Tori and Beck

Chapter 7

After our little rendez-vous in the garage, I rejoined the group first, stupidly forgetting the sodas I had scrounged out of the fridge. Beck came back a few minutes later, saying he had just finished up a phone call with his mom.

I felt bad lying to our friends, but that’s just how it had to be for now.

When it was getting late and everything was packed away and cleaned up, people started to disperse. Beck, who had to take Jade home, left first. He only waved at me, thanking me for my hospitality, before disappearing out the door with his girlfriend. Then Cat, then Robbie exited.

After loading his poker table into his car and coming back for his bag of cards, Andre was about to leave again, but I practically yanked him back through the door to stay.

“Woman!” he yelled as I pushed him onto the couch, “what is wrong with you!”

“I did something bad!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you switch Trina’s shampoo with hair dye again?”

“No!” I said, smacking him on the arm. But that did remind me...

“Then what?”

I suddenly didn’t know if I should tell him or not. I felt like I was disappointing him. But I knew if I kept this in any longer it would fully consume me. “I kissed Beck.”

At my words, Andre looked like he was about to cry. He looked back up to his higher power. “Oh, why me, Lord?”

“Andre! Help me!”

“Tori, I’m trying to! You just need to control your hormones!”

I pushed him again. “This is serious! He technically kissed me the first time---”

“The first time!”

Whoops. Guess I forget he didn’t know that tonight was our second real kiss.

“Tori, you better be talkin’ about that kiss from Sikowitz’s class...”

I just looked at him guiltily.

“Oh Tori... no, Tori!”

“I’m sorry! Andre you need to understand how hard this is for me, I can’t just turn these feelings off.”

“Tori, don’t you remember the same thing happened to me?” he asked. “Remembered when I started to have feelings for Jade? Well I ‘turned’ them off. Because Beck is my friend.”

I sighed in defeat. He was right.

This had to end.

        * * * *

My decision to end this “thing” with Beck only became clearer when I ran into Jade (she actually kind of cornered me), in the hallway after school the following Monday.

“Hello, Tori,” she said sternly, her waves of black hair like Medusa’s snakes coming out of her head.

“Jade,” I said, trying to act cool and calm.

Then she did something strange. She quickly looked around, making sure no one was watching before pulling me into an empty classroom near us.

Oh gosh, I thought. She knows. She’s going to kill me. 

But once she closed the door and threw her bag onto the ground, she turned to face me and I was surprised to see that she actually looked... worried. It was an expression I had never seen on Jade. She always seemed to be confident (and insensitive) about everything.