hey guys :D so sorry about the wait, ive been working like a mad woman.
but on the plus side i wont be able to upload the week after next because my man child boyfriend is taking me on a roadtrip mini break....its going to be fun to see if he can stand me being map reader because they all look like squiggly lines to me :O
ok so this is where shit gets serious, and i have to give a warning if you dont like it or agree with it can you please keep the anger down to a minimum because its scaring my laptop :D
im almost tearing up about the end of TGBTT being so soon, its v.sad but on the plus side HARRY POTTERS COMING OUT ON FRIDAY and when it does i shall be rusing to the cinema pushing all the kids out of the way to get there :D
but anyway the song in the side bar is the song which i was supposed to post in the last chapter, but having the mind of a sieve i forgot :O
enjoy :D
A week later i was in embroidery class when my phone went off, the loud ringing of ‘Veni Vidi Vici’ by the black lips blared through the large workshop causing me to get an almighty death glare from Noir, something i ignored when i saw the caller I.D. smiling i pressed answer call and snuck out of the back of the classroom until I was in a nearly deserted corridor.
“Hello?” i answered with a smile trying to suppress the excitement in my voice.
The answer wasn’t so much in words, but yelps and screams between tears and laughter. “Sloane?” I asked again laughing at the random noises being made suddenly i heard a loud miaow and a stream of curse words from Andrew.
Suddenly Sloane’s voice was talking over the mayhem, “Andrew you know she hates being picked up”. She said laughing, Andrews response were enough swear words that would curl your grandmother’s hair.
“I was being nice, it’s not my fault she’s such an anti social bitch”. He said loudly making Sloane and i laugh. Obviously the relationship between Sloane and Andrew was fine but their consecutive pets still disagreed.
“Sloane did you forget you were on the phone to me again?” I asked sighing like a martyr. Sloane often got sidetracked by events around her when she was on the phone with me.
“Oh yeah, sorry. But anyway, guess what!” She said practically gushing.
“What?” I asked innocently, thanking the lord that we were doing this over the phone and not in person, something about blushing like crazy and being unable to make eye contact implies that you’re laying. Who knew?
“Andrew asked me to marry him”. She said with a shout, followed by an audible sigh, which led me to believe that she was gazing into her beautiful ring.
“No way!” I said faking outrage. “When?” Desperately trying to tone down my shouts, judging by the few curious and freaked out looks i was getting by passers bye i was getting to animated.
“Last night, it was really sweet. I walked in the door after visiting Belle and Flapjacks was just sitting there looking at me. He had a bow tie on and a sign around his neck saying ‘follow me’, so i did. He led me to the balcony where Andrew was down on one knee, he had will you marry me spelled out in candles in front of him. It was pretty romantic”. She said sighing loudly, i echoed her sigh realising how lonely my life was.
“Oh that’s beautiful”. I said truthfully, practically green with envy.
“Wasn’t it? But anyways i have something to ask you”. She asked happily.
“What’s up?” i asked with genuine curiousity.
“Ok this will totally piss Belle off, but as you’ve always been like a sister to me and I’ve only recently begun to like the bitch anyway. Will you be my maid of honour?” She spoke in a rush, barely allowing me to hear what she was saying.
My smile nearly broke my face in half, until the realisation that at the wedding i would be seeing Jamie again; because of my nervousness i nearly missed Sloane talking “Tess?”
I swallowed loudly gathering my thoughts. “I would love to”. I said quietly, banging my head off the wall to my right slowly getting weirder looks off the rare passer bye.
“Are you sure? I mean i know it’s going to be a struggle with you seeing Jamie again. You don’t have to if you want to”. She said lowly, sounding sad and upset, making me hate myself for putting such a downer on her happiness.
“What, no way. I wouldn’t miss this for the world”. I said sounding a little more upbeat. Sloane sighed but said nothing else on the matter. “So when’s the big day?”
“Well we thought about that, and as im not really a girl for big weddings and all that crap we thought maybe next month”. She said shyly.
“Next month!” I shouted, before mouthing ‘im sorry’ at the poor girl i frightened and helping her pick up all of the notes she dropped on the floor.
