Jaded Eyes (Jori)

8: A Spring Flower

Jade: what's it to you?

Tori: Just trying to make conversation...

Jade: I'm fine I guess.

Jade didn't understand why this girl would be talking to her. She lives in a mansion with a baker for a mother. She probably has more TV's in her house than Jade has lights. She's probably texting me off her MacBook. Jade was about to confirm that suspicion until another question popped in her head.

Jade: wait, how'd you even get my number? I never gave you it.

Tori: you know your friend Cat?

Jade: I know she's a pushover but she knows not to give my number to anyone. Least of all some new girl from Idaho.

Tori: First of all, that's a weird friendship rule. And second, I'm from Iowa.

Jade: whatever. Cat would never do that. So seriously, how'd you get my number?

Tori: fine alright... I stole your phone when you were working on the project. You didn't even notice. You work too hard.

Jade: I swear to God, did you actually do that?

Tori: yeah lol

Someone could literally cook an egg on Jade's face. No one would consider Jade to be laid back, but at least they knew not to fuck with her. This violated everything about their relationship. No, not relationship, just... you know what I mean. Jade sat there with her phone next to her on the bed. How could Tori think, even with her small brain, that touching something of mine was okay?

Tori: hello?

Jade couldn't respond. How could she? Instead of answering the traitor, Jade picks up her notebook again. She wrote for what felt like seconds which was actually three hours. In those three hours, she only glorified one entry to be put on her wall of worthy writings:

Careful how you hand me that
bouquet of thorns

Around 23:35, Jade figured that is was best to fall asleep now instead of 3am. Jade walked over to the light switch and turned off only the lights leaving the fan to allow cool air to cascade down to the bed. Jade could only fall asleep to two sounds: white noise or the subway train barreling over the tracks. The subway, though, hasn't been possible since Jade moved further from downtown LA. The fan does the trick and Jades eyes come to a close.

—

Even further out of town, a brunette sits on the floor in her room taking random buzz feed quizzes on her phone. Turns out, she is a Hufflepuff. A few minutes go by and she also finds out that she is more like Camila Cabello than Lauren Jauregui. That makes sense.

Tori is just distracting herself from thinking about the lack of reply she got from her classmate about three hours ago.  What was so wrong with putting my number in her phone? Tori didn't understand the mysterious girl. Though, through Jades eyes, Tori guessed that she, herself, was the mystery. After all, she's the new girl from Iowa.

Iowa didn't have much. There was corn. And that was basically it. A few theme parks here and there and you could always rely on a good Walmart trip with your best friend to cure your boredom.

Best friend.

Tori had to leave behind a few friends. Her guy best friend, Matthew, a tall nerdy boy with dark hair and blue eyes. Anna, a blonde girl who was great for advice, but was hard on herself. And finally, Amelia. God, Amelia. This girl was about 5'6 and was just perfect. The kind of girl that has barriers and let's only some people in. But once you're in, she opens like a flower awaiting spring.

Amelia and Tori were the kinds of best friends where people just knew they were friends. They weren't popular but their friend group reached all kinds of kids. Bands kids. Nerdy kids. Incredibly smart kids. And with all these kids, came all sorts of drama. Tori was lucky and never got caught in it. But Amelia found herself entangled with a lot of shit. Most of it wasn't even true, even though there was one rumor that Tori wished to be true. They were both shocked how quick some students are to believe the first thing they hear.

Tori felt bad for Amelia and tried to do whatever she could to protect her. Whether that be from them or Amelia, herself. The friends were actually new at being friends before Tori had to move. They became friends last year and found they had so much in common. Tori was more into science and Amelia for literature but they made their differences work.

Lately, their friendship has been choppy. They weren't in a falling out, but they only text each a few times a week. Tori can't speak for Amelia but Tori feels that only getting texts from her maybe four times in a week is vastly different from when they would talk everyday. Long distance can be hard. Even for friendships...

Trying to collect her thoughts, shove them in a jar and throw them to the back of her mind, Tori finally blinks. Her eyes feel dry as she was staring at the wall for five minutes. She uses her bed at leverage to stand up right. Tori checks the clock on her phone. 23:50.

She walks into her bathroom and brushes her teeth. Facing her reflection, Tori examines her face. Pretty clear skin for a teenager. She looks herself in the eyes. Brown, with flakes of gold. Possibly even some green. Tori thinks to herself, Take me through the mirror where things don't exist. An abstract thought but a real one. Oh that's good, I gotta write that down.

Even though science is her strong suit, Tori has been trying to get herself into writing. Perhaps because it's one of the few things she can do that reminds her of Amelia.

Tori grabs her phone form her pocket and open her notes app. A secret notes app. This one needs a password. She enters 4514. Tabs the folder that is labeled "random writings" and types in her previous thought.

Tori plugs her phone in and puts it on the night stand next the the cupcakes. Tori walks over the the light switch and turns off the light making sure to leave the fan  on. Tori found out that she needs a fan on in her room otherwise sleep will never greet her.

Tori crawls onto her bed and unwraps a cupcake. She takes a huge bite making sure to leave a blue line of frosting on her upper lip. Tori takes her phone off the night stand and opens the camera. She takes a picture with her blue mustache with the cupcake right next to her cheek. Finishing the cupcake, she throws the sleeve into the bin next to her bed. Tori opens up Instagram and posts the picture on her story with the hashtag, "smurf" just before nodding off to bed.