Chapter 5:

For A Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic.

"I never wanted to say this."

That was it, then. I had to tell him- it was too late to go back now.

In retrospect, I guess I could have just made something up. But then again, even though I'm good at being characters- you know, playing other people, using myself to tell a story- I'm actually a horrible liar. It's sort of ironic.

Anyway, at this point, I didn't see any other choice except to be completely honest with him.

And the thought of that completely terrified me.

I think Beck could kind of pick up on that, too, because he didn't push any further. He just sat cradling me in his lap, tangling his fingers in mine, waiting patiently for me to relax to the point where I could begin. He's pretty intuitive. It's funny to me how a lot of people think that he's this just this distant, quiet, maybe even dumb guy who just happens to be ridiculously handsome and a good actor. Too many people judge a book by its cover- trust me, I should know.

I felt my eyes start to burn in the corners, and I swallowed hard, determined to keep myself together. This was going to be hard enough without me going all soft. I dropped my head, pressing my chin firmly to my chest so I could feel my heart beat against my skin, a constant, pulsating reminder that I was alive. After everything, I was alive.

Beck lightly traced his thumb over my knuckles, eyeing me with concern.

Argh. That look just made me feel even weaker, like I was falling to pieces already when I hadn't even said a word.

I really, really didn't want to do this.

"Jade?"

I peeked up at Beck through the colored strands of hair that had fallen across my face like ribbons. "What?"

"We- uh- we don't have to do this now, if you aren't okay with it. We can just drop it, if you'd like. Go get coffee or something."

Coffee? Oh, yes- wait. No. Not now. More important matters to attend to.

I shook my head. "Ugh. No. Gotta just go ahead and it over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid."

He nodded.

I took a deep breath, then blew it out. "Okay, so... I haven't always lived here. You know that, right?"

He shook his head. "No. I just assumed you were from here."

I smiled. "Ha. No. I was born in Nevada, and we lived there when I was younger. When I was, like, eight or nine, that's when my dad's company transferred him to California. So, the summer before fourth grade, we packed up everything and moved here. I was pretty excited about it. I thought that living here would be fun and glamorous, you know, like they show it in the movies. I was convinced that I would see celebrities on the daily and get to do all these fun things."

I paused to glance at him, to make sure that his eyes weren't glazed over and he wasn't already bored to death. He was watching me intently, with interest.

"So you moved here when you were a little kid?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Just making sure I'm on the same page. Keep going."

I sighed. "Okay. So, anyway, I thought that living here would be really cool, right? Yeah. So I was super excited to start school and make new friends. I thought that everything would fall right into place and be like a fairy tale, something to tell to my adoring fans one day when I was famous. I spent two weeks shopping with my mom to get new school stuff, clothes and all that, and the night before school started I could barely sleep, I was so excited. I kept getting out of bed to unpack and repack my bookbag. God, I was in love with that stupid thing. It was bright purple and had leopard print on it, and I had these Lisa Frank notebooks and pencils that matched it." I laughed a little.

"What?" Beck asked.

"Oh," I replied, biting back another chuckle, "I was just thinking about all of it. I remember it just like it was yesterday. I just couldn't sleep that night, so I stayed up until eleven sharpening every last one of my pencils until they were super pointy and writing 'Property of Miss Jadelyn Alexandra West' on each of those cheap, flimsy spiral-bound notebooks."

Beck bit the corner of his lower lip, like he was thinking hard, then broke into a smile. "I can picture that."

"Yeah. I was quite the little perfectionist. Anyway, the next day I got up super early and put on my favorite school dress- yes, Beck, I used to wear dresses every day, stop that damned snickering- it was navy blue and had daisies printed on it. I wore that, and navy socks and white Keds to match. I got my mom to put my hair in pigtails with yellow elastics that were the same shade as my daisies. And before I walked to the bus stop, I grabbed my new lunchbox- it was purple, just like my bookbag. And just as I went out the door, my mom caught me and gave me a hug and said 'I love you, Jadey. Be good today.' And then I left, and literally skipped down the sidewalk to the bus stop."

"Jesus, Jade, how do you remember all that?" Beck asked, his brown eyes widening.

I shrugged. "I have a photographic memory."

"Really?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes! God! Plus that day was super important. I don't forget things that are important to me. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay, gotcha."

"So," I continued, "When the bus came, I got on it, and when I went to sit down, I knew immediately that I was all wrong. As soon as I started walking down the aisle, the other girls started putting their bags in the seats next to them, so I couldn't sit anywhere, and whispering to each other, pointing at me and snickering. I had on a dress; they had on capris and jelly sandals. I had a bright purple backpack; they had Vera Bradley messenger bags. All I wanted was to just turn around, run off the bus and go home and change, but I had to stay on. No one would let me sit with them, so I ended up sitting by myself in the back next to a kid who talked to himself under his breath the whole way there and kept poking me with his pencil."