“Yeah, but i want to marry him. So badly, so why wait? Besides a Christmas wedding is gloriously romantic”. She said reasonably, i weighed it up in my head and agreed with what she was saying. “So will you come home? Just until the wedding, to help me gather my thoughts and stuff?”
Before i could think i answered “of course”. I felt a low kind of excitement rise in me, which terrified me. “Look Sloane I’ve got to go, I’ve got class”.
“Ok beautiful, but before you go. I want to confess to something naughty that i did”. She said not sounding repentant in the least.
“What did you do?” I asked in a flat voice, knowing that if she was confessing that it must be something pretty bad.
“I sent a picture to my dad of a middle finger, on the back i wrote ‘im marrying a prince, let’s see your perfect little brats beat that”. She said making me laugh my ass off.
Between my chuckles i didn’t notice the door open and Noir step outside, her light blonde hair up in a sophisticated chignon, an angry expression on her handsome face. “Would you like me to stop the class until you finish your little social call?” She asked in a voice, i could only describe as pissed off.
“Uh-oh, is that the teacher?” I heard Sloane ask sounding happy that she got me in trouble. Getting me into trouble with teachers had been Sloane’s favourite past time during boarding school. She hung up then, leaving me to reap the wrath of Noir.
“Im sorry”. I said to her hanging my head.
“Save your apology until after class where you will be talking to me, in my office”. She said coldly making me cringe. I had never been very good at keeping face while being yelled at.
Without saying another word i scuttled into the workshop, counting down the forty minutes until Noir’s reign of terror began.
Forty minutes later, with all of my fingernails chewed off with nerves i was disrupted from my pacing by an smug secretary telling me it was time to go in. Taking a deep breath, i opened the door, keeping my eyes on the ground (probably not the best option) i shuffled towards her desk set in her massive office. Too afraid to make eye contact i followed the inch of finger i could see to my right pointing to a chair opposite the desk so i could face my fate.
Unfortunately i never was able to grasp the whole roller chair and only saw the little black rollers which often were my assassins’ until i was lying on my ass and the chair rolling back smacking into table which contained a large vase. As if time was going slower than sand i watched in horror as the vase rolled, once, twice, three times before toppling over and smashing into tiny china bullets upon contact with the polished oak floor.
Breaking my own primary rule i looked up at Noir in shock, to see her shocked face, turning the glare of her deep black eyes on me making me pee myself a little before shocking me by laughing. Not just a few little titters of amusement, but intense howls of laughter. I watched as she mopped up her eyes before subduing herself to polite sniggers and replace her glasses and sitting up straight once again, with the hint of a smile on her face.
“Oh don’t look too scared dear, i always hated that vase, its only there to keep my husband happy. It was a wedding present from his mother”. She said, her strict voice softened making her sound like Ro. “would you like to get off the floor perhaps?”
I looked around in dull embarrassment, before hastily jumping up and with more care sitting down in the runaway chair again. Still aware that i was bright pink i looked at her, the fear rising in me again as i remembered why she called me in here.
Apparently, by the sober look on her face so had Noir. “So...” she said looking up at me. “what have you got to say for yourself?”
That single lettered word snapped in me, looking up at her i felt the inner tiger in me sharpening her paws. “It was an important call Madame”. I said through my teeth, trying to sound repentant.
Sitting back she folded her arms looking at me. “So, you think that an ‘important phone’ call is more important than your time here?” Her left eyebrow was raised so much; i thought it would slip off the surface of her face.
“I didn’t say that”. I said huffily making the other eyebrow raise to match the other.
“I think that it’s very clear that you did. I don’t think that you are taking this serious Miss Harrington”. She said with a sly edge.
Suddenly the tigress’s claws were sharp and she was angry as hell. I almost growled “look Madame, i love fashion. I like breathe, eat and dream it, i always have and always will. I have no idea why you don’t like me, which you so obviously don’t. I’m never late; i never speak out and always hand in assignments well before the due date. So the only inclination that i have of your animosity is that you simply don’t like me”. I said in an angry rush that surprised me.
I looked up through my lashes to see Noir sitting there, a grin on her face. “So you have got balls”.
I jerked in surprise. “Excuse me?” i asked worried that i was driving the woman crazy.
