Strangers No More || Jerrie

Chapter 8

When Perrie arrived at Danielle and Demi’s home she found the spare key they had left for her hidden in a fake rock and let herself into the brownstone with her large bag full of supplies and a handful of letters. She slipped out of her converse and walked up the stairs to the nursery where she found a note waiting for her in the otherwise empty room.

Perrie,

Danielle insisted on putting on the primer that you asked us to get; she thought it was silly for you to have to put it on and wait for it to dry when it was such an easy job. I told her that she was being overbearing, but she did it anyway. Hope you don’t mind!

Demi

Perrie laughed out loud as she read the letter. She knew artists that would have gotten upset about a client overstepping into their realm of expertise, but Perrie didn’t mind. In fact, it was actually convenient that Danielle had already primed for her. It meant that if the walls were dry, she could get started on outlining the details to the mural. With less than two weeks to get it done, the more help she could get, the better. She was really hoping it would be totally dry before the couple came home with their baby. She didn’t want the baby to be in the room when it still smelled of paint.

With hands that had weathered years of paint being scrubbed from them, Perrie brushed her fingers along the clean white walls, pulling them away to see if anything had rubbed off on them. Nothing had, and the walls were perfectly dry.

Perrie returned to the hallway where she dropped her bag and withdrew from it a large, heavy tarp. She struggled slightly to lift it all the way out and drag it into the bare room. It wasn’t until after the tarp was perfectly laid out, stretching from wall to wall that she brought her bag back into the room and scrounged around in it for her supplies.

After setting up her speakers on the window ledge and queuing up her drawing playlist, Perrie set to work. She started with the wall with the windows and pressed her pencil to the white surface, starting to outline designs that would watch a child grow for years to come.

Perrie lost track of time as she drew, singing along to the playlist that contained a wide variety of music. It had everyone on it, from country songs to old Taylor Swift songs. There were even some Spice Girls songs thrown in there.

Perrie was in the middle of working on her outline of an elephant, singing along to Cher’s new song when she heard the sound of someone chuckling behind her. Startled, she dropped her pencil and quickly turned around. Standing with her back against the door jamb was Jade. She had a pizza box in one hand, her purse in the other and a smirk on her face.

“How long have you been standing there?” Perrie asked.

“Long enough to remember why you’re not the one who sings for their career,” Jade teased in return.

Perrie stuck her tongue out at her ex-fiancé and crossed the room, taking the box of pizza out of the woman’s hand. The smell was intoxicating and it made her stomach realize how much it craved food. The only time Perrie ever forgot to eat a meal was when she was working on her art. She often would find herself drawing and painting through meals, too engrossed in her art to pay attention to anything else.

“Well, it’s clear who you’re more excited to see,” Jade continued with her teasing as Perrie sat down in the middle of the empty room and opened up the box.

Perrie pulled out herself a slice of pizza and sighed as she bit into it. “I literally saw you less than twenty-four hours ago. Pizza, however, it’s been a few days. And New York pizza will always be my favorite.”

“Even better than Italian pizza?” Jade asked as she took a seat beside the blonde. Perrie looked at her over the cheesy goodness, taking in the flannel and jean shorts the other woman was wearing, and nodded.

“Italian pizza is good. Fantastic really,” Perrie explained, “But there’s something about New York pizza that just tastes like home.” Even if she had only lived in New York for nine months, Perrie had found herself craving the city’s most famous cuisine during her travels abroad.

"Good to know,” Jade nodded. The brunette grabbed herself a slice of the pie, and after patting the grease off with a napkin, she folded the slice in half and bit it. “Have you already primed the whole thing?” she asked after she finished chewing.

Perrie shook her head and after swallowing the bite she still had in her mouth, she explained, “Dan already did. I don’t really have all the time in the world to get this done and it sped things up. I’m already about halfway done outlining though.” She then gestured to the two completely outlined walls and the nearly completed third. Her pencil marks on the wall were light and the designs were hard to make out from far away, but it was clear that they were there.

“It looks good.”

“How can you even tell?” Perrie asked with a laugh. “You can barely see anything yet.”

Perrie watched as Jade blushed and responded, “I mean…from what I can see anyway. It looks like it’s going to be good.”

“Okay,” Perrie shrugged. She then leaned over to her bag and pulled out an envelope. “So I was thinking, while we’re just sitting here eating, why don’t I read a few of my letters to you, since I won’t be able to once I get back to working and you’re going to be the one doing all the talking.”

“That works for me.”

Perrie opened up the letter and smiled when she saw the date on the top. She remembered the letter well. She remembered sitting on the train to Croatia, watching scenery pass by her and struggling to figure out how to hold a pen wearing a sling on one arm and a brace on her other wrist. So she began to read out loud.

After they finished eating, Perrie having read to Jade four letters, they gathered up all their garbage and Perrie returned to the wall, first making sure her hands were grease-free. She turned down the volume on the speakers that were blasting music and turned over her shoulder to Jade.

“Alright, have at it,” she smiled before turning back to the work before her.

Jade chuckled and Perrie could hear the sound of her opening up an envelope. Her voice was soothing as she spoke about Thanksgiving with Karl, followed by the month of December. Perrie found it just as easy to work to the sound of the other woman’s voice as it was to music. When she reached Christmastime, Jade spoke about how she wasn’t able to decorate, that she didn’t feel festive enough for it, but that Christmas itself was the happiest she had been in a long time.

