FOR NEW READERS: This story has sexual content/coarse language and TRIGGER WARNING for self harm/depression and anxiety.

FOR OLD READERS: I'm re-writing this entire thing! Mostly because of english mistakes (English is not my first language) and some things that made me cringe. I do hope you still like this new version of it. I'm currently uptading, so there might be a great change of style/story/type once you reach the point between a new chapter and an old one.

CHAPTER 1

26/09/2012 - Wednesday

TORI

I sit up straightening my posture, and glance at my classmates. I'm relieved to notice they all look just as confused as me. A girl whose name I shamefully don't know raises her hand. She asks him to explain the project again, and he rolls his eyes.

"Fine I will explain it in English!" He announces, and I wonder what language he thought he was speaking in before. "I wat you to pair up, and find yourselves. After you've done that, you have to create any type of presentation, and tell your peers about it!"

The class stays silent, and I look at arguably by best friend, Andre. "What?" I whisper to him, and he shrugs.

I hope he's using some type of metaphor for the project, instead of actually wanting us to find ourselves and worse – tell him all about it. I might need years to figure that out.

"Well that should be easy, then." Jade argues, raising her left eyebrow. She has such a confident disposition, and I envy that. She gets up and goes over to the stage, Sikowitz takes a step aside and watches. "I'm Jade. I like cutting things with my scissors, and I hate bras that hook on the front. I also hate the color yellow, and-"

"No, no, Jade." She grunts, and he motions for her to go back to her seat. Her heels clack against the floor, and some of the students look away as she walks by.

"What your fellow classmate just presented, although a great demonstration of her personal preferences, was not in fact who she is." He walks back to the center of the stage. "For example, I love coconut milk! But, I am not who I am because I love it. I love it because I am who I am." I think I understand what he's trying to say, but I still don't like what I'm hearing. "So! In the next eight weeks you will have to figure that out."He then takes a red velvet pouch from his backpack, and gets down from the stage. I'm dreading this already, it's not bad enough I'm going to have to bullshit through this project, I will have to do it with another person! That doesn't even make sense! You should find yourself, BY YOURSELF!

He starts in the front row, and I wait until someone gets my name, or it's my turn to do so. I really hope I get Andre as my pair, it would make this whole thing so much easier. We could do a song and that would be it, he would create such a great melody no one would care about the project itself.

I see Robbie putting his hand inside the bag, and think whoever he's paired up with is not going to have an easy time. If it's not bad enough to be paired up with one person, imagine with two. He carries Rex around as if he was a real person, and there is no way he's going to leave him out of this.

"Andre!" He exclaims. I shake my head with disappointment, now I just have to hope I don't get someone that annoys me. I look over at Andre, and I can tell he's also dreading this. Although it's obvious that he'll soon get over it. He's probably the happiest person I know, which is though because he doesn't exactly lead the easiest life. His grandma is mentally challenged, and he's basically the one who takes care of her. I don't know what happened to his parents, I guess I've never had the courage to ask. But at the end of the day he's always the one who's smiling.

Now that I think about, I'm always smiling too.

Sikowitz reaches the row right in front of me, and I can feel the energy in the room getting intense. It's Beck Oliver's turn, and you can see the excitement in everyone that's into guys. They all want to be paired up with the mysterious, hot, Beck Oliver. I get it, he's really good looking, and has that artsy vibe. He's a loner in school – by choice – which for some reason bothers me, it's almost as if he thinks he's too good for everyone else.

"Tori Vega." He says, and I feel all eyes on me. Shit.

He glances back at me, and I look away. Great, I now have to find out who I am with a guy who doesn't even want to be here. It has always bothered me how we're always doing plays together, and he never bothered to be friendly. He's in practice, and he leaves straight away. How can you find yourself with someone like that?!

The bell rings, and Sikowitz asks everyone who wasn't yet paired up to stay. That is obviously not my case. I grab my things, and walk out. I go straight to my locker, to get the books for the next period. As soon as I unlock it, I feel someone creep up behind me. I turn around hoping it is Cat or Andre. Of course it wasn't.

"I guess we're partners." I raise my eyebrows with a not so friendly smile.

"Guess we are." I turn back around, and finish getting all the material I need.

He walks to my side, leaning against the lockers. "We need to figure out when we're doing this thing."

He's right, we do. In fact the sooner we get to it, the sooner we'll be done. "I'm free today."

"My place? At four?" I nod, and he takes out his cellphone. "Give me your number, and I'll text you the address."

This is literally the most we've talked without doing a scene. I type in my contact information, and hand him back his phone. "There you go."

"See ya." He says, and goes his way. I roll my eyes, annoyed by this entire thing.

"Tori!" I jump as a tiny redhead pops up in front of me. "You were talking to Beck Oliver!" She exclaims, just as excited as every other girl in school.

"I know."

"What did he want to talk to you about?!" She has a sparkle in her eye, and I seriously consider asking her to change partners.

"Meeting up for Sikowitz's stupid project."

"You're sooo lucky!" I shake my head in consent, since I don't want to argue with her right now. I'm not in the best of moods today, and having to discuss anything would Cat would only make it worse. She squeezes my arm and bites her bottom lip. "I'm so jealous!"

Beck

"Thank you, Consuela!" The housekeeper leaves my RV, and I sit down on the couch. I take out my phone and scroll through my social media, while waiting for Tori Vega to arrive. Just thinking about makes me bored. I study with all kinds of crazy and different people, and I of course was paired with the predictable popstar.