Standing up and removing her glasses she walked over to the window turning her back to me and looking out across at the span of lights in the Parisian winter’s night sky. “I said Tess, you do have balls”.
I sat shock still looking at her back unable to think of anything to say but thankfully Noir carried on talking. “Tess you have beauty in you, a pure heart. You are kind and thoughtful but you are to easily hurt and lead. You have the makings in you to become the best, your designs are superb, your work exemplary but yet you give off the aura of a soft sad kitten rolling around in the dark. Every year, i hope i can find one student who can stand up to me the way you did just there”. She said with a soft snigger before turning around and wearily rubbing her eyes showing her age for the first time.
“Why?” I heard myself ask before i realised that i had spoken.
“Because my darling child, the fashion world is full of people who would love to tear a talented person down to size. But you showed feistiness that reminds me of your grandmother. Any doubts i had about you are gone now”. She said spooking me out. Sitting back down she shuffled her papers and looked up at me with a ‘why are you still here?’ look that made me get up and hurry to the door, stopping only when she called my name.
“Tess, a brilliant man once said, ‘Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking’.” she said vaguely before nodding for me to go. I walked back to my room in a daze not really sure what Noir was telling me, but feeling like it had a lot to do with Jamie.
Two weeks passed by in a blur, i designed bridesmaids dresses Sloane wished for and judging by measurements given to me for Belle and I made them to suit us. The deep red suited my now pale skin tone and Belle’s glorious deep ebony skin. The cut was simple, a sweetheart neckline flaring at the ground, but the constant reminder that i was going to see Jamie soon both scared and excited me so much i found my mind wandering from the dress making to his blond hair, or i would see a shade of grey so like his unusual eyes that I would find my mind wandering out the door again. Looking in the mirror at my red hair showing my black roots and decided a much needed touch up and spa treatment was needed before i met the man i suspected was the love of my life.
Walking back from a hair appointment my now natural colour returned to my hair but it was obscured by a beanie so i wouldn’t be recognised; of course the fact that i was walking through Paris with my nose in a magazine with my face on it would stop the population from seeing enough skin to recognise anyway. I laughed as i read the sightings, apparently i had been spotted in the Bahamas with a Sheik, and in Hollywood, planning my kiss and tell story and adapting it to become a movie. But the best rumour had to be, that I was never real, that i was just a paid actress to try and prove that Jamie wasn’t gay to the public. I was laughing at the preposterous allegations so much I often felt the burn of the coffee i was drinking squirting up my nose.
Rounding the corner to the school, laughing about one ridiculous headline about Sloane and Andrew that I didn’t notice the giant standing in front of me until I rammed into him in my coffee drinking distracted haze, without taking my eyes of the page I muttered the single line you have to know in sweet Paris. “Je suis desole”. I took a step to the left of him and made it further up the step only stopped by a strong hand on my shoulder.
“Tess?” Asked an uncertain voice, the English accent made me look up and for a second i gasped at the expression on his face. His dark hair was windswept and his black and white checked shirt looked crumpled under his open black bomber jacket.
Bracing myself i opened my mouth to speak thinking of all the things i should say to him, but all fell short. “Hello Jasper”.
He searched my face constantly looking over every edge and angle as if he were desperately looking for something. Without warning her lunged forward and grabbed me into a massive hug. Hugging him back gently i tried to count to the polite five seconds before i broke away. The sadness hung in the air when I managed to retrieve myself from the huge arms. Without looking at him but feeling the tension in the air I turned towards a small bar across the street. “Come on, let’s go for a drink”. I said before walking the short distance to the bar not looking back to see if he was following me.
I ordered us both a beer and motioned for him to sit in the back of the room, beside the shadows so no one would but in on the conversation. Taking a long and necessary gulp when the barman handed me the cold Stella Artois i walked over to the table sitting down opposite rather than beside him in the small bench.
He said nothing as he took his drink, but i was constantly aware of his eyes following my every gesture. Looking quickly around and deciding it to be safe enough i whipped off the beanie and left it on the table. My gaze found his as he looked at my shorn hair which touched the tips of my shoulders, a far cry from its elbow length curls from the summer.
“Nice hair”. He said gesturing vaguely to my face, nodding once i took a long slug again, trying to act like i had something to do.
“So how have you been?” I finally asked when the tension and awkwardness in the air reached new levels.
