Jade stared at the linens on her bed. She wondered when the edges had begun to fray, or how she never noticed all the eyeliner smeared on her pillow. Maybe she should start cleaning her makeup off before bed.

"Jade?"

Damn. She was hoping if she pretended Tori wasn't standing there long enough, it would magically become so. She was resorting to wishing for the impossible. How sad was that? Even though she refused to look at the latina, she could picture her well enough; pink lips turned downward in confusion, arms crossed, that deer-in-the-headlights look still gracing her features. Simply the thought of it was making Jade nervous but Jade West never got nervous. Jade West was a badass with a give-'em-hell attitude and anyone who so much as looked at her wrong paid dearly.

So why was she freaking out over this? This wasn't even any of Vega's concern.

"Jade..."

Part of her wanted to scream at Tori. Tell her to go away, maybe even throw something at her for extra emphasis. But she didn't. Another part of her, the part that had been praying for a confrontation like this from someone, anyone, even her own godforsaken mother, felt relieved.

Jade cleared her throat. "What?" she asked, mentally kicking herself when her voice broke off at the end.

A hand hesitantly placed itself on her shoulder, and she flinched away violently. Brown eyes met blue for a split second and there was something in Tori's eyes that Jade couldn't identify and it scared her. She quickly turned away.

There were starts in Tori's breathing behind her, as if she had started to talk but realized she had no idea what to say. Jade instantly regretted inviting her over. Why had she not texted to let her know she arrived?

"Look, Vega. You pretend this never happened, and I won't use these scissors on you." She hazarded a look at Tori. "Deal?"

For a moment, it looked like the other girl was going to protest, but Jade was most likely intimidating her enough. Adding that to the surprise of seeing her hunched over, dragging the scissors across the pale flesh of her left arm, the poor girl was probably in shock. A nod came after a moment, and Jade felt a twinge of disappointment at the lack of resistance.

"Good. Now get out."

A/N: I'm planning on continuing this, this was just sortof the preface to it. And yes, it will eventually be Jori.