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Tori knew there was something more to Jade; and she was determined to see it. See her. Ever since Jade had come to her that first time she and Beck had broken up, when she saw there was more to Jade than the surface level she presented, she knew. It was why she kept trying- no matter how many times Jade put her down, pushed her around, Tori knew there was more to her than that. So she kept trying. She acted as if Jade didn’t hate her.
Truthfully, she didn’t know how Jade felt about her. She had no idea if Jade actually hated her or not; sometimes, she thought she did. But other times Jade would show her a glimpse of what she hid, the person that was underneath, and it made Tori keep fighting.
Jade knew what Tori was doing. She wasn’t blind, or stupid. She was completely aware; she just didn’t want to let Tori get close. Jade had spent years perfecting her public persona. She wasn’t going to let it down for one girl; no matter how hard that girl tried to get close to her, or care about her. She didn’t need Vega’s pity, or charity. But sometimes she would throw Tori a bone, show her what she was dying to see. (Sometimes it came out without her meaning to.)
Deeper than that, though, Jade didn’t want to hurt someone else. She hurt Tori with her words, petty insults, sure - but that was surface level. Jade knew that if she let Tori in, she would hurt her: and it would be real. It would be the kind of hurt she couldn’t brush off, or forgive, or make her forget about with a better attitude. Because Jade knew that everything she touched, she broke. Everyone who got close to her got hurt. It happened with her parents, it happened with her friends, and it happened with Beck. Beck, who wouldn’t give up on her, who was determined that there was a better person underneath all her anger. Just like Tori. And she hurt him even worse because she was too selfish to let him go, no matter how many chances she got. But she wasn’t going to do that again.
So she kept her distance. She tried to push Tori away.
But somehow, it seemed Tori was the most stubborn idiot on the planet.
And somehow, it seemed Jade had gotten sloppy. Or she just stopped caring.
Because no matter how hard she tried to deny or bury it, she was lonely. She was human, and she craved contact, and friendship. She wanted to be loved. And there was Tori, with her stupid kindness and her stupid caring, and her two years of not running away no matter how much Jade pushed. And Jade knew on some level that if she didn’t change things soon, she was going to end up alone. And as much as she didn’t want to hurt people, she wanted even less to be alone.
She was terrified of being alone. She thought that maybe if she self-imposed her isolation, it would be different; if she left, instead of being left, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. But she was wrong. It wasn’t any better. And now that her and Beck were split for good, and she was truly alone in the world - no one to think about her at night, to call when she wanted to end it all - she knew she couldn’t do it for long.
Not that she could ever actually end it all. (She had almost tried, a few times. She could never bring herself to do it.) She couldn’t do that to Beck- he would think it was his fault, for leaving her alone. And it wouldn’t be his fault, it would be hers: for being the way she was, for pushing him away, but he would blame himself regardless, and she couldn’t do that to him.
Begrudgingly, she also realized that her friends would probably be upset. Vega, at the very least: ‘what if I had tried harder, pushed more, I could have done something’. Vega had such a hero complex, always having to help people, even if it got her into more trouble. Jade hated it. (She admired it.) It was annoying and childish. (She admired the way Tori had seen the shit the would could offer and still get up, smile, and tell it to have a nice day, and mean it.) She hated a lot of things about Tori; but most of all, she hated that for some reason, she wanted to let her in. (She knew damn well what that reason was, even if she didn’t want to admit it.)
But Jade was scared. She was scared that she couldn’t change, that her fear was too big of an obstacle, that she would let Tori in a little bit and then shut her out so harshly she wouldn’t come back. Or that she would let her in and inadvertently hurt her, ruin her. Make her leave, like she did with Beck - but like Beck, it wouldn’t be sudden. It would be months of back and forth toxicity, fighting, hurting. Because that’s what Jade was good at.
No matter how many songs she wrote, entries she journaled, she couldn’t bring herself to make the change. She had spent years shielding herself from the world. And yeah, she wasn’t going to let it all go, she was only letting one person in - but it would be one more person than she had let in in years. She wasn’t ready to be hurt again. Truthfully, she didn’t know if she could take it.
