I hate her.

I hate her so much.

I put my phone away, still seeing the message that flashed across the screen.

My house. After school..

It bugs me that she has my number. I never gave it to her. There's this crawling urge to go flay Cat with my words, because I can't think of anyone else who'd just hand my number over like that. But I don't really care about Cat doing that. No, I'm angry over something else entirely.

I hate a lot of things. Most things, actually. People go on and on about the purity of love, but hatred is just as pure, just as clean. It sears through your veins and twitches in your brain. It cleanses. I like hating things, strange as it may seem. I'm black, or I'm white. There are no shades of grey in my world. I hate something, or I love it, and my world is mainly black. Tori resided in a dark pool, a shadow in the darkness. But now, that hatred isn't soothing me anymore. She's a smear of ash now, a shade of grey, and she's ruining the landscape of my life. She's complicating it. And I hate... I hate so many things, but what I hate most of all is how I can't turn her black again. I can't sink her back into the darkness. I can't uncomplicate her. I can't bleach her into love, and I can't stain her into hate. She's fucking everything up. And the more I try to ignore her, the more she stands out, the more she jars with everything else in my life.

Tori knows things are different now. She knows I don't hold all the cards anymore. I'm just bluffing, and she wears a smirk that says she's got a good hand. But I'm not about to fold just yet. She still tries to catch my eye, but it's not a furrowed brow digging above her nose, it's a little smile, like she knows that I can't help but look at her. That even when I ignore her, I'm still seeing her. And Beck, my shield, my wall, is itching and pricking at my back, and his arms are heavy around me, like the protective steel bars on a carnival ride. His stubble scratches my skin when I kiss him, his lips are too broad, too cold. His body is too hard, all edges and muscle. He's not the comfort I used to sink into, to make myself feel safe. All he does is make me aware that... that he's not Tori. That I'd much rather be in her arms, that I'd much rather be kissing her. And it makes me feel sick. Because Beck was so white, so pure, and now Tori's bleeding her grey into him, blurring his edges, and soon I wonder if I'll even be able to tell them apart. It's not that I'm starting to hate him, no, it's that she's swallowing him up. And I think she realises it on some level.

This message is proof of that. It's terse, and it's simple, and it drives me insane. Who does she think she is, to boss me around like that? Not even a question mark at the end, not even a please. I've seen a text she sent to Cat, just about a class project. It was filled with apologies and exclamation marks and it was barely a dozen words long. I wanted Tori to play the game, to act her part... well, she's doing it, but she's thrown out her script and this has turned into an improv. One that I'm not sure how it will end. And a little part of me likes that.

She possesses the same quality that attracted me to Beck. He never played my games, he never followed the twists and turns of my maze. He cut straight through, sharply, cleanly, to the very core of me, and only hate or love can result from that. With him, it was love. With Tori... it's both. There's a war inside me, and I don't know who's winning. It's being fought on the battleground of my heart, and it hurts like fuck.

I climb into my car after the school bell chimes, slinging my bag into the back seat. I hesitate, hands on the steering wheel, twisting to look behind me. My black leather bag is sprawled messily on the grey leather, strap cutting a swathe over the seat, and I remember, I remember what happened with her, in that very back seat. It crowds my brain, floods it with sound, with remembered sights, with snippets and flashes that make chemicals rush into my blood and send my heart pounding. Looking at that back seat, filled with ghosts of memory... it sends a hot throb through me, makes me press my legs together, remembering how Tori's hand brushed my stomach, how her fingers crept into my undone jeans, shaking but determined.

I turn back to face the front, teeth sinking into my bottom lip, hands flexing on the steering wheel, leather worn under my hands. I hate that she's in here. That she's infected this place, this one safe place I had. This chamber of my heart that kept me secluded. That she's fucking everywhere. There are ghosts of her all around, breathing over my shoulder, touching the small of my back, whispering "Remember? Remember how it felt?", as if I could ever forget.

