Enigma || jerrie ✔︎

part 50 - failure

 They had talked for ten more minutes before Perrie padded into the bedroom, with only a towel wrapped around her figure, flaunting the curves that Jade didn't know she had. As far as Jade knew, Perrie was still the insecure little girl on the X-factor, but realisation jolted throughout her body as she recognised the apparent change in the blonde. Confidence. The tables had turned.

Jade stopped abruptly in the middle of her sentence, the familiar dry feeling spreading up her throat again like a forest fire. You've seen her like this plenty of times, so just keep talking and - Perrie smiled at her. And Jade forgot what she was thinking. Instead, she stammered something along the lines of "Um uh gah" into the phone. When she sneaked a glance at Perrie, the blonde was giggling.

"Jade? You okay?" Louis asked, apparently concerned.

"Uh, Perrie's here now," Jade managed to stutter out without tripping on her own tongue. Mentally, she congratulated herself for being so smooth.

"Say hi to her for me," Louis said, "I gotta go now, but good luck on talking to management and all that. Just remember to fight for her."

Jade nodded, even though Louis couldn't see her. "Keep in touch?"

"Keep in touch," Louis promised, and ended the call.

"Why aren't you dressed?" Jade asked breathlessly, keeping eye contact with Perrie with all of her willpower.

"Relax," Perrie grinned, as if she knew what Jade was thinking. "I just wanted to dry my hair first. You know how I hate getting my clothes wet."

Jade blushed again. Of course Perrie wasn't planning on having sex with her. Who would want to? She was just- just thinking of those half-healed cuts made Jade want to throw up. She could never let Perrie see them.

And Perrie being The Confident One, walked to the mirror at the corner. Jade was quite sure that the blonde swayed her hips on purpose, not that she was looking anyways. Oh, who am I kidding? Jade huffed to herself as she grabbed her phone and went on Instagram since she had nothing better to do. Before she knew it Perrie was dressed in an overlarge sweater and shorts and was climbing on the bed. The mattress dipped in slightly and all Jade could think about was how good Perrie smelled and how close she was and the heat of her skin -

Their shoulders touched. Oh. Just that one little touch sent tingles running down Jade's spine. You are fucking whipped, Jade Thirlwall.

"Babe, you're holding your phone upside down," Perrie said amusedly.

"Oh yes, of course." Jade quickly turned her phone around, flustered. Oh how she acted like a fool in front of Perrie. How she hated it, but how she yearned for the feeling of tingly butterflies in her stomach at the same time.

"So, how did your talk with Louis go?" Perrie asked nonchalantly as she looked over Jade's shoulder at her phone, but anyone could hear the underlying tone of worry in her voice.

"It was fine," Jade said, "he told us to go talk to management about it first, since they apparently 'own our arses' according to him."

Perrie reached over and scrolled down on Jade's phone for her, double-tapping a post of two puppies, keeping silent for a while. The silence turned almost unbearable, and just before Jade was about to blurt something out, she felt Perrie turn round and look at her. She kept her eyes fixed on the screen, not wanting Perrie to look at her ugly face. She did not deserve Perrie, the voices kept saying in her head, but somehow they lacked conviction this time. Jade shut them out more easily and focused on what Perrie was saying. "D'you really think that they'd let us come out like this?" Her voice was soft now, as if she didn't want to break the truth to a naive child.