revamped! 28/11/2020
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Tori found herself standing alone by her locker, clutching a binder in her arms for whatever reason and not realising that most of the hallway had emptied out already from the ongoing bells that rang overhead her. Her mind had drifted off to the debut of Sikowitz's play happening in less than 48 hours. She felt more confident in it than usual, however, she wasn't entirely sure about Jade. Now that her thoughts had turned off, she just stood there staring off into space.
She could've sworn she also heard a voice calling her name, but she shrugs it off anyways.
Tori releases a brief sigh before hurriedly placing the binder that's in her arms inside of her locker, shutting it quickly and strutting awkwardly towards Sikowitz' class, assuring herself that her friends had gone ahead of her. As she continues to walk, she tries to take her mind off her anxious thoughts by admiring the various posters on the walls, all showcasing different performances from people with different talents. She frowns slightly at the sight before looking straight ahead.
She clutches her bag even tighter, digging the tip of her fingers into the material.
However, a hand suddenly lands on her shoulder, instantly startling her and causing her to jump and face backwards, seeing Andre behind her who steps away from the surprised girl. He meets eyes with her, giving an awkward smile on his face.
He clears his throat, a warm smile on his face, "Hey, Tori."
Tori runs a frustrated hand through her strands, greeting a lot less cheerfully than normal, "Hey, Andre."
"I called you by your locker but you seemed really distracted, are you doing alright?" Andre asks, tilting his head to get a better look of Tori. Now the brief memory comes back to her of her hearing the faint voice of someone's voice calling out to her, guess she wasn't dreaming after all.
Tori just nods sheepishly, trying to hold in an incoming yawn. "Yeah, yeah, I-I'm doing fine. I went to bed late last night because my dad came home for the first time in weeks and it just startled me. I really wasn't expecting him to appear so late at night." She feels herself grimacing from the lie, hoping that Andre wouldn't catch on since the boy tends to be quite skilled at reading her expressions and finding the contradictions in her words. But he didn't seem to notice this time, only gasping lightly.
Andre's eyes widen in surprise. "Your dad? Damn, I haven't seen that man in a long time! How has he been doing?"
The stress washed over the brunette even more, Tori shakes her head solemnly, lips pursing into a thin and worried line. "Not that well in all honesty𑁋he's been suffering a lot of stress lately and I feel bad for not being there to help him. He looked like he wanted to faint when he walked through the door. "
"Poor guy," he mutters, fixing his posture upright next to Tori. He looked slightly nervous. "I'm guessing it's his work, huh?"
"I mean, what else could it possibly be?" Tori asks, the burning frustration icing in the tone of her voice. She thinks for a moment before speaking, specifically about her mother and how she's never there to assist with anything. It makes her sigh. "And with the absence of my mom as well, I'm not sure what they're doing."
Andre raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Tori shrugs helplessly. "I-I don't know. They just don't seem... that close anymore. It's like the cause is my dad being gone from the house all the time, so my mom doesn't have much to do and just... leaves." She bites her lip awkwardly. Andre put his hands in the pocket of his pants, letting out a sigh.
The bell rings as Tori and Andre immediately rush down the hallways before entering inside of Sikowitz's room, with Tori more hesitant on heading inside due to her... reasons. The both of them squeeze through the door together, noticing that the man wasn't even there yet to count them as tardy, luckily.
Gazing around the room, Tori could her other friends were sitting in their seats already, including Jade, who decided to sit on the complete opposite side of the room next to Cat. Tori eyes the girl briefly𑁋having this hope that the girl would look at her back, to which she doesn't𑁋before sitting down in her seat in the front of the room, clasping her hands together in her lap. The remaining late shruggers all flood into the room at the same time, sitting in their usual spots and just looking plain and unfazed by everything going on.
"Tori." Andre whispers loudly, startling the girl once more. Tori looks back towards him, trying to void her eyes of looking anywhere else. She could feel the tension circling in the room between her and Jade.
"Yeah?" Tori whispers back in response.
"I was wondering if you, uh..." Andre starts, his voice trailing off into bubble of nervousness. He scrunch his face in frustration and let out a long breath and sigh, looking as if he had been holding in something inside of him for the whole entire day. Either way, for him, it can only go one way or the other. "I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me sometime? To dinner?"
At the corner of her eye, she hears a cough coming from Jade. She somehow manages to hear their conversation and had the ears of an owl despite the sounds and voices around the room. A dry scowl appears on her face as well, Tori swallows the lump in her throat nervously; she didn't know what to say or what to do.
