I've paid my dues time after time

 Tori didn't want to give anything away. Why did Cori have to have such a great memory?

"I don't remember," instantly Tori went numb. She'd done some things she couldn't really account for. It wasn't that bad, was it? But seriously she did not remember, she did not want to remember her youth nor what little there was of it.

Her step-mom always wanted her to be a serious musician. After all, she was the only mother Tori ever knew and she'd wanted to make her happy which looking back she knew was a foolish thing to do. Her step-mom didn't even like her name so she went from Victoria to Contessa which was shortened to Tess. Tori didn't really want to talk about it, but Tommy said it was a good idea to be open about her mental state. There was nothing to be afraid of. So she admitted at one time she'd been Tess, but not anymore. 

"I wanted to go back to my real name after my step-mother died," she shrugged.

Of course, Cori and Megan looked at her as if she needed to explain.

"It was natural causes," Tori assured them, ever so straight lipped.

"Look, I was under a lot of pressure," she told them she had no talent in music, but her step-mom insisted she learned at a young age. She'd wanted Tori to be a stage actress and she'd been in choirs and extras at the children's theater growing up. She was even in the State Children's Choir. "So by the time I got to the University it was all planned, I would be an opera singer." She didn't tell her parents she was unhappy about it. After all this time, she knew it was better to shut up and just go with what her parents wanted.  "I..I really didn't think I could do it."

Even now her throat was parched at the thought of being on stage with an orchestra, but she knew it made her parents proud and when her step-mom died of heart failure, she just couldn't do it anymore.

"I know, I don't make friends very well," Tori didn't really know how to smile, but Dylan made her laugh and she felt she'd met a true friend on her own, even if it had been a short while. "Tommy is a friend of the family. I've known him since I was little. And I always thought he was..I dunno..brave. Brave enough to do what he wanted, even if he's a conductor's son. He knows violin and ...and he's even been in an orchestra in Paris, but he knows that still doesn't pay the bills. I guess that's what it's like being a musician." She tried to laugh, but the problem was she was all on her own now. Not even family to count on. There was nothing left of their estate for her. It was given to her step-mother's children who were much older than Tori.

Of course, neither Cori nor Megan had much to say, and she hoped they never asked her so many questions again. It was hard being devastatingly desperate, but if she didn't think about it too much everything seemed to work out on its own. She thought of the time she sang in the old market in rags with a guitar. She'd made well over five hundred dollars in three hours. Nothing like that happened when she went out to L.A. with Tommy last summer. Yes, she liked the heartland. It was the only home she knew even if she didn't really have any family.