I lost the power

Chapter 23 - breaking point

Narrator POV

She hears them. She hears the voices, she hears it knocking, she just can't respond, too busy retching without anything coming out.

"Please, just open the door," Leigh says, leaning against the door with her arms folded in front of her chest, worry lines on her forehead.

"We're just trying to help you," Perrie tries, grabbing the door handle, trying again to push it down to open the door, only to find once again that it is locked. Gradually desperate, she exchanges glances with Leigh-Anne, who seems similarly perplexed. Meanwhile, Jade finally manages to stop the retching and instead takes a deep breath through her mouth, collapses and lands on the floor, pulling her knees to her body, wanting to hide, to whisk herself away, to just disappear.

She doesn't want the girls to see her like this, doesn't want anyone to see her like this at all. So even on Perrie's tenth attempt to open the door, she remains stuck to the floor, not daring to move.

"Come on, Jade," she pleads, but again no response. "I don't know what to do," she glances nervously at Leigh, who is also at a loss.

"Let me talk to her," a voice speaks up, suddenly making Jade's ears perk up and freeze at the same time.

Perrie is so perplexed that she just shrugs her shoulders and heads for the door, desperate enough to try anything at this point. But Leigh is sceptical, not to be shaken off so easily, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and stands broadly in front of him.

"I think we've got this covered," she wants him to understand, but he stops just as broadly in front of her, raising an eyebrow only slightly impressed.

"Doesn't look like it, does it?" he points out to them, and to be honest, no one can argue with him there. Jade sits paralysed behind a closed toilet door, surrounded by the smell of her own vomit, can only listen, shaky, short of breath, dazed, unable to make a sound.

"I can help her," he tries to convince the others, while Jade shakes her head frantically. "No one can help me," she says, but unfortunately only to herself, impossible for the others to hear. But Leigh doesn't want to be shaken off so easily.

"We're her best friends," she reminds him. "If anyone can help her, it's probably us."

"With all due respect, the person who has spent the most time with her over the years is Zach. But he's not here," he says. "The next in line would be Kevin, but he's not here either. That leaves the next best person...me."

Leigh doesn't like it, not at all, and yet she can't find an argument to refute it.

"I know her," he tries to convince her further. "And I know how to help her," this comment in turn  makes her wonder, makes her angry. "So you want to give her some drugs, do you? No way," she is energetic to utter.

"I don't want that," he says surprisingly calmly, but she doesn't believe him.