Jade no longer worried about missing out on things. It was simply her expectation that life would continue on for everyone else, and that each day she would slip further and further away until her existence was totally separate to anyone or anything else.

Her constant absences made it so that she barely knew when things were happening anyway. This, coupled with the fact that she barely picked up her phone, meant that she was completely outside of the social scene. And therefore was not included in the gang's much-awaited trip to the set of Beck's show. Not that she would've wanted to go, mind, even if she'd had the time. She was pretty sure that Beck was already sleeping with one of his co-stars, and, had she been invited, she would've dreaded the looks she would get if Beck's colleagues found out that this grey wizened old doll was the girl to whom he had once devoted the entirety of his heart.

It was probably for the best that she wasn't there, for a complicated multitude of reasons. Without her presence, Beck's friends were free to have fun, gleeful at the novelty of being on a real-life TV set.

"This really is so so cool." Tori grinned and Beck beamed, as though he himself had built the set with his bare hands.

"What's this way?" Asked Cat, pointing towards a handful of doors away from the 'action'.

"That's catering." Beck explained. "Full of free pasta and cupcakes."

"Cupcakes?"

"Even red velvet."

Cat gasped. "Can we go? Please, please!"

"But there's so much more to see, Cat." Beck replied, and Cat pouted.

"I can go on my own." Cat argued, and the rest of the gang all experienced wide-eyed fear at the thought of Cat left alone with a table full of unguarded cupcakes.

Andre gave Robbie a sly nudge and he stepped forward, like a slightly awkward knight.

"I'll go with you Cat. It might be fun - we can see what else is around that way." He suggested, and Cat shrieked with glee. Before another word could be spoken, she had grabbed his hand and begun to pull him towards the direction of catering, their remaining friends looking on in humorous disbelief.

"She's crazy." Beck chuckled, and Andre smiled in agreement, whilst Tori only looked on in concern. "Hey do you wanna go to my trailer?"

The trailer was smaller than Tori had thought it would be, a room just about big enough for the purple couch and oak coffee table that had been stuffed inside it. On one wall was a large television screen, whilst a generic-looking painting covered its opposite. A couple of scripts lay unopened on the table, whilst the only other decorative fixture in the room was a small frame of Beck and his parents on a shelf by the door. Tori noted with surprise that there was nothing related to Toby present within the trailer.

"So, what do you think?" Beck asked, arms wide. He was greeted with a resounding chorus of approval, Tori's eyes rooted to the scripts on the table, whilst Andre stood back and admired the significance of the trailer as a whole.

Beck gestured for the pair to sit down, but almost as soon as the words had left his mouth, Andre's phone rang and he apologetically excused himself, explaining with nervousness that it was his infamous grandmother.

Which left just Tori and Beck. Single Tori and single Beck. Alone. In an enclosed space. Whatever could be the problem?

"So, this is pretty cool." Tori said quite suddenly, her nervousness coming out as awkwardness.

Beck paid this no heed. "So cool. These are the kind of things you dream of. Your name on a show. Your own trailer. It's awesome."

His smile was so wide and genuine that Tori found herself falling deeper in love. She'd never known the maddening effect of someone else's happiness upon herself, but right now there was nothing more she hoped for beyond this boy retaining that pretty smile.

She smiled back. "It's amazing, really. I know we're all so proud of you."

Beck looked visibly touched by this. "Thanks, Tori, I didn't know you cared so much."

Tori let out a half-gasp, half-laugh. "Of course we care. We're your friends."

Beck shook his head. "No, I mean you. I didn't know you cared about me like that."

Tori cocked her head to the side. Was there something in that? Beck was looking at her in a way she felt that he hadn't before. He seemed more… serious. More understanding.

"Well, I do." She spoke, her voice raspy with nerves.

And then she was leaning in and their lips were touching and her hands were around his neck and his hands were… pushing her away.

Softly, of course. But, unmistakably, away from himself. He had pulled out of the kiss before it had even begun.

Beck had rejected her.

"Oh god, I didn't mean to-" She stuttered.

"It's fine, honestly." Beck replied, awkwardly, his cheeks tinged pink.

"I just- I-"

"Don't worry about it."

There was something about Beck's dismissiveness, his refusal to acknowledge what had just happened, that felt like the gutting blow to Tori.

Her lower lip began to wobble and she tore her eyes away from Beck's.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Tori didn't reply. She didn't look up. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing the wobble in her voice, or the tears flooding her eyes.

There was a long pause between the two before Tori finally looked up. At Beck's apologetic, pitying face, she almost looked away immediately, but then he began to speak.

"I'm really sorry Tori." Beck said, a painful authenticity to his words. "I… I think you're great." At Tori's sceptical look, he added "Really I do!"

"I think you're smart and cute and funny and talented, but…"

"Not Jade."

Beck nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. I know we just broke up and we're not really on the best of terms but… Jade's still the only girl on my mind. And probably will be for a long time. I like you Tori, but as a friend. I hope we can, y'know, still be friends?"