Jade knew she was a bit broken. She had hid it very well from the therapist her parents (and the school) had made her see years ago, but she didn’t need a psychologist to tell her what was wrong with her. She knew. She knew all about her issues, and why they stemmed: but before recently, she never had a reason to care about changing any of it. Her methods worked for her. She was unapproachable, invincible, dangerous. Nobody knew that they were actually the dangerous ones. When she had told Tori that she liked that boys were afraid to ask her out, she meant it. Not only because she wasn’t interested in dating any of them, but because she didn’t want to let them in. But now, things were changing. She wasn’t content with being alone anymore. Her last source of companionship had left - even if she hid a lot of herself from Beck, she wasn’t 100 percent hidden, and it was the most she opened up with anybody - and she felt it now, in a suffocating way. She tried to fill it in with stupid things, hanging out with her friends more, but Cat wasn’t… there enough, and she didn’t quite feel safe enough with Andre. She tried booze, once, but she hated feeling out of control, and the hangover on top of it was enough for her to knock that idea out entirely.
Jade needed control. She felt like she was in control of so little, and it was part of why her masquerade helped - because she was in control of her feelings, her interactions, everything. It was entirely different from when she was home, where she had very little control. Where she couldn’t stop her parents from fighting, or from being a disappointment to them. So she rebelled, and she controlled, and she closed herself off.
She had two weaknesses, though. Namely, music. When she performed, she couldn’t help but let go, even a little bit. Recently, though, Vega was worming her way in. And Jade wasn’t sure what to do about it. She felt stuck. When she had problems with Beck, she had never felt so conflicted. Then again, she had him then. She had no one now- she knew what it was like to be alone, and perhaps that changed the way she made her choices. Because with Beck, it was easy: push him away. He couldn’t get too close. He was already close enough to hurt her, and that was much more than she was comfortable with. God knows what would happen if she let him in completely.
Truth is, she never fully trusted Beck. (The last person she fully trusted was her dad, and that got thrown out years ago. She wasn’t really feeling doing all that again.) So that’s why it was easy. She had him, and she didn’t need more than that, so she pushed him away. It wasn’t even something she needed to deliberate on. But here she was, debating on whether or not she should let Tori fuckin’ Vega in, someone she was supposed to hate. Someone she kinda did hate. Tori drove her up the wall- and yet there was that pull.
She wasn’t sure if Vega felt a pull too, or if she was just curious. She knew Tori was a nosy little fuck, but she also knew Tori truly did have a heart of gold, and she truly did want to be friends with Jade just so she could be there for her. The curiosity merely helped push her along. Jade had never bothered to ask- she wasn’t that crazy, she wasn’t looking to make a fool out of herself.
For every thing Jade hated about Tori, it seemed there was something else she admired her for. And lately she seemed to be counting more and more of those things. She was an idiot, completely clueless about the art world - but she never let that deter her, she was always ready to learn. She didn’t let Jade push her around, she had the guts to stand up for herself. Sure, she let Jade get away with shit, but when push came to shove, she never backed down. As much as Jade had hated to admit it, Tori had earned her respect when she came back to Hollywood Arts on her second day, let alone when she stood up to her in class. Then, when she stood up for herself in the bird scene. (Jade was glad she sat at the back of class so no one could see that she had actually applauded.)
Tori was respectful - to the point that it annoyed Jade - but fearless. She was so mushy it made Jade sick, but she couldn’t help but admire the fact that it was pure instinct for her to be kind, no matter what. Part of the shit Jade had thrown at Tori had been a trial of sorts: to see how far Tori could go. And Tori proved herself every time; no matter what Jade threw at her, she stayed true to herself. She wasn’t going to be pushed around, but she was never malicious. She hadn’t let the world corrupt her. In that way, she was stronger than Jade, and while Jade was jealous, she was more awed.
Maybe she spent more time thinking about Vega than was normal. (She definitely did, but whatever.) By this point she was sure she had spent hours debating herself about actually letting Vega be her friend. (She always worded it like that - never ‘being Vega’s friend’.)
Until finally, the day came.
Surprisingly, when it did, Jade hadn’t come to a formal decision. She hadn’t thought hard about how she would have it happen, or the timeline in which she would let Tori in. It was just a day.
Tori plopped herself down at their usual lunch table, and she hadn’t hesitated at all, even though Jade was the only one there, and usually she would hesitate and think about how Jade had been acting that day before deciding if she wanted to wait for the others to go sit or not. But today she was too lost in her head to bother- her body was running on autopilot, and Jade could tell.
“What’s up with you?” Jade asked, unused to seeing Tori this way. She had her bad days, sure, but she was visibly pissed then, and still acted with clarity. Jade couldn’t remember if she had ever seen Tori blank in this way; so preoccupied. Tori loved Hollywood Arts, she spent practically every second in the moment, taking everything in. So something had to be seriously wrong for her to be out of things, Jade figured. Not that she was worried, of course. Just curious.
