tell me what you want to hear
You spend your nights ripping up letters you're too afraid to send him. Jade/Andre.
so tell me what you want to hear
something that were like those years
i'm sick of all the insincere
so i'm going to give all my secrets away
- secrets, onerepublic.
The end of the world begins on a summer's day after you and Beck have another ridiculous fight about his "friendship" with Tori.
You find yourself walking miles and miles, trying to escape the useless thoughts in your mind before realizing they're not going anywhere. With a huff, you collapse on the grass, watching listlessly as little shards of sunlight form diamonds on the surface of the pond, fracturing the mirror image of green leaves and blue sky and fluffy white clouds trapped in the water.
"Want a sandwich?" A playful voice asks behind you. "Chicken salad with extra mayo, your favourite."
Your head whips around and your heart melts a little bit at the boy standing behind you, holding a plate with a sandwich in one hand and a letter in the other.
"What are you doing here?" You snap, turning away from him.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see him shrug and sit down beside you.
"Beck sent me."
You vaguely wonder why you feel so disappointed, why you wish he had come of his own accord because he actually cares about you or something. You snatch the sandwich from him, disgustingly rich mayonnaise filling your mouth and sticking your teeth together. The two of you sit in silence as Andre fiddles with the letter and you lick your sticky fingers.
"I would've come anyway, you know." He mutters after awhile.
"Yeah, right," You scoff carelessly.
"Come on, we're friends. Kind of."
You have nothing to say to that, so the two of you sit in a silence that surprisingly isn't awkward.
"Anyway, Beck asked me to bring you this," Andre indicates the letter. You take it from him, but as soon as your eyes flicker to a paragraph halfway down the page (come on, babe) you know that it's the same old bullshit. You shrug and smooth the creases of the corners, folding the paper until it resembles a paper plane. You try and throw it into the lake, but it just flies in the air and lands back down, an inch in front of you.
Andre tries to stifle his laughter as he asks you what that was even meant to achieve.
"I don't know," you answer quietly. "Something?"
You turn your head and Andre's staring at you, right into your soul and you didn't know how close his face was and slowly you're leaning in, barely registering what you're doing. He keeps staring at you until your lips are on his and he doesn't taste like hopes and wishes and fireworks like he should – his mouth is slightly sour and metallic like he's been playing the saxophone recently and oddly, it's so much more refreshing than Beck's peppermint breath. You pull back, biting your lip nervously. The summer air is swollen with silence.
"What'd you do that for?" He asks in a slightly lower voice.
"Don't know. Just did." You respond, standing up and shredding the forgotten paper aeroplane with your nails.
/
The next day, you break up with Beck, feeding him some excuse that you want to see what life is like as your own separate entity rather than one half of a whole.
A few days later you see him holding Cat's hand and feeding her strawberry flavoured ice cream and you wonder why you don't care a bit.
/
You're not quite sure why but you're on the phone with some girl from your photography class, talking about boys and relationships and perfection and other things that usually make you vomit.
"What's your perfect man like, anyway?" The girl asks dreamily, no doubt thinking of Beck as she posed the question.
"He must be swift as a coursing river, with the force of a great typhoon and the strength of a raging fire. He should be tranquil as a forest, but on fire within. And as mysterious as the dark side of the moon." You deadpan, silently thanking Mulan for being the highlight of your childhood. However, it doesn't stop the fact that images of dreadlocks and chocolate brown eyes and chicken mayo sandwiches keep clogging your mind.
/
It's pouring rain and you like rain, so you take a walk. You find yourself walking down Andre's street and try to convince yourself that it's a perfect coincidence.
You want to just walk in and announce your presence because really, he should feel lucky you're taking time to visit him, but before you can you glance through the window and see him playing the piano, Tori hanging off his arm. They're both singing, their voices loud enough to ring through the thin window. You instantly recognize 'tell me that you love me' and you just want to cry at the injustice of it all because honestly, doesn't Tori have enough already?
You turn around and you walk home, trying to ignore the glaringly obvious fact that rain was designed for lonely people like you.
/
Over the next three weeks, you spend your nights ripping up letters you're too afraid to send him.
/
"Sup." Andre greets you, settling himself on the grass.
"Sup." You draw out the word, staring at a fixated spot on the pond.
"I saw you at my doorstep yesterday. Why didn't you come in?"
"You looked pretty busy with Vega," You reply, refusing to tear your eyes away from the pond.
"We were rehearsing." Andre answers defensively, sensing your jealously.