Of course that between her and Sinjin – the one kid is school who is too strange – I would rather be with her, but still… She looks so bland, and stereotypical. I can see her being a one hit-wonder and marry some rich network guy. They'll have kids who will become internet-famous and that will be it. And she has talent I see that when we perform together, which makes it all worse.

I don't know I'm over-analyzing this girl, it's not like we're actually going to do a proper presentation. One cannot expect seventeen-year-olds to find themselves in two weeks. And even if we did, why should I talk about it in front of thirty kids?

I hear someone knocking at the door, and I get up. Let's do this.

"Hi." I say as I open the door.

"Hey." I take a few steps back to allow her to walk in. She looks around and I can tell she's curious. Most people are when they come here for the first time. No one gets why I live in an RV, and yet no one bothers to ask. They just assume I'm crashing in a stranger's parking lot, I guess. But which stranger would allow a teenager to park his old RV next to their house?! And if such person exists, I want to meet them.

"What's the deal with the RV?"

Wait… Really?

"Oh." I say, surprised that she asked. "Well, my Dad said that as long as I lived in his house I would have to live by his rules, so-"

"Your house, your rules." I nod, and she shuts the door behind her. "Not be rude but, would it still be your Dad's house if he's paying for it?"

"He didn't buy the RV for me, my Grandma did."

"That's nice."

I nod. "That's my Grandma." I walk towards the fridge, and open it. "Do you want something to drink? I have lemonade."

"Sure." I pour the drink in a couple of mugs, and when I turn back she's sitting on the couch. The song playing on my Laptop changes, and as soon as the next one starts she smiles. I hand her the beverage, and sit down next to her. "I love this band."

I'm caught off guard again. She rocks her head with the rhythm. "You like Keane?"

"Who wouldn't?" She says, before singing along.

"I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand"

I watch her close her eyes and let loose, and soon both of us are jamming to the song. She did the highest notes and I went along. We both know each word by heart,

"This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go
Somewhere only we know?"

The final chords play and she opens a big smile. "I love this song!" She exclaims, turning back to me. "What if we just sing this one for our project?"

I chuckle, and take a sip off my drink. "I don't that would count." I shrug and turn down the volume of the music, so that we can actually try to work. "But you know, they say that once you sing with someone you form a connection. So I guess we're in the right path."

She looks at me with doubtful eyes. "Who's they?"

"Good point." I watch her open her bag, and take out a notebook. Her hair falls over her face, and she tucks it behind her ear. "I don't know how we're going to do this." I say, and she looks back at me. She has big brown eyes, pretty eyes. "The only thing we know about each other is that we both like Keane, and do plays together."

"I know." She rolls her eyes. "I don't even know how to start."

"We could play twenty questions." I suggest, and again she looks surprised.

"Really? You're willing to give up the mysterious act, and answer everything I want to know?" She nods as if had just gotten very useful information. "Interesting."

"What mysterious act?" I ask.

"Oh, you know." She straightens her back, and I glance down at her. "The mysterious hot guy combo: long hair, and combat boots, and refuse to make friends in school. You're basically Judd Nelson from 'The Breakfast Club'."

"So you think I'm hot?" I raise my eyebrows provocatively.

I'm flirting. I'm flirting with Tori Vega.

"We should go back to trying to find ourselves." She says, looking away.

"Like the high schoolers did in The Breakfast Club?" She smiles, and I can tell she's embarrassed.

She thinks I'm hot, and I definitely think she's hot. And she seems to have at least decent taste in music. This might not be as bad as I thought.

"I'm serious!" She insists. "We have to think about life and then we can do a song, or a skit, or whatever."

"Here." I say, getting up. I walk over to my bookcase, and take out one of my favorite books of all time. I read it for the first time when I was fourteen, and it changed my perspective on everything. I walk back to the couch, and hand her the book.

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower?" She stars down at the cover. "I saw the trailer for this movie, but I've never seen it."

She opens the first page, she scans the first few pages. "This book will most likely make you re-think everything about life. At least it did for me."

"Thank you." She puts it inside her purse, bending down to reach it. I peek through her cleavage, but quickly look away. "I'll bring it back as soon as I finish it." She gets up, and looks down at me. "So, are we good?"

She motions to the door, and I get up too. "Already?"

It's weird, there's something comforting about her presence. How can someone's view change so rapidly?

She leans against the door, and I know for sure that's a good sign. "Yeah, what else would we do?"

I take a few steps closer to her, paying close attention to her body language. She tilts her body forward, and I take another step. I shrug, and she look into my eyes.

It was impulsive, and this could have gone wrong in so many ways. I trusted my own instincts and went for it. But before I can process the possible consequences to my actions her arms are wrapped around her neck, my hands pressing against her lower back.

We kiss like we hadn't just met, like we had been aching for this for years.

I feel her raise her legs, and pull herself closer to me. I lift her up, pressing her against the wall. I kiss her down her neck, and she pulls me back up to her mouth. This is crazy.

She pulls my shirt up, and I take it off as fastest as I can. She pulls me back, and I as take off her jacket. I hold her up, and carry us both to the bed. I place her down, and as she grabs my shoulder I looks down.

Her arms, they have cuts on it. "Fuck!" She says, pushing me away.

"Tori." I say, trying to catch her attention. She's grabs her jacket from the floor, and starts looking around for her purse. "Tori, don't leave."

She gets her bag, and opens the door. "I'm fine." She says, before rushing out, and banging the door behind her.