Perrie was confused as to why Jade had written in total almost the same amount of letters that she had, and yet they were not aligned chronologically with hers. She couldn’t think of an explanation and decided to brush off the matter when Jade began to read yet another letter. The sun was starting to fade and Perrie had been forced to turn on the overhead lights to better see the wall.

Perrie was just beginning to think that it was nearly time to call it a day when Jade disrupted their pattern of reading through the letters and only speaking about them afterwards.

“So there are some things I mention in this letter that I want to talk to you about after I read it to you,” Jade explained.

“Okay,” Perrie responded, the wheels beginning to turn in her head. She wondered what Jade could possibly have written about that she wanted to preface it the way she did.

“March first, twenty-seventeen,” Jade began with the date of the letter. Perrie tried to figure out what could possibly have been going on that day to prompt Jade’s questions. The next sentence Jade uttered, however, reached into Perrie’s stomach and grasped it tightly, causing her to become unsteady on her feet. “Leigh-Anne and Ally got engaged this morning. Ally’s sisters threw them a surprise engagement party in D.C. Everyone was there except you. Even Zayn was there. He apologized to me. Everyone was there. Except you. Only, you were there. Your absence was palpable – I know I wasn’t the only one that felt it. I saw it on Leigh-Anne’s face as she looked around at all her friends after we yelled surprise. I saw the moment she registered that you weren’t there. It makes sense to me that you weren’t there, after all you’re halfway around the world right now, but I can’t help but think that this is only the start. At Jesy’s wedding Leigh-Anne joked that she’d choose me if you and I ever broke up. And when we did, she told me she’d never pick a side. I just hope you didn’t pick for her. Please Perrie, don’t let go of her. I know you don’t talk to her as often as you do Jonathan and Jesy. I can’t bear to be the reason you lose a friend. I know it will be hard, but I really hope you’ll be at their wedding. Yours forever, Jade.”

As Jade read out loud, Perrie turned around and slumped back against the wall so that she was facing the woman. She watched as the other woman’s fingers, calloused from years of strumming guitar strings, shook slightly as they clutched the page tightly. She then hesitantly looked up at Perrie, her gaze registering the fact that the blonde had turned to face her as she read. Perrie knew that Jade wanted to ask her questions, so she waited for her to address them before speaking herself.

“You didn’t come to the wedding,” Jade stated. It was a matter of fact, so Perrie did not respond. “She was your best friend, Perrie.”

Perrie focused on the way Jade spoke her name. She spoke it in a way no one else ever did. It always sounded like a prayer coming from the singer’s mouth. Like a song to the heavens. Only this time she spoke it, there was something missing. It was almost as if Jade didn’t see Perrie’s name as being worthy of the angels anymore.

“I know we haven’t gotten to the point in our letters of their wedding, and maybe you’ll explain why it is that you cut Leigh-Anne off entirely, but I want to talk about it now. I’m asking you to tell me why. Not just because I know that it’s because of me, but because I know that it must have hurt you as well. I was there for Leigh-Anne when she erroneously blamed herself. I was there when she asked Jesy to be her Maid of Honor, because she couldn’t have you. I was there and I know how much losing you hurt her. So I guess what I’m asking is why? Why did you break her heart, because I know it broke yours just as much.”

With each statement Jade spoke, Perrie felt her heart breaking even more. She’d guarded her heart against the pain of loss, forming only surface-level friendships with those she’d met on her travels. Because losing a best friend is a lot like losing a piece of yourself. Your friends help make you who you are, and Leigh-Anne was no exception.

“Perrie?” Jade asked tentatively after Perrie had remained silent, staring straight ahead. Perrie hadn’t even registered the fact that Jade had shuffled towards her and was sitting next to her. The brunette cautiously took Perrie’s hand in hers. “I’m sorry,” her voice make softer, less accusatory, “I probably should have thought of a better way to ask you about it and not assaulted you with questions.”

Perrie shook her head, but allowed Jade to continue to hold her hand. “I guess, at first, it was about us. I knew you and Leigh-Anne were still friends, or at least I assumed it. And then when I heard they were engaged, it was like a slap in the face. Ally and Leigh-Anne were doing exactly what we were supposed to do, and they were succeeding. The wedding itself was the icing on the cake, because they’d actually made it and we hadn’t. It was wrong and selfish, but it wasn’t just because of her and Ally. When I was gone, I wanted to focus on me and the future. I didn’t want to dwell on the past. And staying friends with Leigh-Anne hurt in so many ways, and I couldn’t move forward and still be friends with her. It sounds dumb now, but that’s how I felt.”

“It doesn’t sound dumb,” Jade sighed. “I still don’t agree with it, but I understand that you had your reasons.”

“The only reason I didn’t leave Jon and J behind, as well, was because they didn’t make me think of you. And because they knew me in high school. Even if we weren’t friends at the time, both of them had known me before my Dad died. They knew who I was before I’d become someone who was defined by their losses.”

“You’re more than who you’ve lost, Perrie,” Jade reassured her. And this time when she spoke her name, Perrie could almost hear the wings of angels fluttering as they received her prayer.

“I know that now,” Perrie admitted. “It took a while, but I get that now.”

“You should reach out to her; I know she’d appreciate it. Even now.”

In that moment, Perrie was immensely grateful that Jade was still talking to Leigh-Anne. She wasn’t sure how often they spoke, or if they even had a close relationship, but she was grateful, nevertheless.