know…the last time we had an argument, you said the exact same thing. I'm starting to think you'll be comparing me to her every time we fight."

"No, it's just—."

"And also…I'm starting to realize why Jade seemed so crazy. All those times she got jealous, you did nothing to ease her worries. You played the role of the innocent bystander, but never once did you turn girls down outright."

"Tori, c'mon…"

"And she never really wanted to be my friend because of how you were with me."

Beck sat forward to try to catch her gaze again, "You were different though…I always felt something more with you."

"Always?" Tori's head turned toward him but kept her eyes down.

"From the moment you spilled coffee on me," he said lowly, clearly talking about their literal first meeting.

Tori covered her face with her hands and rubbed roughly. She was feeling so frustrated, and she couldn't quite place her finger on why. But it had been like this since the time her and Beck started to get too close in Japan. She didn't want anything to happen. Not really. But he was either pushing her to be with him or giving her the cold shoulder. She still remembered the feeling of isolation in Japan after she told him that they couldn't be together, and she wouldn't break up with Andre. He hardly spoke more than five words to her. Like he couldn't even be her friend anymore. The more she thought about it, the more manipulative the whole situation felt.

She mumbled something into her hands, but Beck couldn't hear her and questioned what she said. She took her hands away and repeated in a whisper, "I wasn't ready…"

"Ready for what?"

She had so many things she wanted to say to that. 'I wasn't ready to hear about your feelings for me. I wasn't ready to be kissed by you. I wasn't ready to have sex for the first time…"

Instead, what she said was, "I wasn't ready to break up with Andre."

Beck, understandably, was in complete disbelief upon hearing this confession. But it didn't take him long to think back to the moment when Andre caught him and Tori kissing on camera. That was their breakup. Tori never actually did say the words to call it off with him.

"Look, Sweetheart…I know I put you in a tough spot…and I'm truly sorry about that. But…" he ran his hands through his hair, almost afraid of what her answer was going to be to his next question, "that was six months ago now. Do you…do you still have regrets?"

Tori didn't respond, but the answer was loud and clear. Beck slumped back against the headboard feeling dumbstruck. He knew Tori was having a hard time coming to terms with how things went down in Japan and all the fallouts in California. He remembered her saying she couldn't wait to get to New York to start fresh. And when he woke up the first morning that she was gone with a note that said nothing more than "I love you. Don't follow me. Not now' he only thought that she wanted him to come up with a plan to move to NY with her. And he did just that. So why was she still not allowing them to just be happy?

He snapped out of his thoughts when she sobbed. Tori brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She buried her face in her legs and wept, "I'm so sorry…"

Beck's heart clenched at not only her tears, but what her words were wanting to say. He did not expect this night to go like this. All he wanted was for Tori to finish her school paper and then for them to spend the rest of the night skin to skin. But now…

He had to ask her pointblank:

"Are you breaking up with me?"

Tori was apparently awful at ending things because she couldn't even say the one word she needed to. She started crying harder and though she appreciated Beck's steady hand on her back, she didn't think he would even want to comfort her this much if he knew the biggest reason for her tears. All she could think was 'I ruined everything for this?'

But the two of them somehow came out of the relationship with their friendship relatively unscathed. At the beginning, Beck found himself hoping that if they could maybe start over that their relationship could last. But the more time passed, the more he realized that Tori had no intension of trying again with him. The chemistry they always felt between each other was never meant to be more than friends. He eventually found himself asking his one costar out on a date when they finished wrapping up season one.

Tori continued to focus on school and in her second year, there was, unbeknownst to her at the time, a scouting agent that came to one of her performances and she was asked to submit a demo to his studio. She did and then got a call almost immediately to their recording studio to sing for the head honchos. The whole thing happened so quickly she thought she'd never catch her breath. She still wanted to finish school but didn't want to pass up the chance to release a single and record an album with Fever Dreams Records.

She swore she was about to wear herself thin with school during the day and singing at night, but as soon as her first song hit the air, she received a text.

Andre: just heard Watch This on the radio. Congrats on getting your first song out there

And just like that, her drive skyrocketed. She wanted to do more and more and climb that ladder and get a hundred, no, a thousand, of these sorts of texts from Andre.

Sure enough, she worked herself to the bone. Late nights with songwriters, working with different musicians and wanting to learn how to play the guitar better for her own songs, finding the right pitch and sound to make her own trademark. Eight months later they were finally ready to start recording, and another month later, they were ready to set a release date for the album. It was merely a coincidence that they were near the end of the year, and she could choose December 6th as the date. Exactly three years after Andre's first album release date.

Andre: Congrats on the album release date! Dec 6 is a lucky day

The smile that lit up her face was enough to make everyone think that she already reached #1 on the charts. All her hard work paid off.

...

...

Back in the present, Tori couldn't stop having all these years' worth of ups, downs, and accomplishments run through her mind. She worked her ass off not only for herself, but to eventually have this opportunity to work with Andre again. She wasn't sure if it would ever actually manifest, but when Emily brought up the need for fresh new songs the night before, Tori knew she finally had her chance.

Her alarm went off. She grabbed her phone in disbelief. 5:00am. Did she even get a wink of sleep? How did she feel so wired? She jumped out of bed, excited for Emily to pick her up in an hour. Their flight to Chicago would take off in four hours. Then four hours after that, she'll be landing in Chicago. Would they be going straight to Andre's studio from the airport?

She hoped so.