Tori stares at the dark-skinned boy, not knowing whether to move away, respond, or just sit there. Andre stares at her back, waiting patiently for a response, clasping his hands together and locking his fingers with his own.
Before she could open her mouth to speak, Sikowitz loudly barges in, causing all the students to jump in the classroom all at once.
"Hello, class!" he exclaims eagerly, voice bouncing off the surrounding walls.
No one bothered to give him a response.
Sikowitz snorts disappointingly at the sight. "Oh, you boring children. Why are you all so moody all the time? Is there nothing that you wonder about your lives?"
"Because we hate school." Jade mutters lowly, however Sikowitz didn't seem to hear her or just chose to ignore her.
"Onto the big news!" Sikowitz announces, facing towards the group and jumping off the stage onto the floor with serious eyes and a loud clap of his hands to gain their attention. "Tori, Jade, Beck, Andre, you both have your play tomorrow! Today is the last rehearsal, so I better see some good... acting!" He emphasises 'acting' dramatically.
Beck, Andre, and Tori glance between one another other briefly before looking back towards the front. Jade continues to stare towards the ground, arms crossed with her eyes not bothering to look back up. She didn't know why she felt suddenly felt a wave of emotions hitting her, the cold expression on her face deepening from trying to keep her senses together. She felt exhausted and just completely tired about everything.
"Secondly!" Sikowitz hollers. "We all know that Christmas is coming up, so why not create a good partay for the school?"
Robbie brightens up quickly, "Like the Full Moon Jam?"
Sikowitz's face lights up even more, just like a lightbulb. He snaps with his fingers excitedly, "Yes, Robbie! Exactly like the Full Moon Jam! Only Christmas-themed, of course!" He constantly made every single sentence that left his mouth dramatic, as if he's some sort of motivational speaker.
"Sounds great," Tori adds in quietly, smiling. "When is it going to be held?"
"On Christmas, Friday, before you all go on your holiday." Sikowitz offers, crossing his arms together. The rest of the class agreed with nods.
"And what are we supposed to do there?" Beck asks.
"Aha!" Sikowitz claps once again like a loud slap. "The question I have been waiting for. You all are allowed to have one performance. The only catch is that it obviously has to be Christmas-themed! Christmas-themed singing, Christmas-themed performances and decorations of course, Christmas themed dancing𑁋"
"Christmas-themed dancing?" Rex blurts out. "What in the world is that?"
"I don't know! I am just naming stuff at the top of my head at this point!" Sikowitz wails. "I have already proposed it to... Helen, and it had already been approved. I want to see valid participation from every single one of you! Including all of you shruggers𑁋another job of yours is to help! Assimilate energy!" He eyes every single individual student in the room fiercely, somewhat seemingly like he was piercing into everyone's souls.
Who knew that Sikowitz could be such a control wizard.
"Everybody understand?" Sikowitz crosses his arms together, lifting a brow.
The class quickly fills with various answers ranging from groans to "yes's" and a couple of "no's" to other people hollering and cheering.
"Excellent!" he twindles his fingers together. "Now, let's begin this class, shall we?"
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The bell finally rings as all of the student all begin to pour out of Sikowitz' class all at once, causing a scene at the door briefly with the entanglement of limbs and backpacks being squished together. Tori just trails behind, waiting for everyone to leave the classroom before leaving herself. She wasn't sure if she wanted to attend the rehearsal after school because she didn't know what she would feel being face-to-face with Jade.
The thought makes her sigh of the events from the night before𑁋how a smooth conversation through texting and an unexpected night made her eyes light up like fireflies for the first time in a long time, how she had begun to sort out through all of her feelings for this girl, and how she just became worried about the girl more than she has ever had before. It all happens behind closed doors𑁋the true colours of people, and it was clear that whatever environment Jade calls as 'home' clearly isn't. And as much as she just wanted to shield the girl and protect her from everything despite her own issues, she didn't know how to do that if the girl wouldn't open up to her. She's known Jade for years yet she still feels like an absolute stranger.
She has noticed Jade for years, wanting nothing more than to become close with her. There were so many things that she took into account about Jade: the way her murky green eyes would turn into a jade-green colour whenever her face lit up like the sun, the way just seeing her happy somehow lifts a void off her chest as if it was her life's missions. Jade is just like a shattered vase with nothing filling in the cracks; broken pieces strung together by a loose string trying to find its way back together. She's like someone who has chains around them𑁋the weight significantly becoming heavier and making it harder to break through.
There were so many things𑁋in the slightest detail𑁋that she can see on Jade from a single glance, yet she just feels so far away to even touch𑁋too locked up in those chains of hers and letting it become heavier as the days pass through.
