Every Beat of your Heart Makes a Song in Mine (A Victorious Story)

Chapter twelve

That Tuesday, Andre picked Tori, Cat, Robbie, and Beck up after school to go to Karaoke Dokie. Beck was more melancholy and pessimistic than he had been in the hospital, which was honestly worrying Tori.

"You seem...quiet, Beck." Robbie said, trying to find the right words to point out Beck's change in attitude without sounding accusing. "Is everything okay?"

"It's just really frustrating." Beck sighed. "All I can remember is hitting my head, talking to Cat, calling Jade's name, and stupid emotions. How the heck is any of that supposed to help??"

"Wait, emotions?" Tori asked. "You remember how you were feeling during the crash?"

"Kinda..." Beck admitted.

"Why didn't you tell us before???" Tori exclaimed.

Beck held his hands up defensively. "I didn't think that it was important before." He said.

"Well, it could be!!" Tori said. "What do you remember emotion-wise?"

"Um...right before the crash, it was like all adrenaline. All I wanted to focus on was keeping anyone from getting hurt. The only emotion after that that I can remember is when I hit my head. It was like a mix of shock and worry. But not a normal kind of worry, more like...a specific kind. As if I had tried to do something, and failed." He sighed. "I'm worried that I felt that way because I couldn't protect Jade, or either of you. That's why it's my fault. You all can't keep trying to convince me otherwise. Mr. West is right. If it's anyone's fault, I'm the one to blame."

"Come on, Beck. We all know that's not true." Andre said from the driver's seat. "You did something. You know that you did. You did something to protect Jade. You just don't believe it. I think that may be why you can't remember."

"What do you mean by that?" Robbie asked.

"Well, think about it." Andre said, turning down the radio so that the others could hear him. "If you didn't believe that you did something, would you be able to remember doing it? Like, let's say that we had a big assignment due for Sikowitz, and Cat didn't think that she did it. Would that make it any easier for her to remember doing the homework if she didn't think that she did it?"

"Wait, did we have homework for Sikowitz this weekend?" Cat asked worriedly.

"No, Cat. It was a hypothetical scenario." Andre said, rolling his eyes a bit.

"But he's got a point." Tori observed. "That's probably why you can't remember, other than your concussion, of course. You're not convinced that you did anything, so it's making it harder for you to actually remember what happened."

"Let's just try to have fun tonight." Cat recommended, picking up that Beck didn't want to discuss this topic anymore. "We'll order some food, sing a few tunes, we'll have a blast."

"Good idea, Cat." Andre smiled at her from the front seat. "That sounds like a plan."

When they pulled into Karaoke Dokie, Andre stopped the car and they all filed out. Beck was acting as he had when they had gone to the Gorilla club about a year ago. He was obviously antsy, as if he didn't know whether he wanted to go into the restaurant or not. Almost as if he felt kind of...out of place. Andre seemed to take notice.

"Hey," he said. "If you don't wanna be here, we can go somewhere else. We can all go chill at my house and watch a movie, if you'd rather."

"No..." Beck began, shaking his head. "No, this is fine. Let's go inside and have fun."

When they filed inside, the fun aspects of the restaurant didn't seem to improve Beck's mood at all. He just sat down at a table, his friends joining him, and stared off into space at the stage. Tori could tell that he was thinking about the first time that they came here, when Jade and Cat had given an astounding duet performance of "Give it Up." And now, she wasn't here. Tori sighed, there didn't seem to be any place that they could go that wouldn't remind him of his girlfriend.

As if the night couldn't get worse, two girls with some of the biggest egos that Tori had ever seen happened to be here.

"Hiiiiii, handsome." Hayley Ferguson said flirtingly, walking over to the gang. She plopped down into a chair next to Beck, rubbing his hand and causing Beck's eyes to grow wide with offense and quickly yank his hand into his lap. "Been a while since we saw you, what's up with that? Did you miss me?"

Beck gave Hayley and her best friend, Tara Ganz, a death stare, a look that Tori had never seen on his face. The two girls didn't seem to take notice that they clearly weren't wanted. Either that, or they just didn't care.

"For crying out loud, girl, how many times do we have to tell you???" Andre asked. "Do you want us to write the word 'Taken' across his forehead for you two specifically?"

"He has a girlfriend." Cat added, as if Andre's sarcasm enough didn't get to the two girls.

"Yeah, back off." Tori said. "We have enough problems without you two ruining our night."

Hayley looked around, and spent an extra five seconds looking behind her, before responding, "I don't see his girlfriend anywhere."

"She's in a coma." Cat replied, receiving a really? look from everyone else. "What?" Cat asked. "She needs to know that Jade's in a coma from the crash a few weeks ago, do you really want someone to think that it's okay to hit on Beck and that Jade won't find out? I'm just trying to keep someone from being beat up, myself included."

"A coma, huh?" Hayley asked. "Well, if she's in a coma, she wouldn't know if you were to do anything here..." she said, rubbing Beck's shoulder as he swatted her hand away. Tori could see Beck tense up, something totally out of character for him. He was one of the calmest people she knew; it took a lot to make him mad. Everyone else seemed to pick up on Beck's sudden tensing up, as they all stood up from the table. Cat pulled out her phone and aimed it at Beck and Hayley for who knows why, and Andre and Robbie looked at each other before Robbie said,

"So Andre...I hear that you have Disney plus. Why don't we all go to your house after all and watch Hamilton?"

"I think that's a great idea." Andre said, clearly implying that they needed to go.

"Me, too." Was all that Beck said, in a stern voice, still death staring the two girls. He picked up his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. They all pushed their seats back in and turned to leave. But then...

"You know, it's really a shame." Hayley remarked to Tara (rather loudly) as they were leaving. "Poor boy can't take advantage of pure beauty even when he's finally been given the opportunity with his girlfriend out of the way."

Beck stopped. "Out of the way?" He said in a low voice, anger lining his voice. Okay, now Tori was scared. She had never seen Beck angry, but he certainly sounded angry now.

And the next thing that happened, well...Tori couldn't believe her eyes. It seemed to happen in slow motion.

Beck whirled around so fast that his jacket and hair were still moving when he stopped to face Hayley. His hand was in a fist, and, with himself not even knowing truly what he was doing, Beck Oliver socked Hayley Ferguson across the jaw.

Seconds after, Beck stood there, his skin pale and a look of shock on his face, looking at his fist like, did I really just do that?

Stopping the recording on her phone from beside Tori, Cat whispered,

"Jade would be so proud."