Jade POV
When we arrive at the hotel at 12 o'clock at night, it is as if I had never taken anything in. Just like the last two weeks, everything comes back in full force and on top of that I am so tired that I could fall asleep standing. Like I'm just coming down from a high.
"Girls, room service at yours? We get to sleep in tomorrow," Leigh-Anne suggests and before I can say anything back, Perrie is already cheering in agreement. The four of us go to our hotel room, where I fall straight into bed while the others scurry around the room, loudly discussing what they all want to order. I close my eyes, just for a moment, hoping to relax at least a little more. But I quickly feel movement on the mattress and know for a fact that all three of them have jumped onto the bed at the same moment, causing me to wince.
"Sorry, Jadey," Leigh says laying at my feet, moving them slightly to the side so she has enough room to sit. "We just ordered all sorts of stuff and just share everything," she explains to me, to which I can only nod, completely disinterested.
For the most part, the girls leave me alone, themselves engrossed in their phones or in some mundane conversation, while I doze off with my eyes open, hoping to just be left alone for the night. But when, unsurprisingly, I barely touch my food and can only choke down bits and pieces, the brief peace is already over.
"Jade, we need to talk," Jesy then decides, who has been watching me sceptically the whole time. Through clenched teeth I sit up a little and look at her questioningly. The conversation was bound to come.
"We're worried," she then says with a sad look. "At first we actually suspected you might be pregnant when you threw up at that interview," she explains, and the mere mention of that horrible memory almost makes me feel sick again.
"But we quickly dismissed that thought," Leigh follows up, while Perrie just looks at the floor.
"But something's still wrong! We're not dumb, we have eyes," Jesy says.
And I feel caught, look around in a bit of a panic and then try to reply stuttering that nothing is wrong, but Perrie quickly guesses this and is way faster than me.
"I knew it, you're not saying anything. What else is supposed to happen now?" she says, upset. "This morning you were awake far too early, then you almost fainted after getting up. You felt like shit all day! I was watching you, you looked like you were going to pass out at any moment with the best part during sound check."
"Oh you were watching me but you didn't say a word to me?! Interesting...", I return equally angry.
"I didn't speak to you because I was pissed off that you obviously lied to me! I'll say it again, you're not okay!" she almost shouts.
"I am!", I lie just as loudly.
"Just look in the mirror, you look like you're about to drop dead. Stop lying to us all!" she replies desperately and the atmosphere in the room becomes more tense and unpleasant with every spoken word, so that Jesy sees the need to intervene in the shouting match: "That's enough now! Shut up, both of you!"
And indeed we fall silent for a brief moment when suddenly a ringing phone disturbs the depressed silence. Of course it's Perries. Of course it's Alex.
"Go ahead, answer it," I say with a very obvious faked smile.
"No," she says curtly, pushes it away and puts the phone back on the bedside table.
"I don't want to come in between you and Alex, so just pick up," I say again, looking at her sadly but also challengingly, which she returns. At last, now, the other two must notice something is up. If only they knew how much depth and truthfulness is in my statement.
When it rings the second time, I almost expect that I've messed up for good and that she'll answer this time. Instead, she just shows me her phone and turns it off. "I'm not answering it now," she says forcefully, looking deep into my eyes, which makes me think. At that moment she chooses me. What is the meaning of this?
"Okay...whatever this just was", Jesy breaks the awkward silence that followed. "To get back to the point: Jade, whatever you're trying to tell us here, there's something wrong with you. And we want to know what that could be. Now," she demands.
"I'm almost afraid you're seriously ill," Leigh interjects, to which I shake my head vehemently, even though I've thought about it a time or two myself. But it can't be, it just can't.
"Bullshit," I say quickly, rather self-defensively. "I've just been really unlucky lately. I can't get rid of this nasty cold and the back pain came on top of it, that's all. That's what you get for never taking a break. Maybe I'm hugely overworked, shouldn't come as a surprise." I explain. Hoping they believe me. Hoping I believe myself. But their faces reveal that they are not buying it.
"But the pills help me," I say encouragingly, again more to myself.
"That's another thing...those pills," Jesy probes further.
"What about them?", I ask, starting to get annoyed.
"I googled them. They're really strong, Jade. You're not supposed to take them for too long because I guess you get addicted extremely quickly and you've been taking them for at least two weeks...regularly...and now again...", she says carefully and I don't like what she's getting at, which I guess is obvious as she falls silent.
"Come on, spit it out," I say rather angrily now, at which she turns away and takes a deep breath and I almost expect her not to dare. But it's Jesy. "Are you already addicted?"
Stunned, I stare at her while Perrie and Leigh just stare at the floor in silence.
"Come again?", I ask in shock.
