Behind The Scenes

Jade Gets Crushed

"It was your idea!" Jade yells, frustrated.

Beck winces. It's 2 am and the RV may be bulletproof, but it's not soundproof. "I didn't mean you should hang out with him until two in the morning." Andre had dropped off Jade an hour ago. He'd walked her to the RV, both of them laughing together, and then hugged her.

"'Come on, Jade. This will be good for you. You never hang out with Andre anymore. You need to socialize.'" Beck's not allowed to insist she hang out with their friend and then get mad when she does.

"I know what I said, okay?" Beck uncurls his fist, so he can run his fingers through his hair.

"Then why are you mad at me? I didn't do anything you don't do."

"I'm mad because he likes you now." Jade was an amazing person to know, but most people never took the time, so he didn't have a lot of experience with other people appreciating her the way he did. After he and Jade started dating, it had taken him months of jealousy to accept that Cat knew Jade, really knew her, and she wasn't willing to give up any of their friendship just because he was Jade's boyfriend.

"That's not my fault!"

"So what? You get to be jealous of Tori because she has a crush on me, but I can't be jealous of Andre?" Beck ignores her eye roll. "That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?" He knows that Jade's jealousy when Tori first arrived was entirely for show, but there have been moments since then when Jade was undeniably jealous.

"It's not the same thing. I never kissed Andre. I don't flirt with Andre." Jade doesn't care if he's jealous, but blaming her? That's going too far. "Hell, I barely see Andre!"

"It's not my fault you can't act like a human being long enough to make friends!" Beck's eyes grow wide as the last word leaves his mouth. "I'm sor-"

"Don't," Jade growls. "I know that you don't always understand, but I never thought you would shame me for something I can't control."

Beck reaches his hand out, but before he can even decipher what he was trying to do she's taken a step back from him. "I was just upset."

"Do you really feel that way?"

"No!" He knew it wasn't her. Out of the two of them, he was the only one who could confidently say that her illness wasn't her.

"Have you been repressing all of these feelings? Do you think if I was more positive- Do you think I'm ungrateful? Oh my god."

Beck shakes his head as he hears her start to spiral. "No, no. You know I don't think that. I never have."

"God, you've just been sitting there biting your tongue for two years. How could you never tell me this?"

"There was nothing to tell! I don't feel that way. I didn't mean it. I was just upset and jealous and it just came out."

"Yeah, a Freudian slip." Jade curls into herself as she starts to pace. "I can't believe you hid this from me. All of the things I've told you- all of the things you've seen-" She feels like she might throw up.

"I didn't hide anything. I don't think that it's your fault. I know it's an illness. I know." She's not listening to him. He can feel it as she paces back and forth in front of him. She's entirely in her own head. "Jade, Jade." Her eyes flit up to his as she pauses. "I love you. I didn't mean it. I don't think it's your fault. I love you, okay?" She doesn't look convinced and his hands are starting to feel clammy. "I would never have stayed with you if I thought it was because you were ungrateful or negative."

"Oh, really?" Beck replays his words as he tries to hear what caught her attention. "So you don't love me unconditionally?"

Shit. "No, I do."

"But you would leave me if I wasn't bubbly enough? Or if I wasn't grateful enough? What other things would you leave me over?" Jade shakes her head. What else was he hiding from her?

"I wouldn't! I want you, us." He can feel this conversation getting worse and worse, but he doesn't know how to get himself out of the hole he dug.

"But on your terms, right?" Jade rakes her fingers through her hair, unsure what to do with this new information.

Beck shakes his head as he tries to figure out how they got here, to this point where it feels like their relationship might fall apart in front of his eyes. "No, no, no." He looks into her eyes and with absolute conviction says, "No." There are a lot of things about his future that he's uncertain about, but their relationship isn't one of them. "I want you on any terms. I want us on any terms." She's at least looking at him while he talks. "I said something stupid and hurtful and I'm so sorry. But that's all it was. I don't blame you. It's real and it's valid and it's not in your control and it breaks my heart. That's how I feel about it."

Jade watches his eyes and face as she tries to determine if he's being honest. She doesn't think she can handle it if he's not. "Okay."

"Okay?" He asks softly, afraid that he'll scare her off somehow. He's never felt so close to losing her so often. Over the last year, he's felt in his bones that they could break up, that she could leave over any one of these fights. Not to punish him or for attention, but because he could betray her trust so completely by saying the wrong thing. In her mind, if he doesn't get it after two years, then she's let him see something so shameful that she could never bear to stay with him. Not if he doesn't get it.

Jade nods. "Okay."