Tori's cheeks flushed red. Whatever result she had been expecting from finally making her move, it certainly hadn't been the pitying climax that she was facing now. Beck was quite simply embarrassed for her, but even this couldn't match the levels of shame she harboured for herself. What on earth had she been thinking? She should never have tried to move so quickly. She should've waited for Beck to make his move - that would've been far less idiotic. So much for being 'smart' as Beck had put it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Her dream had come crashing down. The entire time she'd known Beck, she'd thought that Jade had been in their way, and that divine timing would rectify the misfortune that was Beck meeting Jade first. But really, all along, Beck hadn't wanted her. They hadn't been together because Beck hadn't wanted them to be together, and that was simply too much for Tori to take.

With a poorly stifled sob, she leapt from the gaudy couch and threw herself out of the door. Beck's calls for her to come back were drowned out by her own gasping cries.

Andre, only seconds after finishing a call with his grandmother, shaken from trying to wash her clothes in a blender, had quite sensibly expected he'd had his fill of hysterical women that day. He was, therefore, mightily surprised when Tori, who only minutes prior had been perfectly fine, sprinted out of Beck's trailer, carried by the unmistakable sounds of sobbing.

Beck quickly appeared at the doorway of the trailer, but with one look back at his frustrated face, Andre knew the task was his own.

"Tori!" He yelled, heading off into the depths of the parking lot after his weeping friend.

The difference in the pair's athleticism and height meant that it would always have been a futile attempt for Tori to fully pull away from Andre. With the addition of the tears masking her view, it took Andre only seconds to catch up.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" He asked, concerned etched onto his features.

Tori merely shook her head, wordlessly.

Andre sighed. Something had clearly happened. Why was it that upset girls were constantly left in Beck's wake? After a moment of contemplation, he calculated a risk, before instructing Tori to remain in place and sprinting to and from catering. He returned with two cups of steaming coffee and led Tori to a bench. With a lump still loitering at the back of her throat, Tori wasn't sure that she could manage the drink, but she was grateful for something upon which to focus her attention, at least, as Andre talked to her.

"Tell me what's wrong. From the beginning. Please."

Tori hadn't been expecting to spill anything, really. This whole time, it had been her shameful yet gorgeous secret. It was her life, her feelings, and now, unfortunately, her heartbreak. She was eager for it to stay that way.

But there was something about Andre's gaze, completely and wholly compassionate, that opened the floodgates. In that moment she realised that he didn't have feelings for her. She wasn't sure what it was, or why she trusted it, given her inability to gauge feelings over the past few months, but there was something in that moment that told her that Andre did not in fact love her. Maybe he looked at her like Beck had.

But, strangely, it didn't hurt; sure, she wasn't in love with Andre, but a double rejection in the space of minutes wasn't easy.

Although it wasn't that, she realised. Because Andre was there. And whilst something in his eyes told her that he wasn't in love with her, it also told her that he did in fact love her, as a friend. He was here because he cared.

And so she told him everything.

To his credit, Andre listened intently, without interruption, as Tori told him of her feelings when she first arrived at Hollywood Arts - how quickly she had fallen for Beck, only to be equally devastated and disturbed to learn of Jade and Toby's existence. She had tried to ignore it and send the feelings away, she truly had, she insisted to Andre, ignoring the nagging sensation that she should tell him that she really hadn't wanted to. She told him of her struggles with understanding Beck's relationship with Jade, certainly complicated by the depth of her own feelings for him, and how this made a friendship between her and Jade so difficult.

"I don't even know if I even wanted to be friends with her." She admitted. "But I like being liked. And it was so hard to not be liked by both Beck and Jade."

Andre listened cautiously, trying his best to be compassionate and both act surprised at revelations that had been obvious, but also not react to wildly to the feelings of hers with which he had not been familiar.

"I honestly thought he liked me too. It's naïve, I know, but… I've never felt this way about someone before. And if it had worked out…"

Her eyes brimmed with fresh tears and Andre threw an arm around her, pulling her into his side. He was sure that she probably thought he was trying to snake in there in her emotional state, but he would remain there until she sent him away. She plainly needed someone right now, and he would always be that person to whomever needed it.

"It's hard Tori, I can see that." He spoke, after a long time of listening. "And it'll continue to be hard, I won't deny that. But you will get through this. You are a strong person with strong feelings, and that's why this is affecting you so much. You love so deeply, and that's amazing. But love can harm just as easily as it can heal."

Tori sniffled sadly, finding little comfort at Andre's words.

"But, Tori, listen to me. You have your whole life ahead of you. You're seventeen and you're a kind, considerate, clever and hard-working person. Things fall into place for people like you. Yes, right now things are tough, and you feel like you'll never get rid of these emotions, but I promise you that you will. You might love him right now, but it'll pass. And you'll find something so much greater."

Tori looked up at Andre's bashful smile, grateful that she had realised that he didn't actually fancy her, or she would've been wildly unnerved by that proposition.

He spoke so poetically, that it just about sowed the seeds belief that she needed to feel as though things would get better. Because he was right, hell - Beck had been right, too! She was smart and cute and funny and talented and she would get past this. She was too strong not to.

She and Beck wouldn't be together, but that was okay - they weren't meant to be.

Her next step now was finding a way to be friends with him. Nothing major for a strong-willed, independent woman like herself. It would be easy, straightforward, piece of cake.

Right?