Colder Than Ever
Ten days had bled into the calendar since Tori’s departure, each one marked by a subtle, internal shift that Jade vehemently refused to acknowledge. Not that she was keeping count, of course. Absolutely not. The passage of time was merely an abstract concept, entirely irrelevant to her current state of… well, whatever this dull, persistent ache was.
Hollywood Arts continued its relentless churn of half-baked musical numbers echoing through the hallways, the self-important pronouncements of drama club members, and the general cacophony of teenage artistic angst. But for Jade, the familiar backdrop felt distorted, amplified to an unbearable degree. Everything seemed worse. The usual buzz felt like a grating whine, the laughter she overheard in the corridors scraped against her raw nerves, and every new face that flitted past seemed like an unwelcome intrusion, a subtle reminder of the void Tori had left behind.
Her own demeanor had taken a sharp, unpleasant turn. She was meaner, her sarcasm honed to a razor’s edge, her critiques in class brutal in a way that made even the notoriously eccentric Sikowitz visibly flinch. She had, much to her own fleeting annoyance, accidentally made Cat cry over a perceived slight regarding the proper dramatic interpretation of a dish towel. And Robbie? Robbie had been a deliberate target, a convenient outlet for her simmering frustration, reduced to a sniffling mess after a particularly scathing (and admittedly unwarranted) assessment of his puppet’s comedic timing.
Even Beck, her steadfastly patient boyfriend, had finally seemed to reach his limit. He had stopped his gentle inquiries, stopped his well-meaning attempts to coax her into talking about the unspoken chasm that had opened between them. No matter how many times he asked, his voice laced with genuine concern, “Are you okay, Jade?”, she would simply roll her eyes, a dismissive flick of her wrist accompanying her standard reply: “Why wouldn’t I be?”
But the truth, a bitter pill she swallowed in the lonely hours of the night, was that she wasn’t okay. Not even close.
Jade missed Tori. In stupid, silent, infuriatingly persistent ways that she couldn’t articulate even to herself. Every time she passed Tori’s old locker, its bare silver surface a stark and unwelcome reminder of her absence. Every time she found herself subconsciously jotting down lyrics in her notebook, lyrics that felt too raw, too personal to ever share with anyone. Every time her gaze drifted to that specific spot on the patio outside the drama room, the place where their almost-kiss had hung in the charged air before everything had irrevocably fallen apart.
She hadn’t breathed a single word to anyone about what had transpired that night at the party – the unexpected heat of the kiss, Tori’s vulnerable confession, or the gut-wrenching moment she had turned her back on the only person who had ever truly seen beyond her carefully constructed defenses.
Because if she said it out loud, if she gave voice to the truth that gnawed at her insides, it would become real. And that, more than anything, was the last thing Jade wanted.
Instead, she had retreated, instinctively donning her familiar armor: the thick, unwavering lines of black eyeliner, the biting sarcasm that served as a shield, and a don’t-touch-me snarl that kept even Cat and Robbie, her closest confidantes, at a wary arm’s length.
But at night, when the relentless noise of the day finally subsided, and the darkness of her room offered a deceptive sense of solitude, she would find herself compulsively scrolling through social media, a silent, desperate vigil. She would scan for any trace of Tori, any digital breadcrumb she might have left behind. A carelessly posted photo. A cryptic lyric shared on a fleeting story. Any sign that she was out there, existing in a world that now felt strangely empty.
She never quite possessed the nerve to actually follow Tori’s new account, a strange mix of pride and fear holding her back. But she saw her anyway. Once. A tagged photo that had inexplicably surfaced on her feed – Tori in a brightly lit Sydney studio, her arm linked with a guy, tall and lanky with perpetually messy blonde hair, both of them caught in a moment of shared laughter.
Jade had stared at that single image for a long, agonizing time, the warmth of Tori’s smile directed at someone else twisting something sharp and unfamiliar in her chest. Then, with a violent, frustrated movement, she had slammed her phone face down on her nightstand and fiercely told herself that she didn’t care. That it meant absolutely nothing.
But the hollow ache in her heart had been stubbornly unconvinced for days.
