The show must go on

Chapter 3 - the talk

Narrator POV

The hope was in vain. For the next three days, she felt similarly bad. Dizziness, headaches, plus a persistent stomachache, only the nausea fortunately subsided. This was the worst and also the longest-lasting cold Jade had ever had and even though she constantly assured the others that she was fine and that there was no reason to worry, they didn't believe a word she said. And Jade knew why, she got to look at herself in the mirror after all. She just looked sick. Worn out and pale, in no way what a pop star should look like. And the fans already noticed that too, which Jade usually always ignored, but in the past few days she found it increasingly difficult.

And since Perrie and she hadn't been together for a second since the conversation, Leigh took over the task of looking after Jade and constantly inquiring about her condition. Here and there, Jade noticed Perrie looking over at her, nervous and worried, struggling to start a conversation, to say something. But she just didn't know what to say. She herself was so confused and preoccupied with her thoughts that she had no idea how a conversation could help Jade. And so she distanced herself and left Jade alone, which she demanded but didn't really want. And it was difficult for both of them not to look at each other, not to keep touching each other as they usually did, and yet they both kept to it, which resulted in an extremely tense and sometimes uncomfortable atmosphere, noticed by Leigh and Jesy but left uncommented.

And as time went by, Jade noticed that - at least for the moment - she was becoming more and more indifferent. Not because Perrie meant less to her, but simply because her state of health was so demanding that she had little strength to think about anything else.

So Jade continued to prefer sleeping alone for the past few days, just to have peace and quiet and hoped every morning that she would feel better. Instead, she felt worse every morning, but she didn't want to show or tell anyone, so as not to be a burden to anyone. After all, they didn't have time for one of the band members to be off sick, so she kept gritting her teeth and quietly suffering through the whole schedule.

That morning, however, she knew as soon as she opened her eyes that this was not going to be a good day. Standing in front of her was Leigh-Anne with a frantic look on her face.

"Come on, get up, we have to be downstairs in five minutes!" she shouts and pulls the duvet away, at which Jade almost freezes because it is suddenly so cold.

As if on autopilot, Jade slowly gets up, not really noticing Leigh. She quickly throws on a large hoodie and follows Leigh outside, who was already pacing the room out of stress when Jade came out of the bathroom.

"Finally," Jesy says shaking her head, but catches a single glimpse of Jade and immediately falls silent, instead putting an arm around her shoulder to hug her to her.

"I must look really bad," Jade thinks to herself, but allows the contact and closes her eyes in exhaustion.

Today is the shoot for the new music video and since they don't have time, this one day of shooting will have to be enough, so Jade isn't surprised that it's still dark and her phone display shows 3:30am. But she is not the only one who resents the early hour. Normally, in the van that drives the girls around, there is always loud laughter, people talking or playing around on their phones. But when they are on the road at such an hour, there is dead silence because no one is really awake yet and also because no one really wants to be awake. So they all enjoy the quiet minutes until the stressful day really begins.