"You heard me."
"No, I'm not a drug addict!", I then quickly clarify and can hardly believe that I've had to say that twice in the past three days.
"Then explain why you feel awful, then good when you take a pill and shit again a few hours later. Looks like a high to me," she replies.
"That's called a time of effect! I take the pills for pain, they are PAINKILLERS. And the pain is relieved by taking them for the effective period. That's how medication work, Jessica!" I argue logically, whereupon everyone falls silent again.
"Then we'll scrap that theory," Leigh intervenes again. "But there's another question that's been burning on my tongue..."
"Go ahead then, guess everyone has a free pass today," I retort annoyed, which she just ignores.
"There's no easy way to say this. I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm not jumping to conclusions. I'm only asking this because I'm really seriously worried about you," she takes another deep breath before daring to ask: "Could it be possible that your eating disorder returned?"
With my mouth open and shock written all over my face, I stare at her, stunned. They all know how hard this subject is for me, what terrible memories it brings up, how much I despise talking about it, how sensitive I am to it. The fact that she still brings it up actually shows me deep down that she is really concerned and that I should actually take her serious. But at that moment, rage overrides rationality.
"Are you guys completely nuts now?", I ask through clenched teeth. "Are you out of your fucking minds?! I'm just sick and twisted my back! Why would I be anorexic again?! How do you come up with something like that?!"
"Because you never eat anything! And if you do, it's just small amounts or a tiny salad! You've lost so much weight, do you even see that? And I googled that some of your symptoms match that..." she argues, admittedly quite logically. But I don't want to hear or see it. When I don't respond and instead stare at her open-mouthed, suddenly Perrie speaks up again, "And with everything that's going on...with Jed and..."
Immediately I turn to her with my face flushed with anger, to which she falls silent. She knows. She knows what's really going on, she knows that I'm miserable because of her, because of us. The fact that she of all people says it's because of Jed, just because the other two are there, is like a slap in the face. It feels like betrayal.
"Wow," is all I say.
Leigh and Jesy probably don't understand what's happening at all, but Perrie is acutely aware that she's hit a nerve. But I don't care about her sad look or the confused faces of the other two at that moment. I stand up abruptly and walk quickly to the bathroom.
"I don't feel like listening to this crap. There's nothing wrong with me, I'm fine. Just a pinched nerve combined with a nasty cold. Nothing more," I declare angrily. "I'm going to take a shower and hope to be able to sleep in peace when I get back."
Without looking back, I close the door behind me, immediately undress and turn the water on. And as soon as I'm in the shower, I can't hold back the tears. Tears of anger, sadness, tension and exhaustion. Here in this protected space I just let it all out.
When I come out of the bathroom, eyes still red, after what feels like an eternity, to my surprise Leigh and Jesy are no longer there. Only Perrie is lying on the bed and looks at me cautiously, which surprises me. As mean as I've been, I would have thought she'd be sleeping with the others tonight.
Without a word, I lie down in bed and pull the covers up to my chin, ready to end the evening, hoping the positive memory of the concert prevails.
"Jade, I'm sorry," Perrie says suddenly, but I remain lying silently facing away from her. "I shouldn't have said that, we shouldn't have ambushed you like that. You're just so...we're just worried..." she then explains stuttering, but at that moment I'm still so inexplicably annoyed and angry that I can't control my words.
"Call your boyfriend back and leave me the hell alone."
And there is so much bitterness in that sentence, so much more meaning, that she just stares at me in shock, which I try to ignore.
And after a minute of tense silence, she just says quietly, audibly hurt, "All right." She grabs her pillow, her phone, her room card and, without another word, she disappears through the door, which she slams shut. And I know for a fact I just blew it.
Perrie POV
Quietly I knock sadly on Leigh and Jesy's door, afraid they're already asleep, when Leigh opens the door in her pyjamas.
"Can I sleep here?", I ask, almost on the verge of tears, to which Leigh just nods kindly and lets me in.
"She kicked you out!?" Jesy says incredulously when she sees me.
"I left voluntarily," I reply curtly.
"But why?", Jesy probes further.
"Because she was a bitch! I had to go, otherwise I would have said something I'd regret," I then explain, unable to suppress a tear or two.
Jesy stares at me for a moment, so insistently that I almost have the feeling she knows something. Without a word she pats on the place next to her in the bed, which I quickly take. And Leigh doesn't hesitate for a second either and lies down right next to me on the other side. And so, for now, all three of us lie close together in bed with the covers pulled up, probably all still thinking about the conversation that didn't go at all as planned.
"I think we've gone too far," Leigh says at one point, to which I can only nod in agreement.
"Definitely," I say.
