Hey Stranger || Jerrie

Chapter 11

Perrie woke up the morning of Friday July 31st 2015, giddy and excited. It was the day she was finally going to meet Jade in person. Normally on July 31st she went around wishing everyone a ‘Happy Harry Potter Day’ in honor of both the eponymous character and JK Rowling’s birthdays. This year was different though. In fact, Jesy had even beat her to wishing her a Happy Harry Potter Day.

“Woah,” Jesy acted more shocked than she actually was, “You must be really excited about your date tonight, you didn’t even remember Harry’s birthday.”

“I did remember,” Perrie crossed her arms across her chest, “My mind was just elsewhere.” She pushed past the brunette in search of coffee. She was only working a half day that day at the gallery, but still coffee was essential. “Why are you even up?” she asked. Normally, Jesy never woke before noon. She was a personal trainer and scheduled her own clients, almost always in the afternoon.

“I switched a client to the morning so that I would have all afternoon to get ready for the concert. Who knows, maybe Amelia will see me in the audience and it will be love at first sight,” Jesy swooned as she clasped her hands together.

Perrie simply raised her eyebrows at the girl. “Two problems with that. One, you’re straight and two, you’re engaged.”

“No need to be so narrow-minded Perrie,” she leaned over the counter and pinched Perrie’s cheek, “A. I’d go gay for Amelia and two I think Jake would be open to adding her in to our relationship.”

Perrie shook her head and playfully shoved her friend as she returned to her room to get changed, coffee in hand.

Perrie’s day at work went by slower than ever as she glanced at her watch nearly every five minutes. Finally, two o’clock rolled around and she bolted out of the gallery. She practically ran to the metro, just barely missing a train. Even though it was only another ten minutes before the next thanks to delays, it still felt like eons to the girl.

When she arrived home just before three, Jesy had already started getting ready and Leigh-Anne had just returned home from her job working as an engineer at NASA. Yeah, Perrie’s best friend was kind of a genius. Not that she’d ever admit that though, because that would mean admitting to the fact that Leigh-Anne was her best friend, when really it was a near dead-tie between Leigh and Jesy.

It took Perrie four outfit changes before she finally decided on her outfit, which considering the fact that Jesy changed six times, she was okay with that. She wore her black skinny jeans that were ripped in a few places along with black booties and a dangerously low cut white tank of Jesy’s that both Leigh and Jesy insisted made her boobs look great.

While Jesy spent time making sure her makeup was perfect, Perrie lined up a handful of shots of tequila for them to take before they left.

"Have you printed the tickets yet?" Leigh-Anne asked as she entered the living room, fastening her thin gold hoops in the ears.

"No!" Perrie gasped, "I still need to do that!"

Leigh-Anne chuckled at the girl, "Just forward me the email Karl sent you and I'll print them since I'm the one with a printer anyway."

"You're the b–," Perrie paused looked at Leigh-Anne in confusion, "Wait, how do you know it was Karl who sent them to me?"

Luckily for Leigh-Anne, her head was turned slightly, so Perrie didn't catch the brief look of fear that passed across her face. She quickly composed herself before responding, "You said so earlier, right after you got the email. God Perrie, your memory sucks. I'm surprised you even remember what day of the week it is."

"Whatever," Perrie scoffed as she pulled out her phone and forwarded the email to Leigh-Anne.

Hearing her own phone vibrate, Leigh-Anne returned to her room to print the three tickets Perrie had just forwarded her, as well as the three all-access backstage passes Karl had sent Leigh-Anne earlier that morning. After tucking the tickets in to her purse and adding one last piece of glow in the dark tape to her brace, Leigh returned to Perrie in the kitchen.

"Let's get this party started!" The brunette cheered plopping down on a stool. She knew it was going to be a long night and that she was best off resting her leg at every opportunity she got.

Perrie handed a show to Leigh-Anne and they both took one each sans chaser and after a second, Perrie yelled to Jesy.

"Jes! Get your ass out here! You're already two shots behind and we're calling an Uber now! I don't want to be late and have Jade waiting for me.” Perrie didn't notice the way Leigh-Anne stared pointedly at her nails as Perrie yelled.