If I could go back, if I could go back to that bathroom, to that day, that everything broke, that everything became so complicated, I'd do it differently. I'd hurt her. I'd make her so scared of me, that she wouldn't dream, she wouldn't fucking dare to even mention it. I'd make it so she hated me too. Because hate, at least, is simple. Hate, at least, is pure. If hate is a fire, love is water, and when you mix them together, all you get is steam, steam that obscures everything, that makes things that were once so clear, that were consumed, that were drowned, that were covered by these feelings, locked behind this glass case of emotion... it makes them into shapes in the fog, and you don't know what you feel anymore. I hate Tori, and I love Beck. That's how it's supposed to be. She's the bitter taste in my mouth, and he's the sweet, and the two should never be combined. And this war is raging as I sit there, that message burning a hole in my pocket, that text from her. It singes my skin, it sears to the bone, and I'm stuck in the grey. The indecision is tearing me apart. But with all the force of a mortar dropping, all the wrenching pain of shrapnel piercing my heart, I'm stirred into action, key twisting in the ignition, car rumbling to life around me.

I drive. I drive until the sun sinks in the sky, and bleeds it's last breaths into the clouds, always skimming near her house, always one street away from her, and I turn, and I turn, but I never get further away, and I never get closer. My hand is fiddling with the knob of the radio, turning it louder, changing the station, lowering the volume, until finally I get sick of it and switch it off. The streetlights flicker on, casting cold pools of light among the dusk, car purring along the darkened streets. And somehow this darkness, this indecisive mixture of day and night, decides me, and I turn into her street, brakes letting out a low metallic scream and I pull to a stop in front of her house. It's dark but for one light, warm and glowing, spilling out from her living room, cutting neat edges from the night.

I climb out of my silenced car, chilly air thick with the day hitting me, a change from the canned air that circulated inside my car. It sits heavily in my lungs as I shut my car door, crickets falling quiet at the noise. I ignore the neatly swept pavers that run along Tori's driveway, instead crossing the neatly trimmed grass, blades crackling under my shoes, dry. One side of my internal battle has carved a bloody trench, secured a foothold, and it's driving me forward, making my actions decisive, and if only I knew which side it was.

I rap at her door hard enough to bruise my knuckles, even though there's a perfectly good doorbell, surrounded with neat ornamentation, curlicued iron flourishing around the button. That's the Vega's though. Tasteful, modest, but with little things, tiny symbols that show they're on the nicer side of ordinary. Trina's the sore, overly made-up thumb in this family.

I hear movement inside, jerking my arm back to my side, and it feels heavy and useless, like it's forgotten what it's like to be at my side, it's only memory of being forever outstretched. Bodies are stupid that way. They never feel how they should, and they should feel invisible. They shouldn't feel too tight, too loose, too ill-fitting, limbs awkward like a broken doll.

Tori's opens the door, phone in her hand, and I wonder what she was just about to do with it. Ring me? Text me? Break and beg me? I wish I'd waited a minute longer; it could've changed everything. As it is, I'm the one who's come begging, who's submitted to her demands, and that automatically gives her the upper hand.

She steps back as she opens the door, eyes running over me, dark and inscrutable, fingers closed around her phone as she gestures me inside. "I wasn't sure if you were coming."

But she doesn't seem surprised. She didn't even say hello. She ushers me inside, door shutting softly. Even if her voice is quiet, still unsure, her actions are speaking louder than her words. They always do. You learn, as an actor, to read body language, to project it, to mimic the unconscious actions we all do. And Tori's body is telling me she's in charge. I can only hope to make it stumble, to make it shake. To turn that confidence into submissiveness. To wrest the upper hand from her. I can't have her over me. I can't have her controlling me.

"I wasn't sure either." My arms fold up in front of me, a visual shield, a barred gate, weight shifting onto one foot. I sweep my eyes over Tori, as dismissively as I can. Even if I'm not confident, I can at least act it. The awkwardness between us is almost palpable, but I'm not about to try and lessen it. I'm not even sure why I came here. I'm not sure why I do anything anymore.

Tori sighs, lowering herself to her sofa, phone set on the coffee table. She sweeps a lock of brunette hair away from her face, looking up at me. "Look, Jade..."

