Where's Tori

Chapter 1 - Missing

Disclaimer: The Show Victorious, its characters and other associated copyrights are property of someone else and not me.

Where's Tori

Chapter 1 – Missing

This a story of loss, recovery and love. 

Jade's POV

"Hey honey, it's me. I just finished in studio for the day. I'm going to stop at the store to get milk on the way home. Love you."

The above is a voice mail. It was 6 seconds long and was left at 6:47 PM on June the 17th. Too anyone, the message doesn't sound very out of the ordinary. At the time I was on a movie set and didn't get her call. So, she left a message.

It's a very special message, for me at least. Why, do you ask?

Well first of all that message, which I have managed to keep, is 9 years, 7 months and 22 days old. It was also, the very last time I heard from Tori.

Shortly after she left that message, she was last seen by the receptionist at the recording studio where she was working on her second album. She said a cheerful good night to the receptionist and left the building.

She never made it home.

At the time we were both 20 years old and a happy couple. She was working on her first album and my acting career had begun to take off. We had our problems as all couples do, but we were happy.

We were happy until that day, when I came home to an empty house. I didn't worry right away, figuring she stopped at Cat's or perhaps got sucked into a sale at the mall.

By 8:30 I started to get worried. I had called and texted Tori to no avail. I called everyone I could think of; no one had seen or heard from Tori. Her father, who was a cop, started the search right away.

Her car was found 3 days later, in the parking lot of a grocery store about 3 miles from the studio. Nothing appeared amiss at all about it. Just a green Honda accord parked like any other car. It hadn't been broken into or damaged in any way. The store had no security cameras on the outside of the building and no one remembered seeing anything.

Tori had simply vanished.

As the hours and days ticked by, I grew more frantic. The reporters splashed it all across the headlines, Upcoming pop star Tori Vega, Vanishes mysteriously. I sobbed continuously for months after she disappeared. Cat, Beck, Andre, Robbie, even Trina tried to console me. They would say she's coming back. Still, I was devastated.

Searches were made in local parks, everywhere. I used to just drive around for hours, just in the hopes of seeing her. Sometimes I would park in the spot where her car was found, and cry.

When someone you love dies, you know it's the end of their life. You gradually accept that and move on. When someone just disappears, you never know what happened. Are they dead? Are they alive? Are they in pain? Did they leave you on purpose? Those and a thousand other questions rattle through your brain. Questions that never get answered. They just sit in the back of your mind haunting you. Like a wound that never heals.

My beloved Tori was gone. Ever since, I feel like my heart had been ripped in two and one half of it stolen. There's been an empty feeling in my chest ever since. I've never been able to fill it.

I have rituals that I go through every year. On Tori's birthday, I light a candle for her, put it in my window, and get drunk. On the anniversary of her disappearance, I'll drive to the parking lot where her car was found. I'll just sit there in my car and cry, then I'll get drunk. I am high functioning alcoholic to it bluntly.