Tori blinked, “Just parent stuff,” She said, waving her hand dismissively. Usually she would consider before opening up to Jade; today she hardly seemed to realize it was Jade she was sitting with at all.
“I know a good bit about parent stuff,” Jade said. An invitation to talk, without presenting itself as such. By this point, Jade was a master at manipulating her words to speak for her inadvertently. It was a great way to hide herself - a key part of her mask.
Tori looked at her, as if finally realizing who she was speaking to.
“I don’t know, it’s just… they’re fighting a lot these days, and it’s making Trina act even worse, and not that my parents have really been attentive these last few years anyway but now whenever I see them they’re always in a bad mood, they’re always yelling- my dad’s accused my mom of having an affair, and honestly I don’t really blame him, but whatever, and Trina’s such a jerk- Sorry, you probably don’t care.” Tori shrunk into herself, mostly expecting Jade to be a jerk about it. But, to her pleasant surprise, she got the opposite.
Jade saw some of the others coming, so she knew she had to make her words quick.
“If you ever need to get out of the house, Vega, text me.” That was what she settled on. She never got to see Tori’s reaction, because by then Andre and Cat were sitting down and Jade was looking at them. And that was it. That was how Jade let her in the first time, that small amount. It could hardly even be considered her opening up, but for her, it was a big stride.
And sure enough, a few days later, her phone went off.
It didn’t go off much these days- after breaking up with Beck, her contact went down by like sixty percent. Cat would text her, and Andre would sometimes, but other than that, people were afraid of upsetting her with their presence- not that she blamed them.
But there it was.
Hey, if you were serious about that offer the other day, I could really use not being home right now.
And that emptiness in Jade, the loneliness in her chest, led her to respond, no matter how much the voice in the back of her head screamed it was a bad idea.
I’ll be there in 20.
Jade took Tori back to her place. Her parents weren’t home, as per usual, and Jade pretended she didn’t notice the tear-tracks on Tori’s cheeks, simply showing her where the bathroom attached to her room was. Tori had brought her backpack, and so she sat on Jade’s floor and did her homework while Jade did hers. It was probably three hours before she said something.
“Thanks.”
Jade looked up at her. She straightened her back and stretched, wincing.
“Yeah, well. Like I said, I know a good bit about parent stuff,” Jade said casually. Tori knew that was all she was getting from Jade on the subject, and she didn’t try to pry. She needed a safe haven, and Jade was graciously lending her one - she was not sabotaging that, no matter how curious she was.
“Are you hungry?” Tori asked. She had checked the time, and she should probably eat, even if it was something small. Jade checked her phone and nodded.
“Yeah, we should eat,” She agreed with Tori’s thought process, “Come on.” They went out to the kitchen and Jade got them leftovers from the fridge - made by the family cook, of course - and sat in the living room, Tori watching the TV and Jade bitching about the show that was on. (Truthfully, she would have bitched about any show that was on. Not that she would admit it, even to herself, but she was trying to give Tori a sense of normalcy, maybe make her laugh a little.)
Tori went home later, after hugging Jade from the passenger seat, much to Jade’s dismay. Later, Jade would see that Tori had updated her Slap page, and said, ‘had a surprisingly good night with Jade tonight. Feeling: Better.’
Jade would deny that seeing that made her smile until the ends of the earth. But truthfully, it felt good. She did something good. She helped someone. No wonder Vega liked to do this shit so much.
It was slow going. Things kept on like that for a while - Tori would text her, Jade would rescue her, and they would go back to her place. Eventually, though, things were bound to change.
“Can I talk about it?” Tori asked one night. Jade froze, took a breath. Put her phone down onto her stomach - she was lying upside-down on her bed, while Tori was sitting on her floor again.
“I’m not your therapist, Vega,” Jade said, blinking lazily, “but sure.” She rolled over onto her stomach and set her phone to the side.
Tori wasn’t expecting that. Her question had been a shot in the dark, she had entirely expected Jade to outright say no - she was already doing a lot just by letting her come over so often, Tori knew. She knew how isolated Jade kept herself, and she was under the impression Jade liked it that way. That’s why she tried to stay mostly quiet whenever she came over. (She didn’t know that a tiny part of Jade wished she would talk more.)