And something about her tone just irritates me. It's like she's having to explain to a child, like she's having to give bad news. It reeks of false sympathy. My nails dig into my arms, spine straightening. "No, Tori, you look. I'm sick of whatever little fucking game you're playing, okay?" I throw a hand out at her, Tori flinching. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I spit the words out, edges sharp, and Tori's silent for a moment, gaze lowered to her twisting hands.

"I don't know." She says finally, in a soft, weak voice.

I shake my head derisively, turning. "I'm out of here."

I'm about halfway to the door when her hand grabs my shoulder, her voice almost desperate. "No."

I stop, shrugging her hand off and turning to face her. I raise an eyebrow, and maybe if I'm hard enough, maybe if I'm mean enough, it'll cut her into too many pieces to bother me anymore. Maybe it'll remind her that this is who I am, not the weak girl she saw in the car, panting her name.

"I want... I want you." Tori's mouth twists, arms hugging herself, and I can't help but let a smile steal across my face. Tori might have a spine, but she lays it bare entirely too often. She makes herself weak, because she can't stand to let someone go. She lets her emotion cloud her sense, and she's not much of an actress if she can't separate them. She's relinquished all control, and made all of this so easy for me. "Look, Jade-" And there it is again, that command, sheathed in a soft voice. "I don't know what's going on between us, but-"

"No, Tori. I'll tell you what's 'going on' between us." I sweeten my voice, making it as condescending as possible. I want this to cut deep. "I'm fucking you. That's all. And why? Because I know you'll let me." I take a step closer to her, smile on my face. "But the question is, Tori, why? Why are you letting me?" My hand finds a place on her shoulder, muscles stiff and held underneath it, and Tori's hugging herself so hard I'm waiting to hear a rib crack. I know my barbs found their way to her heart. They always do. And they dig and irritate, just the way I want them too. Even with my heart hardened by her weakness, her pitiableness, I still can't just break her. I still can't walk away. I still can't seem to keep my hands off her. Those warring sides in my heart have sworn a momentary truce, and focussed their efforts on her.

"I can't... I can't help it." Tori's voice is barely above a whisper. "I hate it."

I put a finger under her chin, lifting her lowered head, making her look at me, and by now I'm moved close enough for my breasts to brush hers, my hips to almost, almost touch against her. We're the same height, but I feel so much taller than her. She's making herself small, bending her spine, whereas I keep mine permanently straight. My gaze flicks from her eyes to her lips, and back again, pointed. "Do you want me to?" I say in an almost derisive tone, but somehow my thundering heart finds it's way into my words, and steals their edge, softens the blow. Part of me is still scared. Even if I have control, I'm still using it against her. I still can't tear myself away. I just can't. I can control her, but I can't seem to control myself.

Her shaped eyebrows furrow down, eyes flashing, and her expression is conflicted, pearls of teeth sinking into her lower lip for a moment, before letting the flesh slide away. "Yes." She breathes, and it comes out blood-stained and shivering. And even before the last echoes have died away, my lips are meeting hers, desperate, and she's responding just as breathlessly, arms unfolding to encircle me. Her lips are soft, and warm, and they feel so right, so achingly right to kiss. She's like a deep breath after a long dive in the deep, kept until your lungs are bursting, and she floods my blood like a drug, like some necessary thing, and my fingers seek her skin, push up under her shirt, because I need, need to feel her bones. I need to trace the paths I tread in my head, to see if they're still the same as my memory. I need to sink into her, and it's terrifying. She may have lost control to me, but so have I. This game just keeps getting more dangerous.

/

A/N: So this is a first. A chapter without smut. Thank Jesus. I didn't even know I could do that. It's like discovering a superpower. The power to not get people off. Wait... everyone has that though. So that would mean my power is to get people off. MY POWERS HAVE BEEN STOLEN. WHO HAS DONE THIS?

IS IT THE LEAGUE OF CHASTITY? WITH THEIR MAGIC BELTS OF NON-SEXING?