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Jade shouldn’t be nervous. She’s never nervous, first of all. The sweaty itch in her palms, the leaden feeling in her stomach, is foreign to her. It has her on edge, like a cornered animal, teeth bared, hackles raised. She forces her expression into a smile as she opens the door to greet Tori, someone she hasn’t seen since she graduated high school and yet still occupies a disproportionate amount of her daily thoughts. She opens the door, and Tori walks through it, back into her life like nothing. She’s gorgeous, not at all like what had been done to her in an effort to make her boldly viral. Instead, there are subtle lowlights in her hair, gently curled, like she had woken up that way. Her clothes are high end, glittery and glamorous, but simple, fitting just right. Jade wonders if she’s dressed so nice for the paparazzi. Jade wonders if she’s dressed so nicely for her , and then she shuts down that line of thought with the ferocity of a vulture tearing into carrion.
Jade walks Tori through the main body of the apartment, a living room and open kitchenette, pointing out things she’s collected since Tori’s been gone, like her electric guitar she’s slowly mastering, and her marimo tank. She tries not to feel the eyes on her back, the weight of Tori’s gaze, tries to deflect it. Look at these things, look at what I can do. Don’t look at me . Tori’s stare used to feel like judgment. It used to make her angry. It’s different now. Jade makes a beeline for the balcony, desperate for fresh air. Tori follows.
The balcony was largely decorated by Cat, fairy lights twinkling from the overhang, the patio furniture brightly colored and mismatched around a splotchy DIY table just a bit too low to be usable. It’s got a few mugs of half finished teas from the last time Cat was out here songwriting, no doubt wearing circular stains into the wood. Tori takes it all in wordlessly.
She hasn’t said much at all, actually. There’s a hesitancy here between them. They never really got on well in school, and while distance has numbed Jade’s more negative feelings, it’s difficult to know where they stand with each other in these new lives. The sun is sinking below the horizon, and Jade feels like she’s running out of time, if she hasn’t run out already.
“You look really nice, Jade. It’s good to see you,” Tori finally says, like it’s the easiest thing, like they’re still friends after months of hardly speaking to each other. She’s leaned against the balcony’s railing, looking across the city. The amber light is doing funny things to the planes of her face. She looks despairingly pretty, hand painted and expensive and untouchable. Too good, too nice, too perfect . The roots of Jade’s hate are buried deep, still there lingering deep inside her heart, but the vines that constrict her now aren’t ones of envy. They are fear—of inadequacy, of loneliness, of the truth . The acrid bitterness of it seeps up through her chest, into her mouth, with a tang like blood, and she swallows it back down. Deflect .
“It would be better if we actually stayed in touch. You know. Like we promised.” Jade is sure to inject just the right amount of bite into her tone. She’s not sad. She’s angry. Deflect, deflect, deflect. She wants to tell Tori that she missed her. She wants to tell Tori to fuck off. She wants to tell her that they’re still friends (that, despite everything Jade said and did, they always were, and Jade was too stubborn to admit it until far too late into their relationship). Instead, she grinds out, “guess you’re too famous for all of us now, though.”
Tori has the nerve to look offended, and a little hurt glimmers in her eyes. What once would’ve caused an answering glimmer of spiteful happiness in Jade now is a mirror of that hurt. Fuck . “I told you all I’d probably be pretty quiet during my tour. It feels like I barely have enough time to think. I—I’ve been in the groupchat—“
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know living your dream was so hard. ” Tori’s face instantly hardens, and Jade is internally hitting herself. Why does she do this ? Why is she like this? Before Tori can say anything, before her brain can catch up to her mouth, she says, quietly, “sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just—we just miss you, that’s all.”
A silence falls on them then, as hushed as a theater right before the overture starts. It’s a unique kind of tension, a tension of anticipation, but Jade isn’t sure what kind of show is about to start. She isn’t sure of her lines anymore, or the part she’s supposed to play. She’s so used to being Tori’s antagonist, she isn’t sure she knows how to be anything else. She isn’t sure why she wants to be something else.