After a couple of minutes of trying to shrug out her thoughts, Tori finds herself leaving the room without even trying to look back to wait if any of her friends were still back in class. To her oblivious mind, Andre quickly caught up with her, slowly approaching her before walking side-by-side. Tori didn't even realise the boy was walking next to her until he tapped on her shoulder.
"Have you made your decision yet?" he asks.
Tori faces towards him, trying to think, "Wh-What?"
"What I asked you back in class," Andre says. "If you wanted to, um, go out with me to dinner sometime? I understand if you don't want to𑁋it's completely fine."
Both of them walk in silence down the corridor𑁋with Tori still trying to rekindle her decision and sort through all her mixed feelings𑁋and then into the main hallway, where most of the students of the school were still placing valuables or taking things out of their lockers before scurrying out of the school as fast as they could. The school slowly becomes quieter and quieter as the minutes by.
Andre leans one side of his body on the locker next to Tori's as she put some notebooks in her locker, trying to not make eye contact with anything. However, Tori could hear the echoed slamming of a locker, knowing immediately that it's Jade. She didn't exactly understand if Jade was upset about her or about something that still involves... her. Whatever it was, it definitely had something to do with her, and that gave her goosebumps just from thinking about it.
"Tori?" Andre asks worryingly. "Are you alright? You seem lost."
Tori quickly snaps back to reality, still facing towards her locker. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."
"So?" Andre asks, leaning in slightly. "What do you say?"
Tori swallows the nervous lump in her throat, finally looking up to face the boy with a blank and unreadable expression. She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out as if her words and voice were stuck in her throat.
"Please don't think I'm trying to force you to do this because I'm really not," Andre says apologetically, noticing the overwhelmed expression on her face. "It's your choice."
Tori closes her locker before facing her entire body towards the dark-skinned boy, trying to mask out her real thoughts with oblivious impulsivity. Her lips stretch out into a faint smile towards him.
"You know what?" she starts, already feeling the immediate regret slowly rise inside of her. Andre just lifts a brow towards her. "Sure, I'd love to go out with you."
Andre's face quickly brightens with surprise as a winning smile forms on his face. "Great, thanks Tori. When are you available? I can pick you up."
"How..." Tori pauses to think before continuing. "...after school today?"
Andre nods quickly, accepting the offer. "Sure, if that's what you want."
"Come on, we don't want to miss our last day of rehearsals," she states, trying to rid herself of the topic. Her mind immediately drifts to the play. "I'm honestly terrified for the play tomorrow."
Andre agrees, "Same, I'm not entirely sure about how it's going to go."
The two walk side-by-side in the direction of the Black Box Theatre, with Tori remaining quiet and Andre talking his way through. Tori just bites at her lip anxiously, feeling her own body sink into the floor with the regret and guilt coursing up her veins. Her mind had made the impulsive decision for her and she wasn't sure why she had chosen to accept his date. He's her friend, of course, but what could happen at a date with a friend?
Back in the main hallway, Jade was still by her locker though close enough to hear the faint conversation that Tori and Andre had. She slams a hand against the cold, metallic surface of her locker furiously, sounding like a loud crash as several students glance curiously in her direction before she turns to them to give them her signature death glare.
"What are you looking at?!" Jade hisses towards them, causing them to spring away like little girls and out the door.
Jade releases the sigh that was built up inside of her, putting her hand on her chest to feel how fast her heart was beating inside. She closes and opens her pale fists, trying to calm herself down.
What the fuck am I trying to achieve?
She fixes the position of her bag over her shoulder before marching towards the direction of the Black Box Theatre.
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Tori, Jade, Beck, and Andre all find themselves nearly staying to rehearse for a total of approximately two hours so far. All the scenes were near perfection besides the final scene, where Jade always tried her best to avoid completing, and with Tori constantly hesitating to face her because she knew exactly that her behaviour not exactly be... fitting.
Sikowitz jumps out of the seat, approaching the stage, "Jade, typical Jade, why are you being such a gank right now?"
Jade shoots a glare at the man, however Sikowitz didn't seem to be affected at all by her stare, only continuing to stand in front of the stage with hands on hips with pride.
"Don't you know that you have a play tomorrow, a play, a big deal towards this school and possibly towards your future career?" Sikowitz tests again, stepping closer towards the stage where all four students stood. Jade was in the middle of the stage while the other three were in the back, watching the scene unfold before them.