Andre was alone in the music room after school, the familiar glow of the computer screen illuminating his focused expression. Headphones encased his ears, his fingers dancing across the keys of the digital keyboard, weaving together a beat that was undoubtedly already halfway to genius. The vibe in the room was mellow, slow, introspective – definitely not the kind of sonic landscape one would typically choose to crash into with a storm of pent-up emotion.
Which, of course, was precisely what happened.
The door to the music room slammed open with a resounding thud that echoed through the otherwise quiet space. Jade West stalked in like a gathering storm cloud, her usually meticulously styled hair slightly wild, the heavy tread of her boots punctuating her angry entrance, her expression a carefully constructed mask of unreadable fury. Andre didn’t even flinch. He simply hit the pause button on his track and slowly pulled the headphones down around his neck, a picture of his usual unflappable calm.
“Hey,” he said, his voice even and unperturbed. “Was wondering how long it’d take you to find me.”
She didn’t offer a verbal response, her silence thick with unspoken tension. She simply stood there in the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her dark eyes darting around the room as if she were searching for some tangible object that could somehow alleviate the turmoil raging within her – something she would never, under any circumstances, admit to needing.
“I’m not here to talk,” she snapped, the words coming out too fast, too defensive.
Andre merely shrugged, a small, almost imperceptible movement of his shoulders. “Cool. Wasn’t gonna ask.”
She rolled her eyes, a gesture that conveyed the depth of her internal frustration. “This isn’t—ugh, forget it.” She made a sharp, abrupt turn, as if she were about to stalk right back out the door, but Andre’s voice, quiet and even, stopped her in her tracks.
“She’s doing good, you know.”
Jade froze mid-step, her back still to him, her entire body suddenly rigid.
He didn’t even look at her. His fingers resumed their light tapping on the keyboard, as if his casual pronouncement was the most natural thing in the world. “She’s in Australia,” he added, his tone conversational. “Studio sessions. New people. Said she’s been writing a lot.”
Jade’s throat tightened, a painful lump forming that made it difficult to swallow. “Yeah,” she managed, her voice barely a croak. “I saw.”
Andre finally swiveled in his chair, his gaze meeting hers, his expression knowing and gentle. “So why’d you really come here, Jade?”
She hesitated, the silence stretching out between them, just long enough for the carefully constructed walls around her heart to momentarily crumble, allowing a sliver of the raw truth to slip through.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jade confessed, the words escaping her lips in a voice that was raw and uncharacteristically vulnerable, the first crack in her hardened facade in what felt like an eternity.
Andre didn’t speak. He simply waited, his patient silence offering a space for her to unravel.
Jade took a tentative step further into the room, as if crossing an invisible line she had drawn herself, a boundary she had been fiercely guarding. “I keep thinking I’m mad at her for leaving,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “But I’m not. I’m mad at me.”
He nodded slowly, his understanding radiating through the quiet room. “You pushed her away.”
“I told her I didn’t feel the same,” she muttered, the words laced with a bitter self-reproach. “Then I ran straight back to Beck like it’d fix something. It didn’t. It made it worse.”
Andre leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, his gaze steady and unwavering. “So what now, Jade?”
Jade finally looked at him, her dark eyes filled with a swirling vortex of emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge, a silent plea for guidance in a world that suddenly felt terrifyingly unfamiliar. “I don’t know how to get her back.”
Andre tilted his head slightly, his expression thoughtful. “Do you actually want to get her back? Or do you just hate the fact that someone finally walked away from you?”
The question, delivered with Andre’s characteristic blunt honesty, hit her harder than it should have, a sharp, unexpected jab that resonated with a painful truth.
And perhaps, in that moment, amidst the raw vulnerability of her admission, she finally knew the answer.
“I want her,” Jade said, the words barely a whisper, a fragile confession carried on a breath. “But I think… I think I broke it.”
Andre nodded slowly, his gaze softening with a quiet understanding. “Maybe. Maybe not. But you can’t fix anything, Jade, if you don’t own it first.”
She sank down onto the floor next to him, her arms hanging loose at her sides, the immense weight of her regret finally settling upon her.
For the first time in what felt like an age, she didn’t feel the suffocating need to be cold, to be sharp, to be the impenetrable Jade West.
She just felt… real. And in the quiet solitude of the music room, with Andre’s steady presence beside her, that fragile authenticity felt like the most terrifying, yet ultimately necessary, start.
