Tristan had text Tori that he wanted to talk and was coming over. Luckily she was at home and not busy, though he’d liked to think that unless it was something important, she would have cancelled for him. He showed up at her place and rang the doorbell. He wasn’t really sure if Tori had guessed who the mystery guy that he had been dating was, or how she would react to the fact of them getting back together, but he wanted to tell her before she found out elsewhere. It had also been a little bit since they had actually hung out and as well and he wanted to fix that.
Stephanie hadn’t really gotten to hang out with anyone since she got back Toronto other than Luke. She figured it would probably be a good for her to try and hang out with someone other than Luke for once and maybe strengthen existing or form some new friendships. That’s why she had invited Tori to go out Roller skating with her. She was hoping for a night of lighthearted fun and to maybe forget her problems for a bit. The pair were having fun so fair as they had been singing loudly to the radio on the drive over. After they got their skates from the acne ridden teenage boy that obviously hated his job Stephanie sat down to put her skates on. “Thanks for agreeing to come skating with me tonight. I know there’s probably much funnier ways to spend your Friday night.” She half joked with a laugh but also meant it sincerely. Most people her age seemed to want to spend their Friday nights getting drunk or high rather than having more innocent fun.
Beck was the first one to arrive at the Black Box Theatre that morning which was unsurprising given that he'd been up for hours, hardly able to sleep the night before. He dropped down into one of the empty seats, tossing his tattered script and car keys onto the chair beside him. Knowing Tori, or rather - Trina, she would be more than a little late for the rehearsal so he propped his legs up on the chair in front of him and made himself comfortable. He considered setting his phone beside him with the rest of his stuff but he didn't seem to be able to part with it. He'd been opening and closing his messaging app for the past however many hours it had been since he had last spoken to Jade. He knew she was pissed at him and he didn't exactly blame her but it still left a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He realised that he had done the wrong thing by forgetting to help Jade with her English paper but he’d also been a little hurt that she hadn’t seemed at all interested in his apology or suggestion to make it up to her. Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered him so much, it wasn’t a rare occurrence for her to be annoyed at him but for some reason this felt different. The radio silence had set him completely on edge but he didn’t want to be the one to break it, not if it might just make things worse between them. He let out a heavy sigh, locking his phone and sitting back in his seat. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t help but replay their entire fight from the night before and wonder what he could have said to have made things turn out better than they were now.
Tori was running late, extremely late, and she was just about ready to kill Trina by the time the car jolted to a stop in the uncharacteristically quiet parking lot of Hollywood Arts. She all but leapt out of the car, waving a hand distractedly back at Trina in an attempt to thank her for the ride as she rushed through the front doors and made a beeline for the Black Box Theatre. She shivered slightly as she rushed through the halls, the warm sunlight from outside not having made it into the closed up school this early in the morning.
She spotted the top of Beck’s head through the window in the door and was about to rush in and apologise for her lateness when she paused and thought the better of it. She opened the door as quietly as she could, stepping carefully on her tiptoes so that her shoes didn’t squeak on the floor and alert him to her presence. She smiled gleefully as she took in his slightly rumpled appearance and the way he was leaning all the way back in his seat, eyes closed - the perfect target.
Without warning, she leapt forward, flinging her arms forward to cover his already closed eyes and shouting “Guess who?” in the deepest register her voice could reach.
Beck started, a noise embarrassingly close to a squeak falling from his mouth before he could think to stop it. “Jesus Christ, Tori,” he exclaimed good-naturedly with a laugh. “You scared the chiz out of me.”
“Sorry!” She removed her hands and took a step back, laughing along with him. “To be fair, you really shouldn’t have made yourself such an easy target. You were asking for trouble.”
He rolled his eyes, swivelling around in his seat to look at her. “It’s not my fault that I waited so long for my partner- for you to show up that I almost fell asleep,” he stumbled over his use of the term partner, recalling the way that Jade had flung that word at him during their fight.
Tori smiled a little sheepishly, tugging her script out of her monster purse and heading up onto the stage. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Trina’s in love with our new mailman and apparently that meant we couldn’t leave until he had come to our street.”
He shrugged, standing to go and join her on the stage. “It’s fine, I haven’t been here that long myself.” In truth, he hadn’t been keeping track of time at all and had probably been there for a while but he didn’t want Tori to feel bad about that.
She was a little surprised that he didn’t ask for details about her Trina story like she thought he would, having been prepared to launch into the story. She raked her gaze over him, taking in his dishevelled appearance once more. At first she hadn’t thought anything of it, just assuming that he was tired from having to get up early to meet her on a Sunday but the longer she looked at him, the more she suspected that there was something else going on with him.
“So… should we just pick up from where we got to last time?” She asked, letting her script fall open to the page they had been working on at their last rehearsal.
He shrugged, flipping through the pages of his own script in an effort to recall exactly where they had been up to. “Sure, sounds fine to me.”
“Okay, what is going on?”
He looked up from his script in confusion. “What?”
“You’re acting weird.”
“No I’m not,” he replied, the effect of his words ruined by the decidedly weird tone of his voice.
“Uhh, you kind of are.”
“It’s nothing,” he muttered.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing.”
Before Beck had a chance to respond, his phone sounded with his message tone and he went scrambling to pick it up from where he’d left it. His shoulders sank as he read the message from his dad, trying to ignore the disappointment he felt at the fact that it wasn't a message from Jade.
He turned back to Tori to find her looking at him expectantly, hand on her hip and eyebrow raised. Her eyes were bright with anticipation, likely at the potential gossip of whatever it was she thought was bothering him.