Finally, Jesy graced the others with her presence and quickly caught up on the shots she was behind on, before they all took a third together. By taking three shots, Perrie figured that some of it would wear off by the time they arrived at the venue and found Jade.

When the Uber arrived, the three piled in and made their way to Nationals Park where the concert was being held, listening to Amelia’s songs the entire car ride. As soon as they reached the entrance, Leigh-Anne withdrew their tickets from her purse, reading them carefully before handing one each to Perrie and Jesy.

“Holy crap,” Jesy spoke, staring in awe at the ticket she was holding, “Jade not only got us tickets to a sold out show, but pit tickets as well? This is some sick ass job she’s got.”

Perrie looked down at her own ticket, even she was impressed. She was also growing nervous though. After listening to all of Amelia’s songs multiple times, Perrie had finally admitted to the fact that she actually did like the singer and was excited about the concert, but more than that she was both excited and nervous to meet Jade in person for the first time.

Jade: Can’t wait to see you!

The text came as soon as Perrie, Jesy and Leigh-Anne pushed their way to the front of the pit, Leigh several feet in front of them walking faster than Perrie had seen her walk since her injury. The text made Perrie feel a lot better about the situation. Her confidence wavered, however, after Fifth Harmony finished their set and Cher came on stage.

“Amelia just posted an i********:!” Jesy exclaimed, showing her friends her phone. It was a photo of the woman excitedly pointing to a door that read, ‘Stage Door.’ The caption on the photo read:

@AmeliaThirlwall: Listening backstage as Cher starts her set! So excited for tonight’s show!! #ATTour #NervousButExcited

“Wow, she must actually be excited,” Leigh-Anne nodded with a smirk, “She hardly ever posts anything like that on Instagram.”

Perrie was just about to send off another text to Jade, when the girl in question sent her one first.

Jade: Hey! Work is a b***h; I’m not going to make it there for the opening acts. I promise I’ll be there though. Literally counting down the minutes until I get to see you in person.

Perrie: No worries, I understand. I know you’re only in DC to begin with because of work. Jesy and Leigh-Anne are keeping me company.

Perrie: Also, how did you manage to score us tickets to the pit? And was it just Leigh-Anne pulling the handicapped card, or did you also get us the front row?

Jade: A lady never reveals her secrets ;)

“She’ll be here, don’t worry,” Leigh-Anne reassured her. But her reassurances were short lived as Amelia came on stage. Everyone in the sold-out stadium went wild. The singer greeted her audience and immediately started in on her set, beginning with the song that had been number one in the charts for eighteen weeks straight, Black Magic.

Perrie found it hard to concentrate on the concert in front of her, constantly checking her phone to see if Jade had sent her an update. She hadn’t. Finally, Leigh-Anne convinced her that something major must have happened at work or that her phone had died and she was having trouble finding them in the pit in front of the stage. Perrie knew that Leigh-Anne was probably right and tried to enjoy the concert.

With the concert coming to a close and no news from Jade, Perrie decided to let herself enjoy the last few songs the singer performed. She knew the concert was coming to a close and figured she might as well enjoy the incredible tickets she had.

There was a pause in the concert as the set quickly changed and a picture of Amelia’s newest album AT filled the jumbo-trons, a picture of her hair in wild braids and war paint around her eyes, dripping down her cheeks. Perrie found herself staring up at the photo of the singer, wondering why she looked vaguely familiar, and not through her celebrity status.

Finally the lights rose to a soft blue lighting, revealing Amelia sitting on a glass chair wearing dark jeans and a flowy 70s inspired white peasant top. It was something not many people could pull off, but the singer definitely could, and it was definitely a difference from the leather and sequins she’d been wearing the rest of the concert.

Perrie’s heart just about stopped when she saw the guitar Amelia was holding. She was standing in the front row and she could see it crystal clear. She could make out the individual stickers and doodles.

“Tonight has been incredible DC,” she spoke, earning cheers from the audience. “Now this is the part of my show where I go acoustic. I usually preform a song or two off one of my earlier albums, or a cover. I tend to do a lot of Ed Sheeran, but he called me the other day to ask if I was obsessed with him or something.” Jesy laughed so loudly that she got glares from those around her. “Needless to say, the conversation ended with him begging to do a collaboration song with me.” Amelia paused again, waiting for the cheers to subside. She took a visible deep breath before continuing, “Tonight is a special show for me, because I have someone I care about in the audience tonight.” This also earned cheers, though many of them were of surprise.