Jade sat perched on the edge of the piano bench beside Andre, her posture rigid, her black-lacquered nails tapping a restless rhythm against the polished wood. She was trying, with a theatrical effort that fooled absolutely no one, to project an air of nonchalant indifference, as if the burning question lodged in her throat wasn’t about to claw its way out of her despite her best attempts at containment.
Her gaze was fixed on the ivory and ebony keys of the piano, as if the inanimate objects held some secret knowledge, some silent explanation that Andre was stubbornly refusing to offer. The silence in the music room stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken thoughts, punctuated only by the rhythmic tap-tap-tapping of her impatient fingers.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of internal debate, she broached the subject with a studied casualness that was, in its very execution, anything but casual. It sounded rehearsed, the inflection too perfect, as if she had run the line through her mental sound booth at least five times before uttering it aloud. “That guy… in the picture with Tori…”
Andre glanced at her from the corner of his eye, a knowing smirk playing on his lips, but he remained stubbornly silent, allowing her discomfort to simmer.
Jade pretended not to notice his amusement, feigning an air of detached curiosity. “The tall one. Dirty blonde hair. Radiates that try-too-hard rock band energy.” She punctuated the description with a dismissive snort.
“Justin,” Andre supplied simply, finally offering the morsel of information she so desperately craved. “He’s in a group called Night Lizard.”
Jade scoffed, the sound sharp and dismissive. “Night Lizard? That’s not a band name, that’s a bad Halloween costume.”
Andre’s smirk widened. “Wow, Jade. That didn’t sound even remotely jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” she retorted instantly, the denial leaping from her lips with a speed that betrayed the very emotion she was attempting to suppress.
He raised his eyebrows, a silent, eloquent commentary on the veracity of her statement.
“I’m just… curious,” she amended, the word laced with a forced neutrality. “Curious about who she’s… spending all her time with.”
“She didn’t say much,” he replied, turning his attention back to the keyboard, his fingers hovering over the keys as if contemplating a melody. “Just that he’s cool. Talented. Real.”
Jade flinched almost imperceptibly at that last word. Real. It landed like a tiny, poisoned dart, a subtle jab that resonated with the unspoken criticisms she had always harbored towards Tori’s earnestness. That one stung more than she cared to admit.
A tense silence descended once more before Jade broke it, her voice tight, her jaw clenched. “He kissed her.”
Andre’s fingers paused on the keys, the potential melody left hanging in the air. He turned to face her fully now, his expression unreadable.
Jade met his gaze, her own filled with a mixture of disbelief and a possessive anger she didn’t quite understand. “Didn’t even ask. Just… kissed her.” The emphasis she placed on the word conveyed her utter disapproval.
“You sure you’re not, you know, stalking her social media page?” Andre asked, his tone laced with a gentle teasing.
“I’m investigating,” Jade muttered, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if the physical act could somehow contain the turbulent emotions churning within her. “There’s a big difference.”
Andre chuckled softly, a low, rumbling sound that hinted at amusement and a touch of knowing sympathy. “She didn’t post it, you know. One of the band guys did.”
“And she didn’t stop it,” Jade said, the words barely audible, more a bitter observation to herself than a direct address to Andre.
“She doesn’t owe you that, Jade.” Andre’s voice was gentle but firm, a quiet reminder of the boundaries she had so carelessly disregarded.
“I know she doesn’t,” Jade snapped, the defensiveness rising to the surface, only to be immediately followed by a wave of regret as she closed her eyes, a weary sigh escaping her lips. “I just… I didn’t think it’d hurt this much.”
Andre’s fingers finally found the keys, playing a soft, melancholic chord that seemed to mirror the unspoken sadness in the room. “You wanted her to wait, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think she’d… move on,” Jade admitted, the words laced with a raw vulnerability that was rarely on display. The realization felt like a punch to the gut.
Andre looked at her gently, his eyes filled with a quiet understanding. “That’s the part that hurts the most, huh?”
Jade didn’t offer a verbal response. She didn’t need to. The truth was etched on her face, in the tightness of her jaw, the slight tremor in her hands.
