Enigma || jerrie ✔︎

part 18 - hello

 Jade groaned and squinted at her phone which was ringing obnoxiously from her bedside. Then she straightened as she saw Louis's caller ID on the screen. Louis wouldn't call her unless it was something big... "Hello?"

"Jade!" There was a sniffle on the other line that suspiciously sounded like crying. Jade narrowed her eyes and cleared her throat, wondering if her ears were working properly.

"Um...are you crying?" Jade said this carefully as she flipped around in her bed. She grabbed a pillow and threw her leg over it, trying not to remember what happened between Perrie and her just a few hours ago.

When Jade saw Louis at the X-factor a few weeks ago, he'd looked fine. As Harry talked to Jesy and Leigh-Anne, Louis kept shooting winks at Jade, who kept rolling her eyes back at him. Sometimes he was such a doofus.

"Yeah, well..." Louis cleared his throat. "So, how have you been?"

"Not to be rude or anything, but why the fuck are you calling me at 3AM?" Jade rubbed at her eyes and was surprised to find that her cheeks were wet with tears. Stop fucking thinking about it!

"Fine, I'll get right to the point if you want. I had no one else to talk to, alright?" Louis chuckled bitterly. "Harry's off on some yacht with some skank, Liam's working on some solo project that he's not tellin' me about and I have no idea where Niall is. It's like we've been drifting apart, now."

"You're in the alps, yeah?" Through the phone, Jade could hear a female's soft murmuring. She wondered who it was.

"Go back to sleep babe," Jade heard Louis say. "Like I was saying-"

"Who's that," Jade questioned. "Danielle?"

"Yeah, that's her," Louis sighed out, sounding strangely tired.

"At least you have someone," Jade said a bit bitterly and sniffed back tears. She pressed her blanket into her face to try and block the tears from coming out. "Listen, Perrie and I sort of snogged last night."

"The fuck?" Louis was paying attention now, and excitement crept into his voice. "That's good for you, I mean have you gotten together yet? I hope so, you surely deserve someone who understands you, and Perrie needs someone to treat her well so you two would-"

Jade interrupted Louis's rambling. "She was piss drunk, alright? There's no chance that I'd ever have her. There's no chance that she's....not straight."

There was some static in the background. "Y'know, people do the things they want deep inside when they're drunk."

"Stop making me hope," Jade whispered. Her mouth still tasted like bitter alcohol and she hadn't washed her hair yet. The gel that coated her brown curls stuck to her forehead unpleasantly, and she cracked open her door a bit, seeing that the hallway was empty before tiptoeing down to the bathroom, closing the door, and leaning against the wall.

"What's wrong with hope?" Louis said softly. "Hope is a beautiful thing, Jade, don't forget that."

"I-I'm afraid of being disappointed," Jade admitted. "I'm afraid of going over to her house next day to face her. I don't know how I can still talk to her without remembering last night. I'm afraid of her finding someone else to replace me."

"Jade. Don't worry. Everything will be alright in the end. I promise," Louis said, and Jade could just see the image of him smiling inside her head. It was beautiful. Just imagining her friend's eyes light up with happiness - well, at least someone appreciated her. And Jade was glad.

....

A week had passed; Perrie had jetted off to the Maldives. Jade was visiting Paris with her old friend Jed since apparently she had nothing better to do. Jesy was still with Jake and Leigh had went off vacationing with Jordan as well.