Strangers No More || Jerrie

Chapter 5

When Jade finished reading her letter, she folded it back up and returned it to its envelope. She and Perrie had been alternating back and forth reading their letters aloud in chronological order.

“Well we know that you did end up writing those songs,” Perrie teased with a laugh. Jade looked up at the blonde inquisitively. “Because Strangers was released on time. Or at least I assume it was. Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jade nodded in confirmation. Strangers wasn’t an album Jade had been terribly fond of. She’d written half the songs when she and Perrie were together and happy and the other half after they’d broken up. The critics had called her album disjointed and they’d been right. Somehow though, people had loved the mix of emotions they’d found on the album. Several critics had lauded the album for its ability to portray a variety of emotions. Jade just thought of it as the physical reminder of the woman she’d loved then lost. “Did you listen to it?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear Perrie’s answer.

“I bought it the day it came out,” Perrie confirmed. “Same with the one that came out last year, Hidden Majesty. I loved them both.”

Jade blushed at Perrie’s statement, knowing how obvious it must have been for Perrie to see herself in the lyrics if everyone else had. It was more than that though. Sure, there were songs that all her fans knew were about Perrie, but there were those that nobody had guessed about. There was one song, Strangers that Jade had written after she’d seen an i********: Perrie had posted of herself in Venice wearing an ornate mask. It wasn’t one of the songs from the album that had especially popular, but it had been one of Jade’s favorites.

“My favorite off of Strangers is ‘Masquerade’.” The blonde shared a conspiratorial smile with the brunette.

Jade blushed, but her own embarrassment was cut off by the sound of Perrie’s stomach grumbling. Jade laughed out loud at the sound. “Hungry?” she asked.

Perrie nodded and crossed her arms across her stomach. “Well we’ve been here nearly two hours already and it’s totally lunch time.”

“You’re right,” Jade agreed. “Wait here, there’s a really good sandwich place next door. I’ll go grab us food and bring it back here.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Perrie shook her head. “I can go. Or at the very least go with you.” Jade paused, realizing that Perrie must have forgotten the implications of them going out in public together. Realization quickly dawned on the girl’s face though as she retracted her offer. “Oh right,” she paused awkwardly. “I’ll wait here.”

Jade nodded and grabbed her purse, quickly scurrying out of the room. Sharon seemed to be busy reorganizing books so Jaade didn’t bother her as she left the store and walked next door to the deli. The Italian family who owned the deli knew Jade well, but they never made it awkward. In fact, they liked to tease her and made her feel like a family customer.

“So what’ll it be today Miss Jade?” the owner, Antonio, asked. “Your usual? Or maybe something a little fancier? Though we’re still out of caviar.”

“Just the usual,” Jade laughed. “Two of them today.”

“Two?” Antonio arched a bushy, Italian eyebrow. “Either you’re putting on some weight to play me in a new movie, or you’ve got yourself a date.”

Jade found herself blushing at the man’s statement. “Just getting lunch with a friend. I told her about this place that had the best sandwiches on the island and she just had to try for herself.”

"Just the island?” Antonio feigned hurt.

“The entire state of New York,” Jade laughed back.

“Okay, I can deal with that,” he nodded.

As Jade waited for her sandwiches, she took out her phone to check her messages, having ignored it the entire morning she’d been with Perrie. She had a few messages from Karl reminder her about upcoming engagements and one from Gary asking when he should pick her up from the bookstore.

The group message called “Thirlwall Kids” had more than forty new messages, but Jade didn’t even bother to open it. With seven of them in the group message now that Aaron had a phone, the messages quickly racked up. The only other missed texts she had were from Leigh-Anne. Jade opened the message chain, thinking Leigh-Anne had just been bored at work and that’s why she had texted her. She was wrong.

Leigh-Anne: WHAT THE f**k?!

Leigh-Anne: I thought I was supposed to be your best friend!

Jade had a pretty good feeling she knew exactly what Leigh seemed to be upset with her, but she decided to play dumb nevertheless, just in case.

