I was enchanted to meet you

Chapter 7 - The lingering question kept me up (2 AM, who do you love?)

"Hey Tori, wake up, it's time to go to school!"

Tori, although groggy, hastily woke up to someone shouting. She rubbed her eyes, still adjusting to the lights, and saw a fully dressed Jade– hold on, are these my clothes?! –standing by the bed, yelling at her to wake up.

"C'mon, wake up, we're gonna be late for school." She even started pulling at her leg so she could be faster. Tori groaned and started to get up from bed.

"Did you have to do it like that?"

Jade chuckled and crossed her arms. "You never had your mom wake you up like this?"

"Yeah, when I was, like, ten!" Tori sighed and rolled her eyes. She was having such a nice dream too. Oh well.

"Whatever. But, really, go get ready, I'll give you a ride."

Tori smiled. "Thanks."

Jade watched as Tori dragged herself to the bathroom, and sighed. She started walking and looking around the bedroom, actually paying attention to it for the first time.

Tori's bedroom was big, mostly white, and had a lot of things in it. There was an acoustic guitar attached to the wall near her bed. On the walls themselves were a bunch of different posters, framed pictures, paintings and even a few handmade drawings. On one side there's a window with the king-sized bed below it. On the other side, there's a large desk, with also a bunch of different things. She quickly noticed one particular framed picture, it had a probably twelve years old smiling Tori hugging Trina, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but there. Jade smiled wistfully. Putting the picture back in its place, she walked towards the bed and sat down.

She felt everything last night. All the feathery touches and caresses, like she was not only afraid to "wake" her up, but also of breaking her, like she was made of glass. In fact, Jade frequently liked to mentally describe herself as broken glass. Fragile. Damaged. But also easily able to hurt others if you weren't careful. That's why she liked the sound of glass breaking so much.

Jade doesn't really remember Beck being so careful with her, ever. He was always a bit on the rough side, not much of a soft moments guy. He had a strong grip, or not at all. She couldn't help but compare. She didn't mean to move last night and disturb Tori's "little moment", but when she felt Tori tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, it was like electricity ran through her whole body. It felt... Well, it certainly felt different . Good different.

She also felt the unexplainable affection that Tori, for some reason, had for her. It was weird, alien. She wasn't used to it. Her dad didn't stand her. Her mom was barely there. Her little brother was just a brat. All the affection she received was from Beck, and even that got increasingly lacking as their relationship grew more and more toxic. She didn't really care for anyone else.

And then there was Tori. A mystery, a puzzle she couldn't put together, try as she might. It became sort of a personal quest to figure her out. Why did Tori like her so much? What did she gain from all the favors she does for her? Did she have an ulterior motive? Was the constant flirting her way to joke around or was it something else? She never saw Tori flirting with other people like she does with her, so why her?

Before she could think about it further, she heard the bathroom door open, and from it, a fully freshened and dressed up Tori.

"I don't know why you woke me up so early, we still have, like, an hour." She grumbled.

Jade mentally pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind for now and hoisted herself up from the bed, grabbing her bag and starting to walk to the door.

"'Cause we're gonna grab some coffee first. By the way, I'm borrowing your clothes."

Tori's whole face lit up, but she had to bite back the obvious pickup line that was just there . I bet I'm getting predictable by now . She also ignored the clothes part. She trusted Jade to give it back to her whenever.

"O-oh, alright." She hastily grabbed her stuff and left with Jade.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"What do you want?" Jade asked as they arrived on the drive-thru.

"Uh, a caramel hazelnut latte. Medium, please."

Jade fake gagged at Tori's order, who rolled her eyes with a smile on her face.

"How you can keep drinking that diabetes in a cup is beyond me," Jade mumbled before rolling down the window and ordering their coffees. Tori was reaching for her purse when Jade stopped her. "It's okay. My treat."

"Are you sure?"

Jade looked away, suddenly bashful. "It's... my thanks. For, y'know, yesterday."

When she noticed that Tori didn't speak for a few seconds too many, Jade turned around to see that Tori was looking at her with a big, happy grin on her face. She looked like a cute puppy. Jade looked away again.

"Thanks, Jade."

"It's just coffee, don't mention it." Jade received the order and passed the coffee to Tori, putting her own in the cupholder and putting her car to drive. "Seriously, don't mention it."

"Okay, I won't."

"Good. Now, please, start ordering something else, you'll seriously get diabetes from that."

"Aw, are you worried about lil ol' me?"

"No."

"Suuuuure."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They arrived at school with twenty whole minutes to spare. With everything being so close by, the ride wasn't long, to Tori's dismay. She couldn't describe just how fun it was to hang out with Jade, especially when the usually mean girl was being so nice to her all day. It was so rare, she didn't want it to end.

"Thanks for the ride and the coffee, Jade." Tori chirped happily, taking off her seatbelt and beginning to open the car door to leave, but stopped when she noticed that Jade hadn't moved nor responded after she turned off the car. She was looking straight ahead, her brows knitted together in worry and she was munching on her lower lip. She was definitely distracted.

Tori didn't think twice as she reached for Jade's hand that was gripping the steering wheel like her life depended on it. She felt the hand below her own instantly relax its iron grip.

"It's gonna be okay," she reassured softly. "Today's gonna be just like any other school day. We'll listen to boring classes, we'll eat greasy food for lunch and you'll scare people away with just a look."

Jade let out an amused noise as she looked over at Tori, the half-latina's eyes twinkling with unhidden affection. She looked away, feeling her stomach churn uncomfortably.

"You're right. I'm just freaking out a little."

Tori's breath hitched when she felt Jade turn her hand, gripping and intertwining their fingers briefly before hastily getting out of the car. Her hand was tingling all over and she was pretty sure that she was blushing, judging from the sudden warmth on her face. She broke out of her trance when she heard the car door close loudly and quickly followed Jade out and into the school, all the while trying to keep her overflowing feelings at bay.

And she had absolutely no idea about the raging war that she accidentally caused in Jade's mind.