Tori even watches carefully, observing the girl closely. Even herself she could feel the anxiety boiling up inside of her, and she wasn't even the one being scolded at by Sikowitz. She felt like she was in Jade's shoes up there, knowing that she's mostly responsible for how she's been acting the whole entire school day.
Sikowitz sighs, "If you continue this then we might as well exclude you from this play."
"NO!" Jade yells out loudly, causing everyone to jump all at once.
"So you choose not to forfeit?" Sikowitz lifts a brow towards the raven-haired girl who looked like she was pleading towards him with her eyes.
"You cannot exclude me from this play, if you do I𑁋" Jade didn't want to aggravate the man even more. She squeezes her lips together in frustration, attempting to control her anger. "I-I'm just not in the right state of mind right now."
"Jade, since when are you ever in the right state of mind?" Beck suddenly chimes in, causing everyone else in the room to face him.
Jade's face scrunches up as her glare went from Sikowitz to Beck. "Don't you dare𑁋"
"Jade, you know this is a big deal to Sikowitz, can we at least go through this final rehearsal before we perform for around, like, 50 people tomorrow?" Beck cuts her off. Jade could feel the heat inside of her face from the evergrowing anger. She had just the urge to just launch herself towards the boy but she couldn't.
Instead, she impetuously kicks the chair that stood beside her for some unknown reason, causing it to crash down on the floors. She rips off her apron off her body as well, throwing it down towards the floor, letting it float down like a feather.
"Kick me out of the fucking play if you want," Jade hissed loudly. "I-I just cannot deal with this shit right now."
Jade reaches over to grab her bag from the front of the stage before storming off the stage and towards the doors exiting the theatre. When she approaches the door, however, she stops to take a moment to glance back towards Tori. Their eyes met in an instant, Jade's vulnerability shown just in that single glance. She blinks back something in her eyes as she opens the doors before walking away and allowing the door to shut on its own, leaving Tori and the others alone in silence.
Tori just continues to stand there, frozen and still staring towards the doors with shock. Andre steps up towards her and places a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.
"What are we going to do?" Tori asks Sikowitz with the panic evident in her face, shrugging Andre's hand off her shoulder. "Are we just going to let her go and kick her out? The play is tomorrow!"
She couldn't do this play without Jade.
Sikowitz strokes his beard cautiously. "No, we aren't going to kick her out of the play."
Tori blinks, the panic still rising inside of her, "S-So what are we going to do?"
"We're gonna let her decide what happens," Sikowitz states, motioning towards the doors "If she doesn't come to the play then she doesn't come."
Even the boy seemed puzzled by the situation as well as Tori steps forward, "What𑁋"
"The show must go on!" Sikowitz waves his hand in the air dramatically. "You kids are dismissed!"
Sikowitz grabs the coconut that was placed on his chair as he left the Black Box Theatre gracefully, sipping the coconut in his hand. The group just watches all with different definitions of confusion as the man leaves the room without any further instruction. Tori's feet felt glued to the stage𑁋like giants weights on her shoulder forcing her to stand there.
"Well, I'm going to head out," Beck finally says after a few moments of silence. "I'll see you two tomorrow."
Tori opens her mouth to sputter something out before stopping herself, nodding as Andre walked towards Beck to say goodbye. Then when he finally left, Andre walks back towards Tori who was grabbing her bag from the chairs off the stage, noticing her aggression. She faces towards him with a look that was hard to read. Normally Tori is one of the easiest people that Andre can read, right now she wasn't.
"Hey," Andre places a hand on Tori's shoulder again. "Are you alright?"
"I..." Her voice trails off. She couldn't figure out how to word her sentences. "I-It's just Jade... I don't know. Seeing her like that just... I just hate seeing her like that and I feel completely responsible?"
"Hey, it's okay, it's not your fault. She always like that, right?" Andre asks, attempting to comfort the brunette to the best of his ability though it wasn't working all that well.
"N𑁋yeah, well, sure, I guess," Tori stutters, her sentences flumbling. "I-It's just that𑁋you don't underst𑁋nevermind."
"Calm down," Andre rubs her back soothingly. "Come on, I'll drop you off home and I'll let you get ready, okay? It's our night tonight, let's not let one little mishap ruin it."
Tori immediately felt the guilt wash over her, knowing that she accepted Andre's dinner request with also knowing that it could be one of the thousand reasons that Jade was angry, possibly at her specifically.
It made her worry about her, and she absolutely did not want to lose Jade.
"Y-Yeah, okay." Tori shakes up, trying to form a smile on her face.
"Great," Andre says brightly. "Let's go."
The two walk out of the theatre in silence.
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this chapter kinda written weird sorry