Jade: ????

She didn’t have to worry about waiting for a response, because Leigh came back with one almost immediately. She knew that her friend had likely been staring at her phone, waiting for Jade’s response. If she hadn’t been at work, she probably would have called Jade and left her a dozen voicemails.

Leigh-Anne: I woke to messages from Jesy this morning telling me that PERRIE CALLED YOU!

Leigh-Anne: WHAT THE f**k!? THIS IS THE KIND OF THING YOU TELL YOUR BEST FRIEND!

Jade had been planning on telling Leigh-Anne about her interaction with Perrie, but she’d wanted to wait until after they exchanged the letters. She didn’t want to bring the blonde up to her engineer until she had a better handle on the situation herself. She hadn’t anticipated Leigh-Anne finding out in any other way.

Jade: I was planning on calling you tonight to talk about it.

Jade: Because I’ve sort of been spending the day with Perrie.

Antonio rang the bell to signal that her order was ready. Jade thanked him and headed out the door. She checked her phone the entire short walk back to the bookstore, but Leigh-Anne still hadn’t responded. She knew that Perrie was sometimes a sensitive topic to Leigh and she hoped that Leigh-Anne would react well. Jade had just opened the door to the store when Leigh-Anne finally responded.

Leigh-Anne: Oh.

Leigh-Anne: I guess I’m just not really sure what to make of this. And I’m sure you’re equally conflicted. Call me tonight so we can talk about it

Jade shot off a quick response before putting away her phone and walking back into the reading room.

Jade: I promise I’ll call you tonight and tell you everything.

Perrie’s face lit up as Jade entered the room bearing their lunches.

“Oh my god, I can smell it from all the way across the room,” Perrie moaned. “What in heaven’s name is it that smells so good?”

“It must just be my natural odor,” Jade teased easily in response, finding it easy to tease the other girl. Reading their most inner thoughts to each other was already breaking down walls, forcing them out of any awkwardness that would have otherwise come from two exes spending time together.

Perrie sniffed at the air before she responded, “I didn’t know that you were part tomato, because I’m ninety percent positive that I’m smelling some kind of tomato sauce.”

“Only the best tomato sauce,” Jade insisted as she sat back down in her seat and withdrew the two aluminum foil sandwiches from their bag. “Antonio’s wife makes the sauce from scratch every day.”

Perrie quickly unwrapped her sandwich and grinned at the sight of it. “Chicken parm sandwich? Ugh you know me so well.” Jade avoided Perrie’s gaze, opting to focus on her own sandwich instead, unwrapping it to reveal the same meal. If she was being honest, she’d forgotten that chicken parmesan was a favorite of Perrie’s, but after Perrie mentioned it, it had made sense. Jade had only started eating it regularly after the break-up.

Jade watched as Perrie took a bite of the sandwich and moaned loudly. The sound brought back some no-so-unpleasant memories to Jade, causing her to quickly look away in hopes of hiding her blush. The next words out of Perrie’s mouth didn’t help much either, “I swear I just had an orgasm in my mouth.”

Jade glanced back up at Perrie and caught her blue eyes. Both girls immediately broke out in laughter, realizing the ridiculousness of the situation they’d positioned themselves in.

As they ate, Jade told Perrie all about Antonio and his family, including the time he had tried to set her up with his nephew, not realizing the boy had the wrong parts. Once they finished and they made sure that their hands were perfectly clean, free of sauce and grease, they set about returning to their task of reading the letters.

They read for several more hours, never feeling the need to stop. Jade recanted stories of her publicity tour and her struggles to write songs. Perrie told tales of traveling through Italy and of deciding to continue traveling across the world.

Neither woman had noticed that the light streaming through the high windows had faded and that night was beginning to fall until Sharon popped her head into the reading room.

“I hate to interrupt you girls, but I’m going to have to close up in about twenty minutes,” she explained.

“No worries, Sharon,” Jade reassured the woman. “We’ll be out of here by then.” Sharon nodded and left them alone. “We probably have time for one more letter,” she spoke to Perrie.