"What came over us? We know what she's like. She never talks about her feelings and she never admits when she's feeling bad!" retorts Leigh, shaking her head.
And she is right. While the three of us are totally open about our emotions, Jade is rather reserved. She hardly lets anything get to her on the outside. She could have the worst day of her life and she would still say everything is okay - and we would believe her. That's how good she is at keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself.
"We're only human, Lee Lee," Jesy interjects. "But the fact that we know she's going through something this time shows how serious it must be."
And she's right too. Normally we don't actually even realise that something is bothering her, or only when it's too late.
"We can hardly keep it like that, just watching her getting worse every day and hope that it will resolve itself," Jesy argues.
"Still, it wasn't a good approach. We totally ambushed her, it was obvious she'd just shut down," Leigh counters sadly.
"But what else are we supposed to do? I'm running out of ideas. And it can hardly be the solution that she has to take extremely strong painkillers before every performance in order to somehow get through it," Jesy replies, to which I have to agree with her. That can't be good.
"You don't really think she's an addict though, do you?", Leigh then anxiously prods.
"I know drug addicts and Jade doesn't really act like one. But I'm not ruling anything out by now," Jesy replies.
"Anorexia just looks the most plausible," Leigh mutters, which we all dislike. "Or what do you think Pez?"
"I just hope she's not seriously ill. With the other two things, at least we can try to help her," I reply as the other two are silent for a moment before Jesy says, "It won't be that bad." I nod, but by now I'm not sure I can really rule it out.
"We all don't know what it was like last time. We met her when she actually overcame the eating disorder," I add.
"We could ask Norma...", Leigh thinks out loud, but I quickly interrupt her, "No way! Norma would go crazy with worry and if Jade would find out, she wouldn't speak another word to us ever again."
"So what do we do? Like wait for her to say something on her own? That's not gonna happen!" argues Jesy upset and I can understand her. I wish Jade wasn't always so closed off either. I wish she would still talk to me as openly about all her problems as she used to. I wish she would still trust me as much and just let me in. But that hasn't been the case for a long time.
"We don't have a choice," Leigh sums up, obviously exhausted by the whole situation. She crosses her arms in front of her chest, groans a little and seems to be getting ready to sleep, but Jesy doesn't take her eyes off me.
"You know what I was wondering? Her reaction to Jed," I hear her say and close my eyes, caught. I knew it. I knew she knew something, I guessed it. Only what does she know?
"What exactly do you mean?", I ask dumbly.
"Well when you said with what all is or was going on with Jed and her," she reminds me but I remain silent.
"Pez, look at me," she then quietly prompts me and hesitantly I turn to her.
"You know more than we do. I can see it in your face," she states, but I just shake my head.
"I...I don't know anything," I stammer, but there's that look again.
"Now, before you start thinking about what lie you can tell me now, I'll be honest with you. I didn't sleep on the flight back to London," she says slowly and my heart drops. Shocked, I tear my eyes open and just stare at her, unable to speak or think.
"How...how much...what did you hear?", I stammer as she puts a hand on my arm and says softly, "Everything. Just everything, Pez."
And I feel sick. I have to swallow several times to keep me from losing my composure. Tears immediately come to my eyes as I feel Leigh's hand on my back. Shakily, I turn to her, whereupon she smiles at me in understanding and encouragement and gives me a little hug. So she knows too. Jesy must have told her. And just like that, because we weren't paying attention for one single time, our biggest secret has come to light.
"I think it's time to be honest," Jesy finally says as she squeezes my hand tightly again. "We don't judge and we're here for you, we always have been. But we don't want to be lied to anymore," she explains and I can actually understand her. Who likes to be lied to? Especially from someone who says we are sisters. Even more so for such a long time.
"What do you want to know?", I ask barely audible, while the tears are already flowing.
"The whole story, from start to finsih," she then says, whereupon I close my eyes again, swallow the lump in my throat, knowing full well that I can't get around this, and finally say, as composedly as I can, "Get weird."
"It started in the get weird era. A few weeks after it was over with Zayn and I," I explain slowly.
"You know Jade and I were the only two single ones and we were together all the time. I stayed at her place, she stayed at mine. In the beginning we were still in the club looking for some guys, at some point we decided we didn't need that anymore and had enough fun as just the two of us, at that point still as friends. Then jealousy started to set in...I think we both realised then that we might have feelings for each other. But it took forever for both of us to admit it. After one night out we were both pretty drunk, so drunk that we were no longer really sane. And you can imagine what happened. We woke up naked in the morning and were extremely embarrassed and decided to never talk about it again and assured each other that we didn't even know what happened. That was a lie, of course. We knew exactly, we had both wanted it for a long time. It's just that we were finally thoughtless enough to trust each other."