“Did you know she was dating anyone?” Jesy turned to ask Leigh-Anne, knowing that Perrie didn’t exactly keep up on Amelia gossip, “I feel like we would have heard. Right? I mean, she’s like one of the biggest celebrities there is.”

“And in honor of her being here, and for you all being such an amazing crowd, I thought I’d surprise you all with a new song.” At that point the crowd went so wild, that even Amelia’s large brown eyes grew wide in surprise. It took several minutes for everyone to calm down. “It’s a song I’m hoping will be on my next album, but nobody other than Cher and Fifth Harmony have actually heard it, and they’ve only heard the rough draft. In fact, my manager doesn’t know I’m about to do this, and he’s probably ready to kill me right now.” Everyone laughed.

Perrie was standing only feet away from Amelia, and the more the singer spoke, the faster Perrie’s heart started to beat. All the evidence was right in front of her, but she refused to acknowledge the truth.

“Anyway, the name of this song is Hey Stranger. I hope you like it.”

Amelia’s final line of introduction sealed it for Perrie. She couldn’t deny the truth any longer. “Holy crap,” she spoke, just loud enough for Leigh-Anne and Jesy to hear.

“What?” Jesy asked as they both turned to the blonde. If Perrie’s eyes hadn’t been on the stage, she would have seen the smirk on Leigh-Anne’s face.

Amelia strummed on the acoustic guitar and her voice as she sang the song was sweeter and more sincere than in any of the other songs she’d played so far. “It was a Friday night when it all began. It all began that Friday night. We were two hundred fifty miles away and hey there stranger on the phone.”

“Oh my god,” Perrie continued to gawk in awe.

Jesy lightly punched Perrie on the shoulder, “Shut up, I’m trying to listen to her new song. I wanna see if I can figure out who it’s about.”

“The thing about strangers is that with a whisper in your ear, you’re not really a stranger at all,” she continued to sing.

Leigh-Anne observed how Amelia wasn’t looking down at her guitar, or even out at the audience in general, but was rather searching the immediate audience in front of her, obviously looking for someone. She did a good job multi-tasking it seemed though, as the song continued to play from her mouth and her fingers.

Like Leigh-Anne, Perrie too was watching Amelia’s eyes, recognizing them in full. And as the singer sang the words, “I can’t stand to be a stranger to you anymore,” she finally found Perrie. The woman faltered slightly on the chord she was playing as soon as her eyes locked on Perrie’s, but she quickly found her place again.

“Oh my god,” Leigh-Anne squealed as she observed the way Jade and Perrie caught each other’s gaze.

“Can you two please stop? Amelia is staring at me and I need to savor the moment,” Jesy spoke.

“Jesy, she’s not looking at you. She’s looking at Perrie you i***t,” Leigh-Anne tried to explain.

“What?” Jesy asked.

“You’re friends care, they rant, but do I dare? Do I dare to let you see, let you see me?”

“She’s looking at Perrie. The song is about Perrie.” Even though she was distracted by Jesy, Leigh-Anne still caught the line that was about her and squealed. It wasn’t every day that your celebrity idol spoke directly about you in a song.

“What do you m–,” Jesy started to speak until she finally processed the words that were being sung. “Holy crap. Jade is Amelia!”

“Two hundred fifty miles away, you were never a real stranger to me,” Amelia sang the last sentence of her new song. The crowd went wild, but the woman on stage had only eyes for the blonde in front of her.

Her manager must have said something in her ear piece, as she was quickly startled and stood up and thanked the crowd before her back up dancers returned to stage and she handed her acoustic to a stage hand before her flow top was torn away to reveal a crop top and she a preformed more peppy number, fan favorite Hair, for her final song.

As soon as the final note rang out, Jesy and Leigh-Anne each grabbed one of Perrie’s hands and began pulling her towards the backstage entrance. Leigh-Anne withdrew the full access backstage passes from her purse with a smirk.

“Where did you get those?” Jesy asked. Perrie still hadn’t spoken, too much in awe.

