The show must go on

Chapter 32 - that's life now

Jade POV

The second I hear her voice, I can't keep it together any longer.

"Mom?", I whimper into the phone and at least a minute follows of me crying and sobbing into while my poor mother desperately tries to figure out what is going on.

"Why aren't you on stage?" she asks at one point, which brings me back and makes me explain,

 "I...I had to sit out."

"Why? What's wrong?" she asks me once again.

"I'm not doing so good," I say with all the sadness in my voice that I'm feeling right now.

"I know," she says curtly and just from that I can hear that tears are running down her cheeks too.

"I...I need you," I stammer.

Perrie's POV

Going back on stage was hard, to say the least. It wasn't the first time the three of us had been here. It wasn't the first time Jade had to break off during the show. But today it had an unpleasant taste to it. Especially because she had to miss the last two shows as well. Today feels different.

Leigh-Anne took over and explained that Jade will not be back and so far we only ever received applause and Jade chants, but today the audience was not only more subdued, we even received a boo or two. My expression hardened immediately and I would have liked to get up and leave straight away. Leigh-Anne was also so shocked by the reaction of the supposed fans that she stopped talking and looked between us, confused. So Jesy picked up her mic.

"Jade has tried everything to be here today but she is not well enough at the moment and we hope you can respect that. So please give us a big round of applause for her!", and yet cheers rang out again, although not as loud as we've heard in other cities.

When we've finished the show and are backstage again, I can't help myself: "We'll never go here again."

"Did they really boo?!", Leigh can't believe it either.

"Absolutely disrespectful. I've rarely been so disappointed in fans," Jesy also joins in.

Our ranting continues until we get to the chill room and actually I have a lot more to say, but with the opening of the door we all suddenly fall silent. It's not an unusual sight, she's not even asleep. She is sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, Sam beside her with a hand on her thigh. She's not well, but she's awake, conscious, not puking her guts out, not crying. Actually, that should relieve me. But something is wrong. Something seems strange. As if the atmosphere in the room is making us all speechless.

Jade notices quite late that we are standing in the doorway. She looks up with blood-red eyes, which startles me again as she plasters a smile on her lips that couldn't be more false.

"How was it?" she wants to know.

"Okay," I also answer curtly and slowly sit down next to her to look deep into her eyes to find out what she is not telling me . But I can't seem to read her.