Chapter Text
Tori’s phone rings once, twice, three times. She grabs it from her bedside table and throws it in the direction of her closet, where it thuds against the wall and then continues to buzz incessantly. She stands up, bleary eyed, and walks over to silence it forever. She can buy a new one.
Just as she’s about to step on it, the phone screen lights up again with a name she hasn’t seen in forever. Shocked, she blinks, sure she’s dreaming.
Jade West is calling her, Tori Vega, at 3:45 in the morning, with absolutely no context after not speaking to her since graduation. Two years ago. And Jade hates Tori. Something must be seriously wrong. The phone stops buzzing as the call ends, and then it lights up again as Jade apparently gives it a 7th shot. Crossing herself quickly in hopes that it’s not going to be either Jade’s demise or a bailout request, she picks up the phone and answers it.
“Hello?”
“Vega. I hope you haven’t gotten too comfortable living the cushy life down there.”
“Listen, Jade, not that I’m not happy to talk to you, but it’s before 4am and this is a new phone number.”
“Yeah, I got your number from Cat.”
Damn Cat and her niceness. Of course she would be answering the phone at this ungodly hour, ready to give away Tori’s phone number for the asking. Of course.
“Okay, Jade, I know you hate me and you wouldn’t call me this late after two years just to chat, so you definitely want something. What is it?”
“Believe me, Vega, I was glad to finally be rid of you.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Um…” Jade bites her lower lip. There’s not really a gentle way for her to break this news, and even if there was, she actually wouldn’t know how to do it. However, she actually is trying to just convey the news to Tori with as little collateral as possible, so she takes a deep breath and grabs the printed WikiHow article titled “How To Break Bad News To A Loved One” off the ugly Formica-covered desk in front of her and flips through it to the end to remind herself of the steps. It was super spotty, since the front desk printer was obviously running out of ink, but she would be damned if she was replacing the cartridge. Kylee could do it tomorrow.
“Jade. You woke me up for this,” Tori begins, a warning edge in her tone.
“I-- ugh!” Jade throws the article behind her in the direction of the trash can and leans back in the rolling chair she’s in. “Okay, just for shits and giggles, hypothetically, let’s pretend that I was working at the front desk of a hotel in Oregon.”
“What?!”
“I’ll explain in a minute. It’s for my art. I’m a genius. But anyway, hypothetically, let’s pretend that if I was, I might have seen someone you’re related to check in with someone that you’re definitely not related to.”
“Gross. I don’t want to know what Trina’s doing in Oregon.”
“Um…” Jade picks up a pen off the ugly desk and starts clicking it repetitively. “No. Not Trina. I wouldn’t call you if it was Trina.”
Tori froze on the other end of the phone, confused. “But my dad’s here, and my mom’s on a corporate business trip in Reno, which I know is a thing because she does it all the time now.”
“Well, last time I checked, Reno was east of California, not north. She’s definitely in Oregon.”
Tori pursed her lips and breathed out slowly, counting to five in her head. “Jade, you better be messing with me right now.”
“As much as I’d love to do that, no.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I swear on my favorite pair of scissors. The girl that trained me said she’s been coming here pretty regularly for a while, so you could probably see for yourself if you came up here.”
Tori blinked. “Yeah, except I don’t really want to take a trip by myself in the middle of fucking summer up to Oregon just because you’re telling me that my mom keeps visiting your yucky hotel with gross old dudes. I don’t even believe you right now.”
Jade sighed, and then adopted an annoyed, disinterested tone. “I guess you could stay with me if you have to. Like, if it was a last resort. But like, only if you had to see it with your own eyes and it was your absolute last resort.”
Tori pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jade, I am so tired. I’ll think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Cool.”
Jade hangs up without a goodbye, and Tori stares at her phone screen for a good five minutes trying to figure out what the hell just happened. She walks back over to her bed and collapses onto it, clutching her phone against her chest. Tori always knew that her mom had always been rather generous with her affections toward other men, so to speak, but she never really believed that her mom would break up the family by full-blown cheating on her dad.
Jade was probably lying anyway, she reasoned. Tori hadn’t talked to her in years, and the last time she’d seen her was at graduation. Graduation, in and of itself, was awkward. They were all thrilled to graduate, of course, but Jade had sat in stony silence the whole time. She didn’t even react when Tori poked her, which was unusual, as she loved to reiterate her “no touching” rule. The next month, Tori had heard from Cat that Beck was going back to Canada, but there was no word on Jade because Jade had never cared about her. In fact, Jade hated her. Therefore, the only viable option was that this had to be an elaborate prank designed by Jade to torture her.
She rolled over and opened her phone. Selecting her mom’s contact, she typed out a quick message.
“Hey Mom. Can’t sleep, miss you. Send me pictures of Reno! Love you!”
Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep, and dreamed of being swallowed whole by the ocean with no escape.