“Jade had Karl send them to me,” Leigh-Anne’s smirk hadn’t left her face since the moment Perrie realized who Jade was.

“You knew?” Perrie asked in shock, finally speaking as they approached the backstage entrance. She stopped still, causing Jesy to stumble in her heels.

“Only since last weekend,” Leigh-Anne responded, now sheepishly. “I figured it out on my own and called her out on it, but after talking to her I realized why she hadn’t told you.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Perrie asked, her voice sounding hollow, she was still in shock.

“She’ll explain Perrie,” Leigh-Anne placed a reassuring hand on Perrie’s shoulder before then gripping the blonde’s hand and tugging her towards the door.

“That’s Karl,” Leigh-Anne pointed to a man with a clipboard, “He’s Amelia’s manager, she can tell us where to go.”

“I was wondering when you three would show up,” Karl smirked. “Jade is in her dressing room. She told me to tell whichever one of you is Perrie to come in.”

Jesy gave Perrie a kiss on the cheek and pushed her in the direction Karl was pointing. A big sign on the door read ‘Amelia’. Seeing how surprises were kind of the theme of the day, Perrie opted against knocking, instead she pushed the door open.

While Perrie walked away from them, Jesy turned towards Leigh-Anne and punched her hard on the arm. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”

“Yep,” Leigh popped the ‘p’ at the end of the word. “Not only that, but Amelia has tweeted about me, she mentioned me in a song AND I have her phone number.” She brandished her phone and stuck her tongue out at Jesy.

“I hate you so much,” Jesy crossed her arms across her chest.

“Then I guess you wouldn’t want to come with me to go meet Fifth Harmony,” Leigh-Anne tutted. She nodded her head towards a room down the hall where the singers were likely to be. She knew that Jesy always touted the fact that she’d discovered them when they were still performing in bars, and had introduced their music to Leigh-Anne.

Jesy’s pout only held for a moment before she grabbed Leigh-Anne’s arm and with a grin pulled her towards Fifth Harmony’s dressing room.

As soon as Perrie walked in to the dressing room, she was faced with a brunette who was ringing her hands and had immediately stopped walking around in circles as soon as the door was opened. Perrie could tell how nervous the other woman was. And surprisingly, Perrie wasn’t nervous at all. She figured she should have been, after all she was meeting one of the biggest celebrities and most popular and successful singers in the world, but to her, it was just Jade. The girl who called her ‘Pezza,’ the girl who had her first kiss in a coat closet and the girl who shared with Perrie a loss of her father, someone she missed on a daily basis

“Perrie?” Jade spoke hesitantly, looking up at the blonde with caution.

Perrie didn’t respond with words. Instead, she closed the distance between herself and the brunette and firmly placed her lips on hers. Jade was clearly taken by surprise, but once she realized what was happening, she quickly wrapped her arms around Perrie and gave in to the kiss.

When they finally pulled away, they kept their arms wrapped around each other, foreheads resting against each other. “So you’re kind of a hot shot singer.” Perrie finally addressed the elephant in the room.

“And you’re way sexier in person than I imagined, and trust me, I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I’m kind of glad you didn’t tell me,” Perrie admitted.

“Really?” Jade asked, obviously this must have been her biggest concern.

“I liked getting to know you without the influence of gossip and tabloid rumors.”

“That’s all anyone’s going to be talking about tomorrow though. That I have some secret girlfriend I wrote a song for,” Jade explained.

“So I’m your secret girlfriend, huh?”

“Oh, I mean, it’s just…” Jade fumbled over her words.

“If that’s you asking me to be your girlfriend Amelia, then the answer is yes.”

“Actually no,” Jade began, before quickly explaining so as not to get Perrie upset, “It’s not Amelia asking. It’s me asking. It’s me, Jade, asking you, Perrie to be my girlfriend.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Jade laughed causing Perrie to fall in to a fit of giggles, and before they knew it, the two girls had devolved in to fits of laughter. Jade was relieved that Perrie hadn’t been upset. Perrie was just happy to finally see Jade in person. She was happy to be with the girl who she’d spent hours talking with and texting.

She was so happy to see her that she didn’t actually process about the fact that Jade had lied to her. Not yet anyway.