“Okay,” Perrie nodded as she reached for the next envelope.

Jade was surprised by how quickly they were getting through the letters. They were still alternating back and forth, but their letters were at different points. Perrie was already at the end of December with hers, whereas Jade was still in November of that first year.

“Oh,” Perrie paused as she opened the letter and started to read it silently.

“What is it?” Jade asked.

“I’m not sure this is the best letter to end on,” Perrie admitted.

“Why not?”

“It’s, umm,” Perrie took a deep breath before continuing. “I wrote it on Christmas.”

“Oh,” Jade responded, understanding Perrie’s apprehension. “I mean, we knew going into this that there were going to be some tough ones. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay,” Perrie cleared her throat and began to speak. “Jade. It’s Christmas and all I can think about is you. And I’ve been good, I really have. Today is just harder a harder day than most. I think about drinking eggnog with you last year and painting the galaxy on your back. I think about the promise we made to spend our Christmases together, staying up until the sun rises the next day. I think about how you never had a good Christmas until last year. And even then, I tainted it. But really the thing that’s stuck with me most today has been the ornament. The ornament you got for us that says ‘Our First Christmas’. I wonder if you’ll even unpack it when you decorate your tree. I hope you do. But I also hope you don’t. Because I don’t want you to have to think of me today. I want you to be happy.”

“I was,” Jade interrupted. The entire time they’d been reading letters, they had waited until the letter was done being read before commenting, but Perrie was obviously concerned about the contents of this particular letter and Jade needed to reassure her.

“What?” Perrie asked, thrown off by Jade’s statement.

“I was happy that Christmas,” Jade explained. “I didn’t decorate that year, so the ornament remained in storage. And yes, it was a hard Christmas without you, but it was also happy. I spent Christmas with my dad and that whole part of my family for the first time ever. I had a family Christmas and I was happy. I was happy Perrie.”

Jade watched as tension fell from Perrie’s shoulders, as if she was finally shedding a piece of hurt she’d been carrying around for years. Perrie offered Jade a soft smile that the brunette returned in kind.

Perrie turned back to the page she was holding and continued reading. “One of the friends I’ve made here in Italy seems to think that I’m acting too somber for a holiday, so she’s taking me out to a party that a cousin of hers is hosting. She says that almost all her relatives are going to be there as well as nearly half of Venice. It’s a masquerade party so I bought a beautiful red, lace decorated mask and the woman who owns the hostel I’m staying at is lending me a matching dress. It’s all very old-fashioned and I love it. I’m hoping it goes well. Love from Venice, Perrie.”

“That was the day of the masquerade,” Jade sighed, putting two and two together.

“The same one you wrote the song about,” Perrie suggested.

“You knew?”

“I’ve always known,” Perrie grinned at the brunette. Jade held Perrie’s gaze for several long moments in silence. It was a comfortable silence though. Jade tried to pretend that she didn’t feel an electric pull between herself and the blonde, but she knew it was there. Neither of them felt the need to say anything until the sound of Sharon dropping a book outside the room startled them.

“We should probably get going,” Jade finally spoke.

“We should,” Perrie agreed. They both stood up at the same time and started to organize their respective letters. “I start working on the mural at Danielle’s tomorrow,” Perrie explained after they’d both gathered up their belongings. “She and Demi won’t be there, they’re both pretty busy. Maybe you’d want to come over at some point?” She asked her question and Jade heard the hesitation in it. “It might be hard for me to read while I’m painting, but you could read yours to me? I’m ahead chronologically in mine anyway.”

“I’d like that,” Jade nodded.

“Okay,” Perrie grinned in response. “I’ll text you the info then.”

“That sounds great.”

The two approached the door to the bookstore. Both women had their hands full and when Perrie struggled to hold her basket with only one hand, she nearly dropped the entire thing. Jade realized immediately that Perrie had been preparing to hug her goodbye, but neither of them had the hands to do so.

“I’ll see you soon then,” Jade spoke.

“I’ll see you soon."