like we used to

. part three .

Here is the last part of this story. If you don't know, this story has been nominated for an award at the annual Victorious Awards; it's a huge honor and I've very appreciative to be considered! Now, this is where you come in. Go to 'forums' and then to 'Victorious' and click on Lovely Amelie's Victorious Awards forum. Mine is within the Best Overall catagory. All you have to do is click on the bubble next to the name of my story - like we used to - and it will send in a vote for me. Thank you all and have a blessed evening!

U is for umbrella.

It's raining in Trina Vega's world, both literally and figuratively. Rain pounds the pavement and soaks into the earth, nourishes plants. Trina's heeled boots nearly slip on the slick sidewalk with every step and she chews a piece of gum.

"Trina Vega?" A familiar voice asks.

She turns, eyes piercing his dark face. "What do you want?" What she wants to say is this: I'm hurting, I'm bleeding, please - please help me. But she seals her lips shut.

"You're soaked." It's not a question.

Trina shrugs, "Okay, so what?" She crosses her arms and tries to appear defiant. It must work, because he takes several steps back. "Maybe I like the rain. Maybe I like feeling the cold seep into my body and steal the life from me. Maybe I like being suicidal!" She can't tell what's on her face - tears or rain - but it doesn't matter.

He doesn't hug her and she's glad, because she would have slapped him if he'd tried anything. "Well," he says, "I'm glad you like all that. Would you like to share my umbrella?"

Trina looks at the umbrella (and it's big and clunky and ugly and once upon a time she wouldn't have been caught dead with that thing.)

"What does it matter?" she wonders before stepping under the protection of the umbrella. "No one can help me anymore."

He sighs, "I think it does matter." Silence falls over them and her nails dig into her palms. "You left the ER why exactly? Trina, you tried to kill yourself." He looks pained at the thought.

Trina's eyes solidify into merciless chunks. "You know absolutely nothing about me. You have no right to know anything!"

"Don't I?" he whispers.

Her dad's lips press against her forehead and Trina falls into his embrace, losing herself in the blurred world of sobs.

V is for valentine.

Cat counts out the wad of bills in her hand over and over, trying to ignore that she always comes up one hundred dollars short. Always short. The streamers no longer float in her mind and she's given up trying to fill balloons with helium. Memories always seem to come along and pop them.

"Why are you counting money?" Beck asks her. She forgot she was sitting with him at lunch.

"My -" Cat begins, cutting off. The man who left her wasn't her boyfriend exactly, but not a friend either. She doesn't know what to call him. "Someone left and I'm trying to go after him."

"I would have thought you'd have come up with a whole prince charming analogy or something," Beck says. He smirks, but the effort is plastic, just like herself.

She shakes her head slowly, almost nonexistant. "Dreams fall," she says, and it's nearly poetic. But she's always been the cheerful one so it comes out wrong.

Beck's fingers splay across her knee and send little tingles up her leg. It makes her giggle and he shoots a confused look at her.

"Not for you," Beck says softly. He takes her hand and she smiles at the feeling of his thumb rubbing her skin. It's nice to at least have one friend in the midst of life.

Cat eyes the poster on the pole behind Beck and twists her lips. "I hate Valentine's Day."

"No, you just hate being single," Beck says. He smiles lightly. "No worries, I'm single too. Jade doesn't like expressing her feelings through gifts or flattery - or anything, really."

Cat giggles again, "I think Jade will wish you a Happy Valentine's Day tonight, Beck."

"Did you actually just make a sexual reference?" Beck asks, snorting in amusement. He fondles a rose in his fingers and wishes that he could give it to Jade, but he can't. And a new idea is blossoming in his mind. "Will you be my valentine, Cat?"

She smiles for real this time - and it's blinding, radiant to everyone around her. Streamers burst to life and balloons spin in circles as she takes the rose from Beck and inhales the soft scent.

"Okay," Cat whispers.

He leans closer and she can see a drop of liquid hanging from one of his girl-ish lashes.

"I just want you to be happy," Beck says. "As your friend, I feel obligated to keep you somewhat sane - er, in good spirits." Sane isn't really a good word to describe Cat.

"There's a party going on in my head," Cat says with a giggle. "But I'm not going to kiss you."

Beck shrugs and Cat feels his smooth lips press against her cheek; it's such a sweet gesture - one she's never had the pleasure of experiencing before this - that it brings tears to her eyes.

Jade is lucky to have Beck, Cat thinks. Anyone would be lucky to have Beck.

W is for Wal-mart.

Andre stands behind shelves filled with different brands of condoms. He remembers Jade's naked, sweaty body lying on top of his sheets and feels a mixture of disgust and desire.

"Hello?" A girl is standing next to him. She's pretty, with white skin and long, curly brown hair. Her brown eyes gleam with friendliness and a bit of seduction, if he can guess correctly.

Andre smiles stiffly, "Um - hey."

"You go to Hollywood Arts, right?" The girl asks with a toss of her hair. At his nod she grins. "I've seen you coming out there and I must say, I envy your fantastic musical abilities!"

"Thanks," Andre says, smiling for real this time. "I'm Andre."