"Whoop-de-fucking-do. Listen Harris, if you want to go and 'make friends' with Tori's tongue, then I suggest you hurry along before she gets it on with some other los-"
Andre just rolls his eyes and shuts you up with his mouth, and hey, looks like tonsil tennis is your new favourite sport.
/
"Morning, beautiful." Andre greets you the next day with a lopsided smile and your stomach is glittering with butterflies that must've been asleep when Beck used to say that to you.
Andre's holding an extra-large latte in one hand and a chicken salad sandwich in the other but still manages to lean down to kiss you without dropping anything. As you deepen the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down on top of you, you can't help but wonder what he saw in you; pretty boys that play the piano don't usually go for overconfident goths that wear combat boots and blue eyeliner.
Andre's hands find their way up your shirt and you smirk against his swollen lips, as the latte and chicken sandwich lay forgotten on the floor.
/
"Want a scone?" Andre offers, covered in flour and jam as you sit at his kitchen table. After fucking, you declared you were hungry. You didn't expect him to make some scones from scratch while you sat and laughed at him.
"When I said I wanted you to make me food, I meant toast."
"Hey, I like to keep the ladies guessing."
"Are you sure you're straight?"
"You break my heart, West," Andre laughs, dropping the scones on the table and reaching down to connect your lips with his.
/
School starts again and you and Andre have settled into a pattern – he makes you food while you teach him how to play Black Ops, and the stereotype reversal actually works for you.
Cat and Beck walk in holding hands while Andre has his arm resting lazily on your shoulder, and the four of you just stare at each other before walking off in different directions.
"This is going to be a great year," you comment sarcastically, ignoring Tori's slightly jealous stare.
/
To: Jade
From: Andre
hey babe, sorry, I can't make it tonight, tori and I need to rehearse! love you x
/
Because you're fucking Jade West you decide to secretly oversee this "lesson", and you instantly recognize the look on Tori's face because it's been on yours a million times. Andre's playing the piano, staring intensely at the keys, and Tori's fluttering her eyelashes and giggling and you want to punch something. Andre glances up, Tori's face right in his. She pries his unwilling hands off the piano keys and rests them on the seat, not letting go. Andre shifts back nervously, but Tori just laughs, voice like music, and leans in, pressing her lips onto his. Your breath catches in your throat and you stand, frozen for a few seconds, waiting for Andre to pull away. He doesn't.
If only you'd shifted a little to the right you would've seen that Tori had his arms pinned down and as he leant back, she moved forward, refusing to break the kiss. Tori sees you staring and her eyes whisper 'i told you so'. You pick up your shattered heart and just walk away, but maybe if you'd stayed a few seconds longer you would've seen Andre manage twist his head out of Tori's reach and heard him say he loves you, not her.
/
"I saw you and Vega, the other day." Is the first thing you say when he steps into your room.
"And?"
"You told me you weren't going to see her anymore."
"Fuck, Jade, she's just a friend."
"A 'friend' that you like to make out with? Yeah, I saw your little tongue hockey match."
He glances up at you with wide, disbelieving eyes and says, "She kissed me, not the other way around. You don't trust me?"
"Why should I? The 'it wasn't what it looked like' bullshit has been used plenty of times, especially by Beck when I caught him having a little fun with another girl – or Robbie."
"Beck and Robbi- you know, that's not the point."
"Exactly, the point is that… look at where Beck and I are now. We're barely speaking, it's destroyed my friendship with Cat and I don't – I don't want that to happen to us, because I actually really fucking care about you, Andre."
Andre doesn't reply, he just stares up at you with those dark, flashing brown eyes and shit, why isn't he scared of you yet?
Everything inside of you just builds up and bubbles over and pours out of your mouth. You shout and you swear and you stomp your feet but it doesn't stop the feeling inside, like there's a shard of ice lodged somewhere between your heart and your windpipe, making it hard to breathe or to feel anything, anything at all.
"I have to go," he murmurs, stepping away from you, not even fighting for you anymore.
As he walks to the car, he glances back over his shoulder at you, a look that's not quite regret, not exactly misery, but something that breaks your heart all the same.
You lean against the wall and you bite your already jagged nails and you do not cry, you just watch him walk away.
a/n: lol i don't even know what this is, i wrote it at 1am when my internet crashed for an hour and there was nothing to do and i couldn't sleep. the tori/andre scene does not even make sense but i'm too lazy to fix it, so.