The Other Half || Jerrie

Chapter Thirteen

Jade was getting out of her last class of the day, a political science class, when she saw all the missed calls on her phone. Calls from her parents and Louis. But she was running late to fall ball practice, and told herself she’d call them back later.

It was the first real practice and she couldn’t afford to be late, now that the roster was complete with walk-ons.

Jade knew that she couldn’t take the fact that her coach’s decision was taken for granted, and that she had known her for years. She wanted to earn a spot on the field just like everyone else, but Johannah wasn’t there when she arrived.

Instead, the two senior captains were running campus. When walk-on Jesy Nelson asked where Johannah was, Jade could have sworn Jesy was obsessed with their coach, the captains explained that Johannah just received the call that her niece died in an accident and couldn’t be there.

And that’s when Jade remembered the calls from her parents and Louis. So, instead of running with the team, she took out her phone and finally read some of the text messages she’d ignored.

Dad: Call us ASAP

Louis: It’s about Danielle, please call you dads.

Papa: Jade, please pick up your phone.

The weeks following the death of her girlfriend, Jade lived at home. She still went to her classes, but instead of returning to her dorm room, she spent her nights up town at her parents’ apartment in her childhood bedroom.

After Thanksgiving Break, Jade decided it was time to move on. Not in the fact that she needed to find someone new to love, no, she needed to move on with her life. She needed to put her priorities back on track. She needed to use her head, and not her heart to make all her decisions.

So she put everything she had into lacrosse and her studies. She made the starting line-up during her first season and got all A’s her first two semesters of school.

During Jade’s sophomore year, she received a pleasant surprise. Leigh-Anne had graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland a year early and was going to spend a year in New York before she returned back to a job in Dublin.

Suddenly, Jade was in a place where she felt okay again. The one year anniversary of Danielle’s death passed with Jade having a movie night with Leigh-Anne. And as more time passed, Jade became more hardened. And Leigh encouraged it.

Leigh-Anne was just as career driven as Jade was. She believed that everyone should put themselves first, that love wasn’t the answer to anything. Jade fed off of Leigh-Anne, and started to believe it herself. She started to forget the type of person she was when she was in love.

Jade’s parents and brother tried to remind her, tried to get back the girl who was happy in love, but Jade spent less time at home and more time at school.

When she wasn’t at the library, Jade was putting in extra time on the bounce back and on the field.

It was towards the end of her sophomore year and Jade stayed behind after practice to run a few extra laps. She was on her third lap when she heard someone approaching her from behind. She slowed slightly so that her teammate could catch up to her.

“So is this why you’re Johannah’s favorite?” Jesy asked once she caught up to her. “Because you stay after practice every day, even after she’s basically killed us, just to run some more?”

Jade scoffed. Lately, she’d been warming up to Jesy. Originally she’d thought the girl to be nothing more than a suck up, someone she couldn’t trust, but she’d grown to realize that Jesy just really wanted to be as good a player as she possibly could. Jade respected her for that.

“I’m pretty sure you’re her favorite,” Jade responded. It was true. Johannah cared about Jade not because she was on her team, but because she had loved her niece and because she’d known her as a child. Jesy was like Johannah’s prodigy. Johannah had formed Jesy into one of the best players on the team.

“Is it true that her niece who died was also your girlfriend who died?” Jesy asked. The fall of their freshman year, very few people knew Jade well. Even now few people did, but no one had ever outright asked Jade if the rumors were true.

“Yes,” Jade responded curtly. She hated talking about Danielle. She only spoke about her to Leigh-Anne anymore. Nobody else.

“I started to play lacrosse after my mom died and my brother and I got put into foster care,” Jesy spoke, keeping an even tone as she ran beside Jade. “It helped a bit, but I also probably wasn’t going the right way with things. I was kind of a super b***h in middle school when I started playing. I thought if I could concentrate on one thing and be really good at it, that’s all that would matter. I would be more than just some foster kid.”

“Well clearly it worked, you’re playing lacrosse at an Ivy League school,” Jade retorted, trying to find a way out of the unwanted conversation.

“No, working my ass off in school is what got me into an Ivy League school,” Jesy explained. “I was just able to walk on to the team because I tried hard at try outs. But that wasn’t my point.”

They finished running the last lap and stopped beside the water cooler.

“Then what’s your point Nelson?” Jade spoke, exasperated.

“I turned into a b***h after my mom died, but I still was able to keep who I was at my core because I let myself make friends again. My best friend in high school nearly ruined her life after her dad died, but she realized she was being self-destructive. My point was that I think you need a friend, and if you need one, I’m here,” Jesy finally reached her point.

“I have a friend,” Jade responded, thinking of Leigh-Anne. Leigh who would be moving back to Dublin in a few short weeks.

“I’m sure you do,” Jesy offered Jade a smile. “But it’s not a crime to want more than one. Besides, running alone is boring.”

Jade rolled her eyes and watched as her teammate walked away. She thought about how much she would hate running with someone as talkative as Jesy.

Little did she know then, that in a few years, her runs with Jesy would be what saved her sanity at times. And that when she awoke at 5 am the morning of her wedding, it was Jesy who she would call to run with her and calm her nerves about the day to come.

She also had known a way of knowing then, that she’d heard about the death of the man who would have been her future father-in-law, and how much pain the love of her life had felt from it. She’d learn more in the years to come, things that Perrie hadn’t ever even told Jesy, but it was a start.

Jade had heard her wife’s name spoken once before, at a baseball stadium, but it was at the lacrosse field where Jade stood watching Jesy leave that Perrie would first hear Jade’s name.