"And I'm Monica," she says. "So - are you single?"

Andre catches his breath, imagines Jade lying on his bed waiting for him to come and sleep with her, and then Tori lying on the hospital bed looking up at him with eyes full of hurt. She hates me, he thinks, looking back at Monica. And then it hits him: he's turned into a manwhore, sleeping with multiple girls just to try and fill the void in his heart.

"Well?" Monica wonders, those dark eyes so tempting. It would be so easy to "slip up" again. And she seems so nice.

"I -" he hesitates as she swishes lip gloss against her plump mouth, "We'll see."

Monica giggles flirtaciously and hands him a piece of ripped paper. "I put my number on there. Call me." She touches his hand and then saunters off towards women's intimate apparels.

He's a damn coward.

(Ten minutes later he calls Monica and tells her that he can't see her. Moments later he texts Jade the same thing. He's done with pretensions.)

X is for 'xterminated.

Tori lies on the hospital bed with face so pale it seems that she'll fade away any second. Her eyes trace the letters of the text she just recieved first with disbelief and then with resignation:

I slept with Andre; we need to talk - Jade

She doesn't know why she feels so heartbroken; she knew this would happen after playing all those mind games with Andre. He wouldn't have left if she'd just been with him. But now, now she doesn't care anymore. She's done with him.

"Tori," Jade says as she steps into the room. She's not wearing any makeup and her face darkens as she spots Tori lying practically lifeless on the sterilized bed. "Tori, I -"

"I don't care that you slept with him," Tori whispers. Her voice scratches with fatigue, she would say - but it's not; it's something akin to despair. "I just want to know why."

Jade swallows but refuses to look intimidated. This is Vega, the girl she's been practically tooth and claw with for weeks and months. "I was jealous of Beck for hanging out with other girls," she says matter-of-factly, "and Andre was convinient."

Tori's eyelids flutter weakly, "So you seduced him?"

Jade feels a strange hollow ache reverberate in her chest, something she's never felt this intensely.

"No," Jade says. "He kissed me first. He came to me - drunk - and I just followed along."

Tori flinches and her eyes close. Tears leak down her cheeks and the girl's body shakes. Jade is afraid that she'll break if she progresses to hysterics.

"I did this for him," Tori whispers at last. She lifts up her shirt and Jade convulses as she sees the outline of Tori's bones; she's far, far too thin. Nut-house kind of far too thin. "I did this for him," Tori says, still crying slow tears, "and he destroyed me. I - I -" The words won't come out (and oh, Jade knows how hard that is.)

Jade sits down on the bed next to Tori and takes the latter's cold, frail hand, trying to press life back into it. "Say it," Jade hisses, probably a little too harshly.

At least she's here. At least she cares, damn it.

"I ha - hate him," Tori says, her voice barely detectable.

Jade squeezes her hand. "I'm sorry." It's the first time she actually means the words.

Tori looks up through eyes glazed with tears. "Do you think," she asks, "we could have been friends in another life?"

Jade shrugs - because mushy stuff really isn't her thing. "We could - er - get along now, I suppose. I don't happen to possess a time travel machine."

They are united because of hate; they both hate Andre for who he's become.

Y is for yesterday.

Cat sits on her roof and watches the sun set. She holds one of his shirts up to her face and breathes in the comfortable scent, wondering if he'll ever be back.

"You can't keep hold onto yesterdays," Beck says. He sits Indian style next to her and she lets her head fall onto his shoulder; red hair flows down towards his lap like flaming tendrils.

Cat smiles, one fake, and one real. She's trying so hard to discover herself. "I know," she says cheerfully, but it's not that same kind of cheerful she used to have. Fingers dig and she pulls out her cell phone, flipping through messages until she comes to his recent one:

I can't come back to you, Cat. Not when I've already promised myself to someone else.

The words hurt, eyes squeeze shut and trap tears, but she knows that one day she will be okay.

"That message came from my phone," Beck says at last. She looks at him, utterly confused, until he holds up his phone and shows her all of the same messages.

Streamers dance, grays and blacks fade into the abyss, and she wonders why she couldn't remember his face until now. His lips press against her cheek sweetly before he pulls away.

"But Jade -" Cat begins.

"For now," Beck says. His arms wrap around her, sure of themselves and very protective.

Cat shrugs, "You love Jade. You make me feel alive. One day you'll have to choose." She snuggles into him anyways because for once she feels that everything truly will be okay.

She can feel Beck's heart beating steadily. "Not now," Beck says, lying her down. She lets him.

So when she's floating in a spectrum of colors and hears him grunt above her she knows that someone else believes in the beauty of happiness; when he tenses within her and knots harsh fingers in her hair they feel like velvet to her and she knows that, at least for a few minutes, someone else believes in magic.

Cat watches him tug up his jeans, smiles and laughs to herself despite her exhaustion as he slips one hundred dollars into her right hand.

"That's to find your someone," Beck whispers into her ear.

He doesn't leave this time.

Z is for zzzzz.

Every night, despite the joys and problems, all fall asleep. All dream. And when they wake up to the soft morning light it's a new day.

A new dawning.

A new beginning.

- the end -