I paused for a minute, breathing carefully through my nose. This was starting to get to me, causing a tightening feeling in my chest that I didn't quite know how to deal with anymore. It made me wince, and I reached a hand up to tug gently on my eyebrow ring. My mom hated when I did that, hated it almost even more than the fact that I had a piercing on my face, which was honestly why I'd gotten it in the first place- just to piss her off. She was convinced if I so much as touched it then I was going to rip it out, or get bacteria in it that would cause some horrible infection that would leave me blind, but I just couldn't help it. It was a little thing I'd been doing for awhile; causing myself a little discomfort to force myself back down into reality, no matter how unpleasant it was.

Beck batted my hand down away from my face. "Stop it."

"Sorry," I muttered.

He looked at me, but I didn't meet his gaze. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." I cleared my throat. "Okay, so, once we got to the school, I walked in and I could tell that everyone was dressed basically the same way as the people on my bus. I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I smiled at everyone and managed to find my way to my classroom. My teacher had the best intentions, I know, but when she called me up to introduce me to the class, it was basically the last nail in my coffin: 'Class, this is Jadelyn West. She's a new student here and I want you to be very nice to her, okay?'

Once she said my full name, the whispering started again-"

"Wait, your name is Jadelyn?" Beck interrupted.

"Yes," I replied defensively. "Go ahead, laugh. I know it's weird."

"I wasn't going to say that," he assured me.

I crossed my arms, still not quite believing him.

"Jadelyn." He pronounced my full name thoughtfully, carefully- it rolled off his tongue like a song. "Jadelyn," He said again. "That's not weird. At all. That's beautiful."

From the tone of his voice, I could tell he meant it. "You're the first one to think so."

"What do you mean?"

"Like I was saying, as soon as she said my full name, the whispering started again. No one in the class had ever met someone with a name like that, and when you combined that with everything else, I was just completely wrong, in every possible way. There was no way to recover, either. They just made up their minds right then not to like me."

"So..."

"So... that was when the teasing started," I replied. I tried to laugh it off like it was no big, but my throat got caught, making me sound strangled. I guess I wasn't as over it as I'd thought I was. "For the rest of that day, and the entire year, actually, they made fun of my name, calling me Jadeloser. During recess, when everyone would be playing tag and the teachers weren't watching, girls would tag me and hit me so hard I fell down in the mulch and get dirt all over my dress. Once I was all dirty, they'd chase me around, calling me Cinderella. And they'd pull my hair, and yank my hair ties out of it and hide them. They even used to me to a tree with a jump rope and threw balls at my face. To this day, I still have a few scars on my wrists from rope burn. That's why I have that star tattooed on my arm- to hide them."

I took a moment to look up at Beck. He just stared at me, agape, arms frozen around my waist. He reached a shaky hand out to gently trace over the faint marks that hid under the ink of my tattoo. He started to open his mouth, like he was going to speak, but closed it without saying a word. He clearly had no idea how to respond to anything I was saying, so I just kept plowing forward, wanting to finish before I lost my nerve.

"At lunch, I'd open my lunchbox to find my food either gone or covered in bugs. I'd go in my backpack and find notes that said "Jadelyn is a joke" or "Go back, West" along with all of my pencils broken in half and my homework torn to shreds. I begged my parents to help me, but they just didn't believe me. I guess they didn't think that kids could be that cruel. The teachers turned a blind eye, too, because most of the people that were making my life hell had parents on the school board.

"I had to learn to take care of myself. I started keeping a change of clothes and an extra sandwich in my backpack, and copied my homework every night just in case something happened to it. I learned to bite back the pain, and swallow everything down like it didn't bother me. I know now that's not the best thing to do- it can make you bitter. God knows, I know that. But I didn't know what else to do, so I just held my tongue and hoped it'd stop.

"It didn't, though. All of this continued for the next two years, until I went to middle school. I thought that things might finally get better there, but, as usual, I was wrong. Middle school is when people's claws really start to come out, you know? And it didn't help that most of the people that had been so awful to me in elementary school ended up going to the same middle school."

"So, what happened?" Beck asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Shh. I'm getting there." I shifted my weight in his lap. "Let me know if I start hurting you, okay?"

He scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, Jade. I'm fine. Keep going."

I smiled a little bit. "I auditioned for a play in sixth grade, because my parents were going to be late picking me up and I had nothing else to do. The day the cast list went up, I saw that I had gotten a part. I was so excited. I didn't really have any friends to tell, so I told the boy who sat next to me in language arts. He just looked at me and was, like, 'You're pathetic, Jade. And a liar. I already told everyone you didn't get in. We all knew you wouldn't.'