Searching my face with his green eyes, before sighing heavily running hands through his perfect hair... “Not so good, you know before you fucked off you could have at least given me a warning”. He said suddenly angry as the frustration and resentment reared its ugly head.
I sat there unable to think of what i wanted to say, waiting until his furious glare had redirected itself away from my face to out the window. “I just needed space. I felt like i was being suffocated”. I said simply being completely honest.
Jasper furiously banged one hand on the table making me jump suddenly. “Well that wasn’t good enough. Tess you had me worried sick, no one would tell me where you had gone. You don’t know what it’s like to have someone you love vanish overnight”. He said in a hiss, showing menace in his green eyes but still i felt safe.
I sighed as he brought feelings into it. “Jasper you don’t love me”. I said simply looking at my clenched hands.
Suddenly he sat forward grabbing my hands in his. “I do Tess, i love you”. He said reverently making me shake my head.
Removing my hands gently as possible i shook my head “you don’t love me Jasper, the same as i don’t love you. I was confused and i felt trapped when you came along, you had a carefree feeling about you that I loved in Jamie before it vanished”. I spoke slowly and carefully, watching him for reactions, he flinched at my speech but his eyes stayed the hard mossy green, looking almost impenetrable.
“I do love you; i love you because you’re good and kind. You’re not selfish and snobby but actually are the most selfless person i know” he hissed leaning closer so his face was inches from mine.
“No Jasper im not, you have me on a pedestal. You don’t love me; you love the idea of me”. I said moving back into my comfort zone of a personal area. Before getting up and grabbing my jacket running out the door and around the corner.
Pushing through the passing people going in the opposite direction, I rand holding back tears remembering how lonely i was when i was surrounded by people because Jamie wasn’t himself. I felt an arm on my shoulder dragging me back again, yelping i was turned around and felt Jasper’s lips touch mine with an almost forceful edge like he was trying to add passion.
I stood there silently allowing him kiss me not moving my lips in the slightest, the feeling that it wasn’t right coursing through my veins almost stunning me. Eventually he let me go, resting his forehead against mine, his breathing ragged for a moment before he gathered up enough oxygen to speak. “Anything?” He asked in a resigned voice.
I shook my head, “nothing, it felt like kissing my brother or something”. Jasper sighed, but nodded.
“Yeah it felt like that for me too”. He shook his head slowly. “I mean what happened, there used to be this electricity rushing through us, i mean you felt it right?” He turned looking into my eyes imploringly.
“There was a spark, but it’s not there anymore”. I said sitting down on the steps close-bye
Sighing Jasper sat beside me, “why do you think that is?”
“I think that you didn’t love me, i think Jasper that you loved the idea of me. This perfect woman who will never let you down, but im only human, I have faults. I think that because I was confused i wanted you to comfort me and you were acting the way I wished Jamie had, instead of sweeping me away like a skeleton in his closet, but now I know no matter how much of a dickface Jamie has been, I love him uncontrollably”. By the end of my speech i realised fat tears were rolling down my face.
I looked over to Jasper who looked unhappy; lifting a big bear hand he rubbed away my tears. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, as it wouldn’t help me win you over to the Jasper team, but since it’s obvious that we wouldn’t work as a couple I’ll spill. James’s been a total mess since you left, seriously it’s like half of his heart is gone. It’s pretty obvious that he loves you uncontrollably too”. He said softening his voice at end to make him sound like a woman making me laugh through my tears.
Standing up and dusting off his ass he held out a hand to me, “come on let’s take a walk”. Taking his hand and letting him pull me up, his strength got the better of him and ended up propelling me into him, my forehead hitting against his chin in a sore embrace. Rubbing my chin and looking up at him with a peeved off face that only made him laugh.
Walking beside him i shuffled further into my duffle coat letting the warmth battle the winter cold in the air. “So how’s life been for you?” i asked eventually as we walked aimlessly along the Parisian streets.
“shitty, my agent has me signed up for a new film that would make twilight look like the most intelligent thing ever, my leading lady has tried to rape me three times already and last but certainly not least I have to lose weight so i look all punky and high cheekbones and all that crap”. He said making me laugh.
