Tori and Beck

Chapter 2

That following Monday, I had actually managed not to think about Beck for the rest of the weekend. But it took a lot of effort. I spent most of Sunday finishing up my homework, yelling at my sister Trina for borrowing my clothes the night before, watching a boring documentary on the horrors of chain restaurants, and cleaning our whole house top to bottom. It was tiring, but it got the job done.

I was proud of myself, but as soon as I saw Beck and Jade strolling down the hallway, all of my hard work seemed to have vanished. 

I didn’t know why their relationship had started to bother me all of a sudden. I had always felt a little something more towards Beck than friendship, but it was hard not to. He was completely gorgeous and undeniably the sweetest guy at Hollywood Arts. But maybe my recently unearthed jealously was due to the fact that Prom was around the corner and I had no one to go with. Or maybe it was because Jade didn’t like me for no good reason. All in all, I was peeved.

I watched them stop at Jade’s locker as he laughed at something she had just said. I was on the verge of pulling out binoculars to read their lips when I heard the distinct fairly-like laugh of Kat from behind.

“Tori!” she said in her sweet high pitched voice.

I whirled around, plastering a smile on my face and starring into her puppy dog eyes. “What’s up, Kat?”

“Smell my hands!” she said before throwing them in my face.

Normally if someone gave me such a strange instruction I’d write them off, but this was Kat. Nothing is ever normal with her. I cautiously sniffed her hands.

“Well?” she asked impatiently.

“Is kind of smells like... lemons.”

She suddenly jumped up, squealing with excitement. “Yay!”

I laughed at her usual giddiness. “Why do they smell like lemons?”

“I was helping the janitor mop the floors in the cafeteria, and we used lemon scented Pine Sol!”

I raised an eyebrow. I guess it wasn’t the strangest thing she’d ever done. “That was very... nice of you, Kat.”

She shrugged her tiny shoulders before giggling again and prancing off to class. As I turned to watch her go, I saw that Beck and Jade were heading towards me. I swiftly straightened my back, and brushed my hair out of my face.

“Hey, Tori!” Beck said cheerfully with a smile. 

Whenever he smiles, he makes me smile. How does he do that?

“Hey guys,” I said softly, very aware of the death stare Jade was giving me.

“Tori,” Jade said sternly, barely acknowledging my presence.

I suddenly felt the awkward tension between the three of us. I some how was paranoid that Jade knew of my feelings for Beck. Or worse, that Beck knew I had feelings for him. 

“So how was the rest of your weekend?” he asked.

I suddenly recollected a disgusting scene from the documentary I watched of a chain restaurant’s kitchen in the middle of the night infested with rats. “It was good.”

Beck nodded his head while Jade’s glare was still boring into me.

“Very interesting,” she said. “Beck, let’s go.”

She strode off down the hallway, and I wanted nothing more than to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, shouting “WHY DO YOU HATE ME?” But I restrained myself.

“Sorry,” Beck said sincerely. “She’s a little grumpy today.”

I nodded and pathetically starred down at my shoes, a little embarrassed.

“Hey,” he said, trying to get back my attention. “Let’s get to Sikowitz’s class. I heard he’s doing another impression of Bill Cosby today.”

I laughed. “Oh, I hoped he would!”

And we walked side by side to class, laughing and smiling. It was so easy to be with him, but that made it all the more difficult.

        * * * *

“Alrightly my little actors,” our improv teacher said. “Next class, you will be assigned, on the spot, a category of a scene to be improvised, obviously, for the rest of the class. But I want to emphasize the importance of what it means to connect with a co-star. So! I will assign partners, and it will be your duty to work with that partner to develop a connection, a rhythm if you will. Trust me! It will make your scene that much better!”

The class nodded their heads in unison, obviously on board for the assignment. Then Sikowitz began counting off partners. He mostly just mumbled a lot of “you and you,” “you and you...”

When he got over to our area of the classroom, I suddenly realized that he had just said that same sentence to Beck and I.

Beck, who was sitting in front of me, turned around in his chair with a smile. “Alright, Vega! Let’s kill this.”

I smiled, completely elated inside. 

But I felt two pairs of disapproving eyes on me. Andre, sitting next to me, was obviously not happy towards this situation that would make it harder to dissipate my feelings, and Jade. She was starring at me like a hungry wolf.

This was going to be interesting.