Because yeah… that was the part. The undeniable, gut-wrenching realization that the world, and more specifically, Tori Vega, continued to spin, vibrant and alive, without her at its center.
Jade slammed the front door behind her with a force that reverberated through the quiet house, the metallic clatter of her keys hitting the entryway table echoing the sudden, jarring silence that had become the norm. Her dad was working late, again, the familiar pattern of his absence a constant in her life. Her mom, she suspected with a weary resignation, probably wouldn’t be coming home tonight either.
Fine.
She used to crave the solitude, the uninterrupted quiet that allowed her thoughts to roam freely, her creativity to unfurl without the intrusions of the outside world.
Boots kicked off with a frustrated thud. Leather jacket tossed carelessly onto the nearest chair. She made her way to her room, the familiar posters of grungy bands and vintage horror movie prints staring down at her from the walls. These were the images that usually fueled her sense of rebellion, her carefully cultivated aura of power.
Tonight, they felt like static, lifeless and two-dimensional.
Her phone buzzed insistently in her pocket, the incessant vibrations signaling the mindless chatter of a group chat she had no desire to engage with.
She ignored it.
Instead, her hand reached for the familiar weight of the black notebook on her nightstand. The one she hadn’t touched since that fateful night at the party, the night that had irrevocably altered the delicate balance of her world, the night that had involved Tori.
Its pages were a messy tapestry of half-finished lyrics, fragments of melodies, and a collection of raw, unfiltered thoughts – things she could never bring herself to articulate aloud, emotions she kept locked away behind layers of sarcasm and cynicism.
She flipped to a stark white page, her heart thudding against her ribs with a nervous anticipation, a strange sense of foreboding. The pen hovered above the blank expanse for a long, suspended second before she finally began to write, the scratch of the nib against the paper the only sound in the otherwise silent room.
At first, the words that flowed from her pen were a chaotic jumble of scribbled thoughts – angry, resentful, laced with her trademark sarcasm. But then, something shifted, a subtle softening of the harsh edges. A quieter, more vulnerable voice began to emerge from the depths of her being.
You think you know me
But you don't know me
You think you own me
But you can't control me
You look at me and there's just one thing that you see
So listen to me
Listen to me
She blinked, the stark simplicity of the words hitting her with an unexpected force. A painful tightness constricted her throat.
You push me back
I'll push you back
Harder, harder
You scream at me
I'll scream at you
She stared at the raw honesty of the lines, the confession laid bare on the page.
This wasn’t a song crafted for a class assignment, a carefully constructed performance piece designed to provoke or shock. This was something different. This was a genuine, unvarnished confession, whispered onto the page in the solitude of her darkened room.
With a sudden, impulsive decision, she grabbed her phone. Her thumb hovered over the voice memo app, her hands trembling slightly as she tapped the icon.
For a long moment, she simply sat there in the dark, the only sound the quiet hum of her own breath, the weight of her unspoken emotions pressing down on her.
Then, with a shaky exhale, she hit the record button.
“Hey,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, thick with a vulnerability she rarely allowed herself to express. “This is stupid, and I don’t even know if I’ll ever send it. But… I miss you.”
She paused, the silence stretching, tears starting to sting behind her eyes, a burning sensation she fought to suppress.
“You asked me to try, and I didn’t. Not really. I got scared, and I ran. And now there’s this guy with a dumb band name and a nice smile and… you’re smiling too and… I get it. I really do.” Her voice cracked, a small, betraying sound that revealed the depth of her pain.
“I just… wanted you to know that it wasn’t nothing. Not to me. I just… I didn’t know how to say it until now.”
Silence descended again, heavier this time, laden with unspoken regrets and unacknowledged feelings.
Then, with a soft sigh, she stopped the recording.
She didn’t press send. The finality of that action felt too monumental, too irreversible.
She just saved it. A fragile, whispered confession trapped within the digital confines of her phone.
And for now, in the quiet darkness of her room, that small act of acknowledging her truth felt like enough. A tentative first step on a long and uncertain path.
The sudden intrusion of sound shattered the fragile stillness of Jade’s room, the sharp click of the front door opening downstairs slicing through the quiet like shards of glass. Her body jolted upright on the bed, her hand instinctively clenching around her phone, the unsent voice memo to Tori still open on the screen. With a swift, almost panicked movement, she locked the phone and shoved it hastily beneath her pillow, her fingers scrubbing at her eyes in a futile attempt to erase any lingering trace of the tears that had threatened to spill over.
