Hey Stranger || Jerrie

Chapter 3

It was two days later when Perrie saw Zayn for the first time since their breakup. She supposed it couldn’t have been that much of a surprise though, after all he was at Georgetown Law and she still hung around her alma mater fairly frequently. It wasn’t far from the art gallery and she occasionally ran an art class on campus for middle-schoolers.

It was after one of such classes on her afternoon off that she spotted the familiar dark with blond-streaked hair. She’d just walked in to Georgetown Cupcakes. “s**t,” she muttered under her breath. She’d just moved to turn around and leave when Zayn shifted so that she was now in his line of sight.

“Perrie?” he asked after receiving his change from the cashier.

“Oh Zayn, hi,” she stumbled over her words.

The thing about Zayn, was that even after everything, she couldn’t hate him. Because once upon a time he was the nicest person she ever knew. Sure, s**t happened, but underneath it all, Perrie knew that he wasn’t a bad guy. Just morally gray.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Good,” she responded, nodding too many times for her to seem like she was actually telling the truth. “Just, you know, getting cupcakes for Leigh-Anne and Jesy.”

“Are they eating gluten again?”

Dammit, she thought, she was caught. Leigh and Jesy had gotten it in to their heads that gluten was the devil’s food and horrible for them and they hadn’t eaten it in over a month. Supposedly. Perrie knew that Jesy was having Jake sneak her donuts on the reg. “I’m trying to get them to admit to the fact that they miss it,” she spoke, hoping he wouldn’t realize that she was actually there to buy a box of cupcakes for herself.

“We should get coffee some time and catch up,” Zayn suggested.

Perrie was proud of herself for refraining from scoffing. Not wanting to give an answer though, she rummaged through her bag, picking out her phone. “Sorry, I have to take this.” She quickly pressed on the name of her last call and pretended she was picking up a call.

“Hi, yeah, one sec,” the dial tone was still ringing as she turned back to Zayn, “Sorry, it’s a work emergency.”

“Emergency? But you work in a…”

Perrie didn’t hear the rest of Zayn’s sentence as she scrambled out the door.

“Perrie?” came the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Jade!” Perrie exclaimed at the sound of the woman’s voice. She’d forgotten that she’d actually dialed the girl’s number. “Hi! Sorry, emergency call. I ran into my ex.”

Perrie could hear that wherever Jade was, it was loud. Not loud as if there were a lot of people there, but rather it sounded like lots of heavy movement of objects and the occasional yell. “I’m guessing it didn’t end well?” Jade returned.

“No, I mean. I don’t know,” Perrie thought about the complicated end to her relationship with Zayn. “You’re busy, I should let you go. You’re at work, aren’t you?”

“Hold on,” Jade spoke in to the speaker. Perrie then heard the women yell away from the speaker, “Karl! Give me a few minutes, I’ll be back.” A minute later, the loud noises on Jade’s end stopped. For a minute Perrie thought that maybe Jade had hung up, but then the woman’s voice returned, “Okay, I’m back.”

“I don’t want to pull you away from work,” Perrie spoke.

“You’re fine Perrie, to be honest I could use a break,” Jade reassured the other girl.

Perrie sighed in relief, “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I feel like you’re avoiding talking about why you called me,” Jade tutted in to the phone.

“You’re very observant you know.

“Perrie.”

“Okay, okay,” Perrie took a deep breath before continuing, “It’s just, it was my first time running in to him, Zayn. Since the break up that is. I mean, it’s been two months, and I am over. Even if Jesy thinks I’m not just because I’d rather watch Netflix than do body shots with her and grind to Amelia.”

Perrie didn’t notice the way Jade practically chocked over Perrie’s last sentence. “Do people really grind to…Amelia?”

“Unfortunately,” Perrie exclaimed. “Usually remixes too, which just makes it worse. Do you like not go to clubs? I feel like all they play is Amelia’s songs these days.”

“I’m not really into the club scene,” Jade responded, “And you’re still avoiding the topic at hand. Do you want to talk about what happened with you and Zayn?”

“I haven’t talked about it with anyone before,” Perrie realized, “All my friends were there. They all saw it all happen.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable.”

“No!” Perrie spoke quickly, “That’s not it at all. I do want to tell you. I mean, we talk about everything. I want to talk about everything. With you, that is.”

“I want you to talk to me.”

“We met freshman year at Georgetown, we were on the same hall. It happened really quickly. It was almost too good to be true. Well, that’s exactly what it was. It was too good to be true. That spring Leigh-Anne transferred in to Georgetown, surprising Zayn. And I mean really surprised him. Turns out they dated all through high school and never officially broke up. Until January that is. Leigh broke up with him as soon as she found out about me and I broke up with him too.”