"I tried to tell him that I did get a part, and that he'd just made a mistake, but he just brushed me off. I decided to just ignore it. I finally had something that was all mine. I loved drama club- it was the first place I'd felt comfortable since we moved here. I even made a couple of friends, for the first time in years. But the drama club was kind of at the bottom of the school totem pole, even lower than where I'd been before. All the popular kids would call us freaks, steal our props, shred our scripts, or fill our costume bin with shaving cream. Once, I went to my locker and found 'Jadelyn is a drama-loving dyke' written on it in permanent marker." I shivered a little bit. I had no problem at all with gay people- some of my best friends were gay- but I hated that word, and saying it left a bitter taste in my mouth. "But I kept doing it, because it made me so happy- I figured I could handle the teasing, right? I mean, I'd been putting up with it for years at this point, so not much fazed me anymore.

"But then, in eighth grade, we were doing our final performance, and when we took our bows I got hit in the head with a book- our classmates were throwing things at us. I ran away as fast as I could down the hall, trying not to cry while this enormous bump started coming up on my forehead. It took days for that thing to go away. My teachers tried to help the situation. They gave everyone who'd thrown stuff detention, but it was just too little, too late. They'd ignored me for so long that, when the bullying really started to escalate, there was nothing they could do. They just told me to try and stick it out until graduation.

I paused to take a breath. "Graduation. That's what I count as a major turning point. I was so excited to be done with middle school. I had bought the prettiest dress to wear to the ceremony, and my mom had let me get my hair and nails done.

"My drama teacher had heard me singing one day, just messing around before rehearsal started, and I had really impressed her, so she'd asked me to sing the National Anthem at the beginning of the ceremony. I was sure that this was going to be my chance to really show up everyone. So after we all marched in, the principal called me up to the microphone. I wasn't nervous, really. I just don't get that way. The music started, and I started singing.

I paused again, taking a moment to regroup my thoughts so I could choose the right words for what I wanted to say. "I sang the shit out of that song, Beck. I tore that fucker a new one, adding all these cool little riffs to it, making it completely my own. I never wavered or switched keys. I had practiced for so long."

I felt my face crumble slightly, biting the corner of my lip as I felt my smile starting to fade. "But it didn't matter. I got booed anyway. And even though all the people that were booing got escorted out and weren't allowed to walk at the ceremony, it still really hurt my feelings. I had worked so hard on that song. I thought I sounded really good, but I guess I didn't. And I'd been so proud of myself, so ready to show them, and they just stomped all over that." I cast my eyes downward, gazing at my feet, trying to pull myself together before I turned into a huge mess.

Beck used his pointer finger to tip my chin up so I was looking him straight in the eye. "I'm sure it was wonderful," he said, face crinkling into a smile. "I've heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice, Jade."

That was unexpected. "What?" I breathed.

He looked puzzled. "I said, you have a beautiful-"

"No, no, I heard that," I blurted, still confused. "What I meant was, when the hell have you heard me sing?"

He blushed a little, redness rising in his cheeks.

Oh, Jesus, that was adorable. Shit. Focus, West!

"I heard you working in the studio the other day, after school. I had just gotten out of rehearsal, and I was walking down the hall to go to my car when I heard this... voice. I had to know who it was, so I walked in as quietly as I could, and it was you. You had your back to me, and were in your own little world- you had no idea I was watching you. You were just sitting there, banging on that piano, singing your heart out to this- this song..."

"'Okay'." I replied.

"All right, fine, I'll stop-"

"No, no, the song I was singing was called 'Okay'," I muttered.

"Right." He nodded in agreement. "It was really good. Like I told you after class the other day, you are so much more talented than you give yourself credit for. Most people here, they have huge egos, but you don't seem to at all."

I shrugged. "And now you know why." He nodded. "I was really surprised when I got in here, actually. I only auditioned because I didn't want to spend another year at the same high school as all those people that were such assholes to me. High school is supposed to be the best time of your life. I just... couldn't go through all that again." I fiddled with the stray threads on my skirt. These memories were still painful, even though everything had happened such a long time ago.

"I totally understand. And I'm so glad you're here, and that I get to have the privilege of knowing you. And I'm glad that you felt like you could trust me with all of that. I know that couldn't have been easy to tell me."

I shook my head. "No, not at all, actually. I just... felt like it was something that you needed to know. Everyone thinks I'm just this huge, callous bitch who doesn't give a fuck about anyone, but it's not true. I care a lot. I guess I just have trouble showing that. It's hard for me to let people in. I'm so used to having to be tough, I forget that not everyone is out to get me anymore." I paused. "And I think it goes without saying that if you repeat any of this, I will have your ass, Oliver. I mean it."

He laughed. "Deal."

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to update! Thank you all so much for your positive feedback and patience. This is the longest chapter I've written so far, so I hope you enjoy it.

As always, reviews are welcome and appreciated! :)