By the time the sun started to rise I was damn tired. Beyond fucking tired. Sleep was practically nonexistent for me as I sat up with Danielle all night while she went through the typical process of the high before finally crashing down. It was rough, honestly. It was pretty obvious that she’d never done anything of this sort by the way she’d been handling it. She finally fell asleep at around five in the morning but I stayed awake just in case.
Once daylight started to break and I felt it was safe enough for me to at least leave Dani’s immediate proximity I got up and wandered around the living area, more or less to help keep me awake. I figured now would be as good a time as any to check in with Jess and see how she was.
‘Good morning, my love.’
Rather than the text back I was expecting, my phone suddenly started going off repeatedly. Jessie had decided to call me which I loved even more, but the cheery voice I was expecting to hear on the other end was vastly different than what I actually heard.
“You look like you enjoyed yourself last night,” Jessie said flatly.
“…What are you talking about?” I questioned.
“Oh nothing. Just the million articles I’ve had tweeted to me today depicting your good choices last night,” she replied sarcastically. What the fuck?
“Jessie, what the hell articles are you talking about?”
“Some people who apparently knew who you were took photos of you with some girl last night. And apparently you two went into the same hotel together. Who is she, Julie?” Jessie’s tone told me all I needed to know. I knew exactly what was going on and it was pissing me off.
“Jessie, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” I demanded. “Because I would have thought you’d have a little more trust in me than that.”
“Oh, well I don’t know, Julie. Considering how we got started.” Malice dripped from every word as she spoke. I sighed in exasperation. Of course she would make that kind of comment. She was pissed, I know. Especially, considering what these articles may have said or the kinds of ideas they put into Jessie’s head. She was hurt and she was going to say whatever she could to hurt me.
“That’s a low blow and you know it, Jessie. I know what those articles probably said but you should know better than anyone that they’ll try to turn the littlest things into something bigger than it was.” I was well-aware of the little rumors that would go around about Jessie from time to time. It was annoying, sure, but I never believed them. I never would have expected Jessie to believe them either.
“So what was it then, Julie?” She’d lowered her voice slightly now and I knew she wanted to listen which was a relief in itself. Still, I could tell her suspicions remained high.
“Her name is Danielle, okay? We work together and she’s one of the only girls I can really tolerate here. They all went out last night and I stayed in like I do every night. One of the girls called me last night and asked me to walk Danielle back to the hotel. That was it,” I explained. Mostly it.
“Nothing happened?” Jessie asked, as if she couldn’t believe the thoughts put into her mind were actually wrong.
“No. Nothing happened. You know me, Jess. You know I wouldn’t do something like that to you.” My voice was firm and the anger was probably very evident in my voice but I couldn’t help that. I was actually kind of furious that Jessie would just accuse me of hurting her like that without asking me what happened first.
There was nothing but silence for several seconds and I’d actually though that Jessie had hung up on me. However, just as I was about to ask if she was still there her voice sounded over the line again, soft this time.