“Well i think you have lovely cheekbones as it is”. I said hooking my arm through his in a companion like gesture. “Jasper i just realised, i know nothing about you”.
He chuckled lowly making my arm rumble through its close contact with his arm. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s you favourite colour? What’s your favourite memory? You know all that crap”. I said with a smile.
He laughed quickly slowing his pace once he realised my short stubby legs couldn’t match the pace of his. “My favourite colour is green, and my favourite memory is when my grandmother found me when i was just getting ready to leave the orphanage I grew up in”. He said, his voice so soft when he mentioned his grandmother and the orphanage i almost couldn’t hear it.
I gasped in surprise felling like a total bitch for making him sad. “Im sorry Jasper i didn’t know”.
Jasper shook his head slowly. “Well maybe i should tell you about the real Jasper”. He said quietly a ghost of a smile on his face, i nodded lightly dying to hear more about him and his past but unable to ask him just in case it caused him pain.
“My mother was a lot like yours, a debutante and very beautiful. She wanted to be an actress but my grandparents didn’t agree with it, she was their only daughter and she was only sixteen, but she was stubborn like me so she did it anyway. She was signed up right away, thinking that her first featuring role would be huge and she would be a star straight away. But actually it turned out it as a small role in a controversial play that made my grandmother furious.
“never the less she went through with it and she caught the eye of the lead man, convinced he was the love of his life she went on this whirlwind romance with him, it soon turned to big parties and drugs and before long she pregnant with his baby. I was born into a world full of fighting a jealousy. My mother used to wait up for hours for him to come home, sitting there with the dinner in front of her. She waited four days once before he returned. She took out all anger she had towards him on me broken ribs are hard to hide under school jumpers but not black eyes”.
He sounded so bleak I felt my heart breaking in sympathy, our lives were so similar, my mother left her rich life for my father but even though she died she had loved me, it was obvious that Jasper didn’t have the same experiences. Gripping his hand tightly he looked up at me, his green eyes miles away, probably back in his youth where he was a lost little boy. Suddenly he spoke, his voice thick with emotion.
“Don’t pity me Tess, I’m not telling you this for sympathy”. I shook my head and tried to smile. He breathed in deeply before he finished his macabre tale. “So one day my father brought home his leading lady and right in front of my mother he seduced her, she woke me up that night with a leather belt, she threw me down the stairs and made one of my unbound broken ribs puncture my lungs. Soon after that teachers started noticing what was going on, i was sent to an orphanage and my mother was sent to prison after the found the cigarette burns on my arms, but after some pretty intensive psychoanalysis it turns out she was schizophrenic. In the orphanage i got tough, i outgrew my father’s height and fell in with the wrong crowd, selling drugs became a big part of my life and before long i was known as a dangerous man around town.
“When i was sixteen, my grandparents found me, they cared for me. Didn’t put up with any of the bullshit i had used when i was in the orphanage and the best thing they did was support me when i realised my talent was acting. I owe it all to them, but sometimes I can’t help but think how different my life would have been if my mother had loved me”. He looked up at me and there were tears rolling down his face. I rubbed them away this time gently patting the side of his face with my cupped hand.
“Oh Jas, don’t blame yourself. You’re a wonderful person no matter what happened in your past”. I gave him a reassuring hug. He hugged me back chuckling.
“I wish i could be in love with you”. He said in a muffled tone as he ate the cheap fabric of my jacket.
I laughed nodding. “It would certainly make my life easier if i could love you too. But instead can you just settle on being my friend?” I asked uncertainly and he nodded and held out a hand.
“I think Tess love or not, you are stuck with me for life”. He said mockingly making me laugh.
“You know you don’t need a woman whose perfect, you need a woman who will call you out on your bullshit like your grandmother”. I said thinking intently; my voice was sweet as icing sugar. “And i think i have the perfect girl in mind”. Using our linked arms i dragged him to the school.
“Uh-oh, should i be scared?” He asked watching me in amazement, i could almost hear his link of thought wondering how a five foot five girl dragging a six foot four man, and judging by the amazement on the passing faces of people walking beside us, they were thinking the same thing.
Suddenly i stopped, turning towards him and lifting my face up so i could see his eyes, my big wolf grin scaring him a little in the process. “Terrified”.