Jade|
My phone goes off while I'm in the shower, but I'm too busy sitting at the bottom of the tub with my head between my knees to pay it much attention. It's probably Tori, and it's not like I don't want to talk to her (I always want to talk to her), but I can't even find the energy to get up and turn the water off, let alone get out and pick up my phone.
A great roar beneath my wet hands announces the hunger of my stomach. Rubbing it slightly, as if trying to calm it, I tilt my head up directly into the spray of the showerhead and let it beat against my face. The sound drums loud in my ears as I open my mouth. It fills with water. I spit it out and do it again and again for no real reason at all, and then I accidentally swallow some of it, making my throat seize as it begins to trickle into my lungs. I cough loudly, hunched over my knees, hacking like there's something trying to crawl out of me, and somehow the coughing turns into crying and before I know it the hot currents on my face aren't just shower water.
I close my eyes and think of last night, of Tori's tan flesh running beneath my fingers like dark rivers, the way she kissed me hard enough to keep me captured but soft enough to let me go, how she knotted her fingers into my hair and how her moans sounded like singing. Warmth blossoms between my legs just thinking about it. My eyelashes drip with water when I open them again, staring blankly at the fake blood spatter on my shower curtain. Mom had turned up her nose at it when she saw it in the package even though I was clearly excited about buying it.
I clench my fingernails into my kneecaps. Mom. She's not worthy of a status like that. Hell, she's not worthy of being a human.
A part of me understands, though, which pisses me off even more. She knows the business. She's responsible for quite a few success stories because she knows the ins and outs of Being Famous. When she says I'm throwing away my future career, she's not saying it with no evidence to prove her point. I mean, that doesn't justify her being a bitch at all, but at least she's coming from somewhere partially sane.
I think of Tori - beautiful, sing-song little Tori with her too big heart and her great smile and her eyes when she looks at me and I need her. I need her right now - and maybe I won't marry her or be with her forever but that doesn't change the fact that I want her now, at this moment, and she's more important than any career.
I wonder when my mom fell out of love with my dad, or if it was the other way around, or if they both just woke up one day and hated each other. My throat constricts with fear. What if it's inevitable? What if I wake up and don't feel the same way about Tori, just like Beck did with me? Pressing my heels into my eyes, I shake my head and try to breathe and remind myself that Tori's parents are still together and they're happy and they have a life and if they can do it, then it's not impossible. I'm not Beck and Tori isn't like anyone else on the planet and that means that we have a shot at forever.
Right?
Hauling myself reluctantly to my feet, I yank the water off and climb out of the shower. As I pat my hair dry with a towel, I try to imagine not stepping foot in this bathroom anymore. I try to see myself getting ready for school - and maybe not even the same school - at Tori's. I hang my head over the sink and rub my face with one hand before slicking my fingers through my tangled mess of hair. Even thinking about asking Tori's parents for that kind of support, putting all that pressure on them, depending on them for at least the remainder of the school year makes me want to crawl into a hole and never come out. It seemed like a good idea when Tori was here, but what if moving in with her ruins everything? We've only been together for a little over a month, after all - too much time together too quickly could turn us into what Beck and I were.
I press my fingers into my eyes and try not to sink to my knees. Breathing doesn't come easy. I can't move in with Tori, I tell myself. I can't do that to her parents and I definitely can't do that to her. It would be asking too much and it makes my stomach coil.