But she talked about it. She took her opportunity with both hands. Jade listened, for the most part, nodding and humming along to show she was paying attention, which was way more than most people ever got out of her. But most impressively, she let herself relate. When Tori was searching for certain words, Jade would easily fill them in, like she knew what Tori was talking about, what she was feeling. And when she was done, Jade gave her a solemn, “I get it, Vega.” Not in a bored tone, but an understanding one. Frankly, Tori was blown away. She had never seen Jade so open for such a long period of time. She wanted more of it- but she wasn’t sure how to get it, and she didn’t want Jade to close back off. So she left it. She thanked Jade for listening to her.
And Jade said, “For what it’s worth, that sucks. And your family are jerks.” Jade would have said a worse word, but it was still the girl’s family she was talking about. Tori gave her one of the most genuine smiles she had ever seen. Jade’s chest squeezed at the sight of it.
At home, things continued to worsen for Tori. She started sitting through worse fights, because she didn’t want to bother Jade too often - she felt very lucky to have an invitation to her home, but Jade was finicky, and she worried that possibly ‘abusing’ her privileges would get them taken away. (Tori didn’t know that Jade would never do that to her.) And Tori absolutely couldn’t have that. She had no car, no way to get places, and now that her family was caught up in so much drama they wouldn’t bother to teach her. So she dealt with it the best she could, putting in earbuds and playing music so loud it hurt, even though that still didn’t completely drown out the sound of the screaming downstairs.
It was so strange to see. Her father was always so gentle - her mother, less so - but she was always her dad’s little girl. He was the one she went to when she had been hurt as a kid. When she got older and her parents became more distant, she ignored it and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt, because at least if she really needed them they would be there, right? But now things were different. Neither of them hardly even looked at her anymore. She hardly saw her mom at all, and her dad was always tired or angry. Tori had hardly ever seen him angry in the past. He was so kind, so slow to anger. But now his dark eyes were darker in a way that had nothing to do with color. He spoke a lot more Spanish now, a habit from when the girls were children so they wouldn't know what was being said - the words cutting with an inflection they never used to. Her soothing father was gone.
Trina tried not to be around - it was a lot easier for her to get out of the house than it was for Tori. But Trina had a harder time dealing with it, too, and she took it out on the only person she could: her sister. Before, Trina was annoying, sure. Now, she was downright mean- and it hurt in a way Jade’s words had never. Tori would have thought that something like this would bring them together, give them each other to lean on, but Trina had no interest in that.
Tori had never felt so alone. She had had her issues in life, sure, but she was pretty good, for the most part. Hell, being cheated on was the worst thing to ever happen to her, and she got over that pretty easily. But with her family gone, it felt like this was something too deep to take to her friends, for some reason. She told Andre a bit, but for the most part, other than what she had told Jade, she tried to deal with everything alone. She didn’t really feel like she had a choice. She was… adrift.
Jade could tell. Tori put up a pretty good act at school, but every time she came over to Jade’s house, her smiles were a little bit weaker. Jade just wasn’t sure what to do about it. She had never been very good at comforting people, because she was not the type of person to whisper false reassurances and promise things would get better. She knew that those things were empty, useless words. And when she had gone through her own shit with her parents, she hadn’t had any comfort, anyone there for her. She got through it on her own, became strong. Built herself so that she couldn’t be hurt again. And looking back, there was nothing that anyone could have really said to her that would make things better. So Jade did what she did best: she existed in the background. She would be there, if Tori called on her.
Until things came to a head.
Until that point, Tori’s parents had kept their arguments to words alone. Even if they were screaming and throwing insults, that’s as far as it had gone. Until the night her mother started throwing things, and her father threw things right back- not at her, as she had done to him, just at the wall. It culminated in multiple broken objects, a chair going through the glass back door, her father’s fist sized hole in the wall, and a public disturbance.
This is the worst it’s ever been. Please come get me
Tori sent her text after they first started throwing things. Jade showed up after the fight had ended, and right as the police had arrived.
“Christ,” she muttered as she parked in the driveway. She hadn’t been quite sure what to expect, but a police car wasn’t it. She wandered into the house quietly, surveying the damage and the people. Two cops were taking statements- one from Mr. Vega and one from Tori, and Mrs. Vega was sitting at the kitchen table looking at her phone. Jade vaguely wondered how she could be so unbothered when her daughter was so distraught. Tori was in tears as she talked to the officer, hardly able to get her story out between trying to take breaths from her sobbing, and Jade couldn’t help but walk over to her.
Jade silently put her hand on Tori’s shoulder as an awkward measure of comfort- she wasn’t expecting Tori to immediately launch into her chest, and she let out a quiet wumph as some of the air was forced out of her lungs. Regardless, she wrapped her arms around the girl; obviously no one else was going to do it.