Tori clears her throat. The sequined fabric she’s wearing catches the light, kaleidoscoping as she turns slightly to face Jade. Pretty , pretty, pretty. How can one person be so effortlessly pretty? “I missed you guys too, you know. I’ve been meaning to call, but after my shows and the VIP one-on-ones, it’s usually already past midnight when I finally get to crash. I do read all of your guy’s messages though. Always makes me laugh.”
She lists a few of her favorite bits from this week, mostly from Robbie, whose career as a comedian has largely taken the internet by storm. They get all of his best jokes before the masses. And of course, they have their inside jokes—lately, they’ve taken to posting selfies with increasingly ridiculous amounts of fruit on their heads. André is leading in that category, though Cat has been trying to one up him daily (which will make for a nice fruit salad when all this stops being funny. Or maybe Jade will make the fruit salad and have Cat balance the bowl on her head. Win-win).
Robbie also, regrettably, posts thirst traps, but whatever keeps his user engagement high, right?
Jade only notices how close they’ve drifted when her shoulder bumps Tori’s, warm in the quickly cooling night air. Jade doesn’t move. Tori doesn’t move.
“Well,” Jade says, playing at neutrality, “now that you’re on a break, hopefully you get more downtime. Thanks for coming over, by the way. Sorry Cat isn’t home. Kind of awkward.”
“I don’t think it’s awkward,” Tori says softly, but matter-of-factly. Can she not feel the thickness of the air? The electric potential running through it, between them, the heat where they’re connected? Or is it really just Jade, projecting, making things up about Tori to try and make sense of her feelings? First it was their rivalry, petty feuds and baseless insults, and now… now… “But you gotta tell Cat I said hi. How is it, rooming with her? Is she still…?”
“Batshit?” Jade deadpans. Tori laughs. Something in Jade’s chest constricts, beats, melts. Her heart? She didn’t know it could still do all that. “Oh yeah. I don’t know if you noticed walking through but our apartment is so full of useless junk she orders online I don’t have room for my own shit. And she vlogs. All the time .”
Tori smiles at her (like she’s funny, like she matters ), and launches into some insane story Jade must’ve missed in high school. Probably too busy hating Tori and nagging Beck to notice anything about Cat. Though, she’s sad she never noticed Cat cornering the market on black market Bibble flavors. She would’ve loved to get in on that.
“Do you miss high school? I mean, I didn’t mean to be… mean, earlier, but you are kind of living all of our dreams right now. Not that I don’t love self producing my own music, but streaming platforms take most of the profits and I can’t really get any traction.” Jade worries about boring Tori for just a second. No one wants her sob story. It’s hard to make it in the music industry, everyone knows that. Instead, Tori’s eyes get wide. She leans forward. Jade can smell her shampoo, and an undercurrent of perfume. It’s nice. Why did she put on perfume to hang out with her friends?
“Everything you put out you do yourself?” Jade’s discography isn’t extensive, but she tries to drop something new every few months. It takes time. Tori, weirdly, sounds genuinely impressed, even though it’s more a hobby for Jade, a habit. “I always thought you were renting booths and everything, they sound so professional!”
For some reason, it shocks her that Tori listens to her music, but, she supposes, actual recording artists are allowed to listen to other people. She pretends not to notice the heat in her cheeks, hopes that her foundation is keeping it in check. She tries really hard not to think about how many of those songs just so happen to be about Tori. “Sound-proofing and good mic quality can go a long way.”
“Your lyrics are top-tier too, man. I love the one about slow dancing, the one in that sweeping ¾? It sounds so… tender. To be honest, I didn’t know you had it in you to write love songs like that.” Tori has cast her gaze out onto the cityview again, but her smile is just as stunning from the side. Her voice catches on that last bit, on the edge of a laugh, her tone going funny. I can love , Jade thinks. I love . She can’t say it, but she can sing it. She can feel it. Tori, I love .
She’s quiet for too long, and Tori looks back over, questioning, a bit apologetic. Jade’s palms are still sweaty. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that. Are you—I mean, are you seeing anyone?”
