A Dangerous Friend

This Wheel's On Fire

Jade West sat in the library, making notes for her History test. She became aware of a hovering behind her. It was an insistent hover, a hover that craved her attention, so she did her best to ignore it as long as she could.

"Vega," she said eventually, when she couldn't stand it any longer. The other girl slumped gratefully into the chair opposite.

"Hey," she said, brightly. "Whatcha doing?"

Jade looked pointedly at her pen, then at her notepad, then at the open book in front of her, then back at Tori.

"I'm pony-trekking in the Andes. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Well, the thing is," Tori said. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Okay." Jade put down her pen and waited patiently. Tori opened and closed her mouth a few times, as though practicing what she was going to say.

"I was just wondering," she said, finally, "what you wanted to do after school."

"I'm busy," Jade said, flatly.

"It's just that... What?"

"I've got revision to do for this last exam, and then Beck needs me to go over to help him rehearse for some stupid audition."

"No, I mean after school, school. We graduate in a few weeks, Jade."

"Really? Man, I have got to get me a diary, and make a note of this kind of thing."

Tori sighed. "Look, I just wanted to know if you were, you know, planning on staying in touch. With... everyone."

"I guess," Jade shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Beck's going to, so I suppose I'll have to put up with them all once in a while."

"Oh." Tori picked at a fingernail. "Right."

There seemed to be something more. "Am I missing something, Vega?"

"No, it's just... I was really wondering if you were planning to... I mean you don't have to, obviously, but-"

"What?"

"I wondered if you wanted to stay in touch with me."

Jade was a little taken aback. She widened her eyes into an expression of bemusement. "With you?" she said, in mock horror.

She wasn't sure what she'd expecting from Tori, but she wasn't prepared for the look of absolute devastation on the other girl's face. She looked as though she'd been slapped. The chair scraped back and hit the floor, and she was gone.

Jade groaned. Despite what everyone believed, she didn't like to see Tori upset. She liked it when she was angry, or confused, or embarrassed. She even had a soft spot for 'sad' Tori, with her puppy-dog eyes and long face. But she didn't like to see her genuinely hurt - particularly when, it could be argued, it was entirely Jade's fault. "Hey, Vega!" she shouted, grabbing her notepad. "Vega? Damn it, Vega, wait up! Tori!"

She finally caught up with her in the hall. Tori was furiously shoving books into her locker, from where they slid untidily back out onto the floor. Undeterred, Tori picked each one up as it fell and rammed it back in. She ignored Jade's approach.

"Look, Vega," Jade said, after watching Tori's ongoing battle with the locker for a moment. "I-"

"You could have just lied, you know," Tori said, blinking back angry tears and picking up another escaped book. "That would have been the decent thing to do. The humane thing. You could have just said, 'yeah, sure,' and forgot all about it. But you couldn't do that, could you? You had to be a total... bitch about it."