“Are you done? She can hardly get words out,” Jade snapped at the officer who had been talking to Tori.
“I can come back in a few minutes,” He said before walking away. Jade sighed and pried Tori away from her.
“Okay, Vega, come on,” She goaded, taking Tori by her shoulders and directing her to the bathroom. She was glad Tori didn’t have makeup on, because it meant a lot less mess to clean up. She shut the door behind them both and let Tori hug into her again.
“Christ, Vega,” She said quietly. She didn’t know what else to say. Tori had her glasses clutched in her hand - she was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, but ever since the fighting had gotten worse she started becoming more presentable around the house in case she needed to leave at a moment’s notice. Jade pried her glasses from her fingers and set them on the countertop before leaning back against it. She sighed as Tori continued to cry into her chest and resigned to rubbing her back.
“It was so bad, Jade. I’ve never seen them like that,” She said hoarsely, “And when they started- started throwing things, I wasn’t sure if- I came downstairs after I heard the second shatter, but they didn’t even notice, they just kept going. They didn’t even care that I was there, they were so- angry .” Tori’s voice became clearer as she spoke, much to Jade’s relief.
Jade remembered similar things happening with her parents. She remembered running away at 10 years old because even though she had no idea what she was doing she was more scared of remaining in the house. Something deep inside her possessed her to say the next words that came out of her mouth.
“Look at me.” She pulled Tori away from her, holding her shoulders, “You’re gonna finish your statement to that policeman. And then you’re gonna go upstairs and pack a bag, and you’re gonna spend that night at my place, okay?”
Tori was too drained to question Jade’s kindness. She simply nodded and hugged her again, making Jade grimace.
Jade helped her pack her bag, and carried her school bag while Tori carried the other. She didn’t bother to tell her parents where she was going- if they noticed at all, they would call, but she doubted it would come to that. When she left the house, her father was breaking into his bourbon, and despite the pit in her stomach she was glad to be gone.
“Are you actually talking to anyone about all this, Vega?” Jade asked after ten minutes of silence in the car. Part of her was annoyed with the silence, but the other part, the part that related to Tori, and knew that how Jade dealt with things wasn’t exactly healthy, wanted to reach out. Tori took a moment before she answered.
“Not any more than I’ve told you,” She said.
Jade shook her head, “You should.”
Tori made a face, and Jade would bet money she knew what was going through Tori’s head.
“I’m around,” Jade said simply. She knew it wasn’t that easy, but Tori like this was still a lot more likely to open up than Jade had ever been.
Apparently for Tori it wasn’t that hard. When they got back to Jade’s place, Tori went straight to Jade’s bed and started talking.
She spoke about how scared she was, how alone she felt, how so much had changed so fast and she didn’t understand it at all. How she didn’t want to go back home after school these days, but since Trina was her ride she didn’t have a choice. How she tried desperately to search for any signs of the father she used to know, but he seemed to be gone completely. How her family had just abandoned her. How she loved school still but she couldn’t get into it as much anymore, no matter how hard she threw herself at her assignments, and her grades were slipping because she wasn’t sleeping well. How she felt so helpless, because it seemed like everything was slowly falling apart around her, and she couldn’t do anything about it.
Jade listened to her. She listened, and she remembered when she had felt the same, and she offered the best comfort she could.
“I’m here for you, Vega,” She said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. It made Tori’s head snap up to look at her.
“But what are you gonna do about it?” Jade continued.
“What?” Tori asked, confused - she had just told Jade about how she wasn’t sure she could do anything.
“I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do,” Jade kept on, ignoring her, “You’re gonna get up tomorrow, and you’re gonna keep going. And you’re gonna do your best in school, and you’re gonna go home tomorrow despite how hellish life is, and you’re gonna show the world that it can throw all the shit at you it wants but you’re still gonna keep going. You’re not gonna let that bitch get you down because you’re better than that. You’ve got shit to do.”
Jade stared at Tori with a determination in her gaze that Tori had never seen before; and suddenly, a new piece of Jade was unlocked to her.
“It’s okay to lean on people,” Jade said, knowing that was what she wished someone had told her years ago, “but you’ve got to stand up. No matter how defeated you feel.”
Tori wasn’t sure what to say, so they ended up staring at each other for thirty seconds before Jade picked up her phone like she hadn’t just shaken Tori’s world. That was the last they spoke about it that night, but the next morning, Jade sent Tori a text: the lyrics to the intro of Eminem’s ‘Til I Collapse.