“No,” Jade says immediately, and then, more measured, careful, she says, “no, you know. I just, um, haven’t had time.”
Something flickers on Tori’s face, but Jade can’t place it, and then it’s gone. Tori sighs wistfully. “Same. I’ve been dating, but most people are just starstruck. Before you laugh, yes, it is hard dating when you’re famous. No one wants to know the real me.”
“For the record,” Jade says, “you are much more genuine like this than whatever that label tried to do to us in high school. I’m sure there’s someone out there for you, someone who knows who you really are and likes you that way.”
Jade just catches herself, biting her tongue on the words, maybe even closer than you think .
Tori makes a little aww ing noise, like she’s just seen a baby animal sneeze, and the next thing Jade knows, Tori’s got her arms around her, and it’s all Jade can focus on. That, and breathing. Though she’s a bit shaky on that second part. “I never thought I’d say this, but that was really sweet of you, Jade.”
“Yea, well,” Jade mutters, chin hooked over Tori’s shoulder, hands fluttering in awkward pats to Tori’s spine, “don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t,” Tori hums, squeezing Jade once before releasing her. She returns to leaning against the balcony, and Jade feels like a fucking live wire, tingling and warm all over. The brunette doesn’t complain when Jade once again slots their shoulders together, real smooth, and copies Tori’s posture.
Tori takes a deep breath, her acrylic fingernails tapping on the rusting iron boxing them in. “I always liked you, you know.”
The ground falls out from underneath Jade’s feet. She’s dying, or she’s already died. She probably launched herself off the balcony after that hug out of sheer embarrassment and this is the afterlife taunting her with impossibilities. Still, she says, gracefully, “huh-wha-huh? What ?”
Tori laughs, musical as ever, in everything she does, even just existing, in being. Her tapping is a staccato accompaniment to her words, music to Jade’s ears. She wants to put them to music herself, to write Tori an answering symphony, but instead, she listens raptly. “When we went on that pretend date, I thought I would die. And, I don’t know if you know this? But Beck tried to make a move on me, and I couldn’t—all I could see was you , your face, and I realized how much I liked you. I didn’t have the words for it then—none of us did, really. I mean, you obviously belonged with Beck and I belonged with some other famous movie star guy because that’s what popstars do. They can’t date each other .
“But these past few months have made me really think. I’ve—I’ve gone out with a few girls.” Tori flushes as Jade’s eyebrows fly up into her hairline. She still feels out of touch, like gravity no longer applies to her, spiraling. “Girls with dark hair and dark eyes and I just kept seeing you , hearing you , and— wanting you . Is that too forward? Oh, god, I’m fucking everything up, aren’t I..”
Jade pries Tori’s hand away from her face gently, and then pulls her in for a kiss. The world rights itself under her, and she can breathe again— she breathes Tori in like the purest oxygen on earth, slides her hands from her cheeks to her perfect hair to her shoulders and savors how soft and yeilding her mouth is, unlike anything she’s ever felt before, so unlike kissing Beck. What she mistook for passion, was a desperation to fit in, to please, to be right and not broken. She needed control because she couldn’t risk losing Beck, losing her mask, showing her off broken edges.
But this—this is right. Jade was never broken. She was just trying to jam herself together with an incompatible puzzle piece, but her and Tori fit together just right , and it’s not that she was missing Tori—she was just missing the part where she accepted herself for who she was, for who she liked. She likes girls. She loves Tori. She loves kissing Tori . Tori likes it too, apparently, sighing and melting into Jade, like they can get any closer, like they aren’t already flush head to toe.
They only pull away from each other with an embarrassing pop when they hear the sliding door eke open, and Cat sticks her head out, a bulging grocery bag hanging from her arm. “Hey guys, sorry for interrupting but I really need one of you to take my picture with these pineapples on my head.”
Jade snarls and stalks away from Tori, grabbing a cushion from one of the patio chairs and lobbing it at the redhead. Tori’s laugh sparkles behind her, just shy of breathless, and follows her inside.