"Come on, out with it," she prodded impatiently. If she hadn't been sold on the idea that there was something up with Beck before, his bizarre reaction to his phone going off only made the thought a concrete one.
Beck sighed and stepped over to sit down on the edge of the stage, legs hanging down so that his toes almost brushed against the floor below.
"It's just... Jade."
Tori followed, sitting beside him but crossing her legs underneath her so she could face him rather than out to the rows of empty seats. She hesitated only for a split moment when he mentioned Jade, she'd been stuck in the middle of their fights before but her curiosity won out against any misgivings she might have had.
"Okay," she said slowly, "what about her?"
"She's mad at me," he replied in an embarrassingly small voice, keeping his gaze fixed on the fire hydrant on the back wall of the theatre.
"And why would she be mad at you?"
"Fuck if I know. I thought everything was good between us after- lately," he swallowed thickly, face heating up for a reason he couldn't really understand. "No, that's not true. I do know why she's mad. To an extent, at least. I promised to help her and with her English midterm the other day and I completely forgot about it when I agreed to rehearse with you on Friday."
Tori playfully punched his arm, shaking her head in disbelief. "That seems like a pretty good reason for her to be mad!"
Tori's tone was teasing but Beck couldn't help but feel even worse at her words, biting his lip to stop from saying something defensive back to her.
"I know," he said after a moment, letting out a deep breath. "It was a stupid mistake and I feel awful about it. But it was still just that, you know. A mistake. And now she'll hardly talk to me except to make it clear how much I let her down and it doesn't seem to matter what I say."
"Well, I think you need to make it up to her."
"I tried to. I apologised and I offered to help her out but she didn't want me to. And I can't try and fix it if she won't even talk to me normally, you know?"
"Try harder."
"Tori, it's not that easy."
"Maybe not. And maybe I'm not the best person to be giving you advice but think about it, what are your other options?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well you either try harder and she eventually forgives you. Or you don't and maybe she gets over it and everything will be back to normal in a few weeks. Or maybe she doesn't and you break up. Maybe she says she's over it but she holds it against you for the rest of your lives and should brings it up every time you fight."
"This isn't exactly making me feel any better."
Tori laughed and placed a hand on his arm in a way she hoped was comforting. "I'm sorry, I don't think any of those things will happen to you guys. I just think that there's an easy way to make sure that they don't."
"Try harder?" He guessed.
"Now you're getting it."
Beck rolled his eyes but there was a tiny smile on his face. "I guess now I just need to get her to talk to me in the first place."
"Give it time. Just don't make it seem like you're giving up or you don't care."
"Of course I care," he shot back a little defensively. "This whole thing is messing me up."
"Well, make sure that she knows that."
"Okay, I will."
Tori nodded. "What does she need your help for anyway? She'd be better off asking someone who's better at English."
"Hey."
"You know what I mean, you're not exactly the top of the class."
"No, I'm not," he agreed, unoffended. "She just has trouble with English. I usually read the material to her when we study together."
”You read to her?" Tori asked, confused and not sure that she had heard him correctly.
"Yeah, it just makes it easier. She's got this thing that makes it it hard for her sometimes."
"What kind of thing."
"She's dyslexic. So she can read but it doesn't come as naturally to her as it does to everyone else. Like the words are harder to make out."
"Oh. I had no idea."
"They only figured it out a few months ago, that that was why she was struggling in English so much."
"You really were a jerk for not helping her, then."
"Tori," he whined.
"What? I'm just saying. Besides, we've already figured out what you're going to do to fix it so it's okay."
Theo was sitting in class when he remembered, he was supposed to take out Tori today. Theo asked to go to the bathroom, but was really going to ditch instead. He made his way to Toris class that she was in and looked through the window to see if she was in there, and she was. He waved to her behind the window to see if she would notice him
Theo put some basketball shorts and a black-up zip up hoodie on and grabbed a blanket before going over to Toris room. He stopped by to pick up some sandwiches and then went over to her. He knocked lightly on the door knowing the twins would be asleep.
TK wasn't opposed to getting Tori some food, he was just cramped up in his room all day. He went to the cafeteria first to grab her some food; Pizza, chocolate bar and a cup of ice cream. She said comfort food and thats what he got the girl. He made his way to room 101 and knocked softly when he arrived.
Andre was glad that he and his mother were on speaking terms for once and that she had been able to drop him at the Vega's house this afternoon. He had been surprised that she was so willing to do him a favour, even letting him pick up his grandma's prescription on the way, but he wasn't going to question it.
As he wandered up to the front door he mused over how long it had been since he had been there. He'd been so distracted by homework and family drama lately that he had barely spent any time with his friends outside of school, even Tori. He was glad that no one had really questioned his absence, he would rather not have to go into the details of the recent series of fights he had been having with his parents.
He knocked on the door loudly, unable to stop himself from tapping out a short tune instead of just knocking normally.
Ryon had a whirlwind of a week while in Bermuda. He had ended up sleeping with the woman he couldn't stand...twice, had quite a few arguments with complete strangers, and now he was on his way to meet Tori for a date. Pepper was being a bit of a nut lately, and to be frank, Ryon didn't want to have anything to do with her now. Especially not that he and Tori were finally going to be able to start getting closer. Ryon was almost at the beach, where he was planning to meet Tori. He picked up some sandwiches at work, and he hoped that Tori was hungry enough for some. Ryon spread out an large towel on the sand, sat on it, and waited for Tori to arrive.