The distinct click of heeled shoes echoed down the hallway, the sharp, rhythmic tapping too precise, too deliberate for this late hour. A familiar voice, casual and cool as a winter breeze, floated into the quiet of the house. “Jade? You home?” Her mother. Back, as if her two-day absence was nothing more than a brief errand.
Jade remained silent, her gaze fixed on the closed door of her room, a silent act of defiance. The soft knock that followed was met with the same wall of quiet resistance.
“Can I come in?” Her mother’s voice, though soft, held a familiar expectation of compliance.
Jade offered no response. In her world, silence often spoke volumes. It was answer enough.
The door opened anyway, the hinges sighing softly in protest.
Her mother stepped into the room, a vision of flawless composure as always. Her perfectly coiffed hair remained immaculately in place, her lipstick untouched, as if she had just stepped out of the glossy pages of a magazine advertisement. Her eyes, cool and assessing, scanned the room, lingering for a moment on the chaotic mess of discarded clothes, the scattered notebooks littering the floor, the dim, melancholic glow of the bedside lamp that cast long, heavy shadows across the walls.
“You look tired,” she observed, her tone devoid of any genuine warmth, stepping further into the room as if nothing was amiss, as if their relationship was a seamless tapestry of effortless connection, as if nothing ever was.
Jade’s gaze flickered away, her jaw tightening. “Maybe don’t start with the insults tonight.” The weariness in her voice was palpable.
Her mother sighed, a delicate, theatrical sound. “It’s not an insult, Jade. It’s a simple observation.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly in the mood to be observed right now.” The sharpness in her tone was a familiar defense mechanism, a shield against any perceived intrusion.
Another strained pause filled the space between them, thick with unspoken resentments and a lifetime of carefully constructed emotional distance.
“I ran into Beck’s mother today,” her mother continued, her voice regaining its usual smooth, detached quality as she walked further into the room, her presence somehow managing to dominate the very air Jade breathed. “She mentioned that you two are… back together?”
Jade scoffed, a short, bitter sound that held no amusement. “If by ‘back together’ you mean ‘he exists in the same general vicinity and I occasionally feign a minimal level of polite acknowledgement,’ then sure. We’re practically inseparable.”
Her mother offered her a look, a carefully calibrated expression that wasn’t quite overt judgment, but rather a subtle blend of disappointment and thinly veiled concern – a look Jade had deciphered countless times over the years.
“You’re always pushing people away, Jade.” The words hung in the air, a familiar accusation.
Jade laughed, the sound brittle and devoid of genuine mirth. “That’s rich. Coming from you.” The air in the room instantly thickened, the temperature seeming to drop several degrees.
Her mother’s lips parted slightly, as if she were about to launch into a carefully rehearsed argument, a defense of her own emotional unavailability. But she stopped herself, her hands clasped too tightly in front of her, her knuckles white. She stood there, a picture of forced composure, visibly struggling to find a version of herself that wouldn’t shatter under the weight of that simple, undeniable truth.
“You don’t make it easy to be close to you, Jade,” she said finally, her voice thinner now, the carefully constructed coolness wavering slightly.
“Maybe I learned from the best.” The retort was immediate, laced with a lifetime of unspoken pain and resentment.
And just like that, the fragile thread of their strained interaction snapped. Her mother turned abruptly towards the door, her eyes blinking rapidly, a flicker of something akin to hurt crossing her otherwise impassive features. “I just… I came in to say goodnight. That’s all.”
Jade offered no reply, her throat tight with a tangle of emotions she couldn’t quite name.
The door closed behind her with a soft, almost imperceptible click, leaving Jade alone once more in the dim, heavy silence of her room. The words she had desperately wanted to say, the raw, vulnerable admissions that had clawed at her insides, remained trapped in her chest, unspoken and unheard.
With a sigh, she reached under her pillow and pulled out her phone, her gaze drawn to the unsent voice memo to Tori glowing softly on the screen.
Still unsent. Still heavy with unspoken feelings. Still, achingly, hers.