“Freshman year?” Jade asked after Perrie paused, “But that was years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Perrie nodded in to her phone, “Leigh and I bonded over the whole thing and she became my best friend, along with Jesy who immediately dubbed us the Three Musketeers. For two years Zayn stayed the straight path, so to speak. We slowly let him in to our friend group. Even though Jonathan was seriously against it.

“Jonathan?”

“Jesy’s brother,” Perrie explained, “He’s two years older, but somehow ended up in a squad with us. Partially because Jesy started dating his best friend.”

“Jake,” Jade spoke assertively, “I’m starting to get a better handle on your friends.”

“You catch on quick,” the blonde laughed as she took a seat outside on a bench. “Anyway, Zayn was good. He was really good. I mean, he’s a great guy. He still is. He’s in law school now, studying family law. He always volunteered at schools. He’s a good guy, he really is.”

“Perrie, why does it sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, and not me?”

Perrie was surprised that Jade caught on so quickly. It was something Leigh-Anne and Jesy always said to her. “Umm, so anyway. It was senior year when I started dating him again. Obviously I cleared it with Leigh first, but he hadn’t dated anyone since us. And he really isn’t a cheater. With Leigh, he just assumed that they were over because they were at different colleges. So we dated for three years and it was good, really good.”

“What happened Perrie?” Jade asked, “Something changed, didn’t it?”

“We were drunk. All of us, not just Zayn.” Perrie paused as the memory came back to her, “It was a little over two months ago, the night Jesy and Jake got engaged.”

“They’re engaged?”

“Yeah, they’re not getting married for another year though,” Perrie explained before continuing, “Anyway, Zayn doesn’t usually get violent when he gets drunk. He gets protective, but certainly not violent. So when this guy who was sort of new from college, Luke Pasqualino, started hitting on me, I didn’t think anything of it. He was just being Luke, he’s a bit of a sleaze, but he’d never actually do anything. But I guess Zayn didn’t see it that way. I mean, it was like he started seeing red. He went crazy. Luke is hotheaded as it is, but Zayn went too far. He started beating him up, and then when Alex’s friends tried to pull Zayn off, he attacked them as well.”

“Oh my god.”

“The police came and he spent the night in jail,” the blonde continued with her tale, “Luke didn’t press charges though. Partly because he knew that I knew all about his drug selling business.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Anyway, seeing Zayn like that was too much for me,” Perrie sighed, “We were together three years and I didn’t even know he had that side to him. He felt really bad, and he knew he f****d up. When I said that I wanted to break up, he didn’t even really try and save the relationship. He knew it was over. So it’s not like he’s a bad guy. And it’s not like our break up was bad or anything. We just sort of ended. I hadn’t seen him since the break up until today.”

“Was it weird?”

“Yeah. He wants to catch up and get coffee.”

“Do you want that?” Jade asked, her voice laden with the question.

“No,” Perrie spoke strongly, “I want to move on. Yeah, I know it was three years of my life, but I’m over him. It was easier than I thought it would be to get over him. I don’t think I ever really loved him, but more the idea of him.”

“Then you shouldn’t have to see him then,” Jade responded reassuringly.

“Hey Jade?”

“Yeah Perrie?”

“Am I ever going to see you? In real life I mean?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I’d like to see you too.” There was a paused on the line before Jade continued, “Thanks for telling me Perrie. For trusting me with that.”

“Well you’re really easy to talk to.”

“So are you.”

There was another pause in the conversation, but it was a comfortable silence. Perrie felt a soft smile fall on her lips and she crossed her legs beneath her on the bench. After several moments though, Perrie could hear a voice on Jade’s end, a distant one that didn’t belong to Jade. “Jade, we really need you out there, we kinda can’t go further without you.”

“Give me a few more minutes Karl, it’s…I’m talking to…it’s her. It’s Perrie.” Perrie couldn’t help but smile wider at the way Jade spoke her name. “Sorry,” Jade now spoke directly to Perrie. “That was my….that was Karl. He’s calling me back to work. But I have a few more minutes.”

“No,” Perrie shook her head despite the fact that Jade couldn’t see her. “You should get back to work. I don’t want your boss getting mad at you, or worse you getting fired because you took a personal call.”

Jade chuckled in to the phone, “Karl acts tough, but he’s a softie under it all. But I probably do need to go. But I’ll text you later, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Jade, this is the part where you hang up.”

“Bye Perrie.”

“Bye Jade.”