“‘Cause sometimes you just feel tired; Feel weak; And when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you; You gotta find that inner strength, just pull that shit outta you; And get that motivation, to not give up, to not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall on your face and collapse.”
Jade noticed a spark to Tori’s eyes that wasn’t there before, and in her head she patted herself on the back for a job well done. Tori’s problems were far from over, she knew- but for now, she was doing better, and that was what mattered.
For Jade, opening up meant being less of a jerk, Tori was starting to realize. She figured that ‘opening up’ would be, you know, sharing things about herself, but that wasn’t the way Jade rolled. She saw no need to share things about her life, her past. (Tori, on the other hand, was all too eager to do so.) Jade’s opening up just meant that she actually let Tori be present in her life. They’d hang out, and these days Jade wouldn’t be a jerk at every possible moment, and sometimes she’d actually smile. She still kept up appearances at school, but she was nicer there too- not that anyone really had the guts to ask Jade about her slight change in behavior anyway. After that first time Tori spent the night, she began to do so more often, usually on the weekends, but sometimes during the week if the fighting got rough. Since the big blowout things hadn’t escalated to that level again, but Tori also hadn’t seen her mom in two weeks, so she suspected that had something to do with it.
A few times Cat came over and they had a girls’ night - the thought kind of made Jade want to puke, but the first time she had been dragged into it by Cat and Vega and she had had to admit it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, so she let it happen again. The company was nice. Jade had to admit she was feeling… happier, these days. Part of her was loathe to admit that Vega of all people was responsible for it, but that part of her was so small now she barely paid it any mind. For the most part, she just… rolled with it.
Jade always presented herself as an easy-going, don't-care, go-with-the-flow kind of person- but in reality, she was a planner. She planned most everything she did. Her life was structured and organized in every facet, so to just let her relationship with Tori be , without planning every part of it, was both terrifying and freeing. Terrifying, because she was such a control freak, and she was letting someone in, and letting it just go for something like this are you crazy ? But also, this was Vega . Jade knew Tori wouldn’t hurt her- at least not intentionally.
After a few weeks, it became freeing to just see where things would take her. She knew she could always revert back to her planning ways if anything happened, but she… trusted Tori, in a weird way. So she let it happen. She wasn’t careless, but she let her grip loosen, let herself relax some, and it felt good. (She knew Tori would catch her if she fell. That, alone, was huge. She hadn’t been that trusting in anyone since her parents, and it was exhilarating.)
Sometimes she questioned, again, why it was Vega of all people she was opening up to. Why she couldn’t have done this with Beck, when they were together, before she fucked everything up. But she’d look at Vega’s stupid face and if nobody else was looking Tori would send her a smile that she reserved only for Jade, and Jade’s questions were answered. (Sometimes, Jade would send Tori her own Reserved Smile right back.)
When Jade asked why Tori didn’t just learn how to drive and Tori said she didn’t really have anyone to teach her, Jade offered. When Tori needed help because Andre was busy and Trina was driving her up the wall, Jade was there to scare her into submission. When some guy was hitting on Tori and he wouldn’t leave her alone, Jade scared him away. When Tori needed help for a script she had to write for class, not only did Jade help, she gave Tori tips on how to be a better writer. Every time Tori needed out of her house, Jade was there, with a listening ear and words of encouragement if they were needed.
And when one night, when Jade called, so angry at her father she wanted to hurt herself again, Tori was there. She calmed her, talked her down. And Jade cracked. She spoke about how she wasn’t anything but a disappointment to him, how she could never do anything right and it made her so angry so she just decided to say fuck it all and do everything wrong on purpose. How when her parents split he grew cold and abandoned her, and it fucked her up so bad she had a decade’s worth of baggage to unravel. How he was the reason she broke everything she touched, why she pushed Beck away, why sometimes she felt she could never be happy.
Tori spoke to her in smooth, calming tones, that from anyone else would only piss her off more, but for some reason with Tori they worked. She told Jade that she was a good person, that she was talented and smart, and her father was a fool for not seeing it, how she could never understand how Jade could let him down. She told Jade that it was okay that she had made mistakes, that she still deserved to be loved, and that she was loved, and that she would be happy some day- and Jade broke down sobbing for half an hour with Tori on the phone, telling her everything her parents never did, and everything Beck never knew to say.
And Jade let her in.
I drank the poison and I, I let you in
Would you trade that heart of gold for a minute in my skin?