I take a deep breath. They both obviously notice how hard it is for me to talk about it, and don't let go of my hands for a second as I continue to tell the story of Jerrie.
"We just couldn't get away from each other from then on. It happened over and over again, even sober at some point, until we finally talked. And from then on we were secretly together." And I actually have to smile at the memory of that one night, that one conversation, despite the difficult situation right now. It was the best day of my life.
"For how long?" asks Leigh cautiously.
"Pretty much a year," I reply sheepishly, and I know exactly why.
"A year? A whole fucking YEAR?! And we didn't know about this the whole time?! How blind are we?", Jesy rages.
"Come on, we've already seen that they were very close. We used to joke about it too," Leigh objects.
"Yeah, but we didn't think for a second that they were in a serious relationship. You guys totally led us on!" she accuses me, shaking her head.
"We didn't tell anyone, Jesy! The only two who knew were our mums," I justify ourselves.
"But I don't understand why? Why didn't you trust us?", Leigh then wants to know sadly.
"It really has nothing to do with trust, we trust you with our whole lives, honestly! But it just didn't feel right. We were afraid it would disrupt the whole dynamic of the band, so we kept it to ourselves," I explain in a heavy voice.
"But you guys always played with it, you made a joke out of it. You fed it to the fans for fun and we went along with it!" she says, still stunned.
"That was our cover. It would have been much more obvious if we had kept our distance from each other in response to all the comments, wouldn't it?", I say, to which the others remain thoughtfully silent for a moment.
"It all makes so much sense right now," Leigh says finally getting it, to which I can only smile sadly. "Secret Love Song, too. I've always wondered why Jade only cries at that one song and why you always have to cry along."
"It's our song," I reply as I feel renewed tears on my cheeks.
"How did it end?", Jesy suddenly wants to know and the question alone is like a slap in the face. I will never be able to forget that day.
I take a deep breath and then tell her in a heavy voice: "The label told us at some point that it was too much. That the Jerrie theories and posts were overshadowing everything else and that we were both attracting too much attention. And that got us thinking. We knew we could never be together in public, we knew it wasn't fair to you both, the fans, the band itself. We just knew it had no future. So we ended it."
"Wow," Leigh just says in amazement. "So you sacrificed your relationship and happiness for Little Mix," she states, to which I can only nod.
"I'm so sorry Pez," Jesy says sadly.
"It's okay," is all I say, even though it doesn't feel like it at all. "It was the right decision. After the break up, Glory Days followed and look where we are today. Our first headlining tour in America, finally! We knew what we were doing and we went for it. After all, we benefit from it as well. She met Jed, then I met Alex and we went our separate ways," I explain, as if it's no big deal. As if everything had been purely harmonious. As if both our hearts hadn't been broken.
"Do you still love her?", Leigh suddenly asks me, to which I abruptly turn to her and stare at her, aghast. "I loved her very much when we were together and for a while after that. But I have Alex now. I'm happy with Alex. So no," I reply, knowing full well that I'm not being honest with them or myself.
"Okay," she just says and I can tell she doesn't believe me either, but I try to ignore that.
"Anyway, you both know now," I summarise as the air in the room becomes increasingly tense. "This conversation must never leave this room," I then say quickly, to which they both swear to me that they won't tell a soul.
"Good, and Jade can't know about this either, ever. She'll kill me. We swore to keep it to ourselves, forever. I just totally betrayed her..."
"Don't worry, Perrie," Jesy says then, and I wish I could believe her, but I just don't have a good feeling. Like I've just made a huge mistake that I can't take back. Jade's and my biggest secret, is no longer a secret.
I decide to go back to my own room after all, after this upsetting conversation. For some reason I felt the need to see Jade, even if I can't or shouldn't touch her. I need to at least see her and reassure myself that everything will be okay.
Before I actually open the door, though, I survey my phone in my hand and her words pop into my head again. "Call your boyfriend."
And I can't explain why, but that sentence still hurts me, it just makes me angry. It allows so many old feelings to come back. Now that she's single, she hates Alex with all her soul. And I can completely understand it, unfortunately, because I felt the same way when she first started dating Jed. I'm debating with myself whether I shouldn't just do it. Whether I shouldn't just call Alex. But I quickly decide against it.
For one thing, Alex doesn't deserve this. I wouldn't call him out of longing, but to spite Jade and it shouldn't be like that. For another, I've already pushed him away twice today, for Jade. Today I seem to have made up my mind for her. And even though she'll probably be asleep by now and still mad at me, today is kind of her day. Any day I can talk to Alex for hours, but not today. Not when I've just revealed our secret. Not when I just can't get her look out of my head as she closed the door behind her. Forever.