West & Vega: The Untold Jori

Chrysalis

My walk was cathartic in some ways. It's always good to put some distance, either physical or proverbial (or both) between yourself and your problems. It gives you a different perspective. Sometimes it even leads to figuring out a solution.

This wasn't one of those times.

But it did provide the much-needed benefit of a mental reboot. Tori was right, I reflected as I spun my scissors around my finger. I was Jade fucking West. And Jade fucking West was wracked with chills every time she thought about Tori saying that. Damn, that girl could get inside of my head. If she knew how much...and if she were as sadistic as I was...she could really screw things up for me.

But she brought up a good point. I'd never let all the stupid shit that happened bother me back in school. I mean yes, I get it, the "real world" has "real consequences" that are scarier than a bad grade. But I should never have let that rattle me. I shouldn't have let it turn me into a passive, sniveling wimp.

I knew it was Tori's presence that had me so off my game. But it was also Tori's presence that made me realize that and rise above it. I've said it a hundred times, she always made things so much more complicated with me. But complicated or not, it was working. Embracing that, and Tori, might be the only way forward. It was only for another couple of weeks anyway. I could handle that. You can handle anything if you know it's in the short term.

So when I finally turned back toward the set after roaming this upscale neighborhood—and getting weird looks from the residents who probably assumed I was there to stab them with the scissors I was twirling—I was at least a bit more confident in my abilities. I still had no idea how I was going to pull this off without a better crew. I figured step one would be to let Burf go, or find him an easier job. It took longer to fix his mistakes and redo the work than it would just to do the work without him. I had enough stands to rig up something for the mic, and I could just run the sound recorder myself.

A little more than an hour had gone by when I returned. I was going through the plan to get it right in my head before explaining it to everyone when I noticed the first strange thing: a familiar grey-silver sedan parked well up the street from the set. I'd recognize it anywhere, I'd ridden in it a dozen times. It was surrounded in the front and back by a few other cars that hadn't been there before. I noticed a few extra bodies roaming around the set as well.

Tori was talking to a number of these extra people as I got closer. She saw me coming and said something to one of them. He turned, and my heart leaped out of my rib cage. I knew his laid-back, friendly grin anywhere.

"Andre!?"

He hurried to me and opened his arms for an embrace. "What's up, twisted sister?"

I hated touching people, but if Andre had come out to help with this thing, he earned a hug. A quick one.

"What the hell are you doing out here? I thought you were in Seattle working with PeazyB."

"True chiz, I just got back last night. Peazy decided to put his recording on hold so he could fly to the Galapagos Islands and look for evolved turtles or something. Between you and me, I don't think the guy's got a full deck if you know what I'm sayin."

"So how'd you know we needed help?"

Andre nodded to Tori, who was still talking to the others. "Your girl there saw my post about being back. She called me up and asked me if I could come help run sound."

It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. A lot of weight. Like, three sweaty fat guys' worth of weight. If I ever showed emotion, I'd probably have been near-tears. "So Vega did this."