When the curtains close

19.

A few weeks later

"Bye Love, have fun with grandma" Jade waved as she was standing outside watching Jaz and Norma leave.

When she saw the car disappearing outside of the gate her plastic smile quickly faded away. She sighed and walked back inside the house. She put the kettle on and started chopping some fruit in the hope that doing something practical helped reduce the strange sensation that had accompanied her for almost three weeks now.

During those days she had barely been in contact with girls, the last time they'd seen each other was for the meeting with Mr. Jones, when it was pouring rain and Leigh had to quickly go back to the offices to grab her forgotten umbrella.

It's not like she didn't want to see them, it was rather life getting in the middle, as Perrie was always busy with her new album and the brunette's mind was totally elsewhere.

She took her phone out, opened the chat with the girls, and presses the microphone icon while putting the phone closer to her lips. "Hey Leigh, sorry I know you've been trying to set this up for weeks", she said knowing how much the older girl had been insisting on meeting them. "Yes tomorrow, your place is okay. Jaz and I will be there" she sent the audio not giving too much relevance the Leigh's insistence and urgency.

She poured the hot tea into her favorite mug and placed the breakfast on the table, ready to go wake up the cause of her too frequent headaches.

She slowly climbed the stars, using that time to reflect on her thoughts and develop the right attitude to discuss the matter. She walked to the guestroom and sighed. It's mad how only a few hours are enough for a person to be completely different she thought while resting her head on the door frame. Just a few drinks and that man was immediately completely unrecognizable.

"Hey..." Jordan yawned after noticing her presence.

Jade kept looking at him from a distance while pressing her lips together.

"I'm so sorry for last night" the man sat up to rest his back on the headboard feeling his head pound.

But Jade's expression didn't change the slightest bit, this time words weren't going to help him, he couldn't just keep talking himself out of the situation.

"You know you are ruining everything right?" She asked with her arms crossed, it was more a statement rather than a question. Because the truth is that he was actually ruining everything; day after day, drink after drink, he was demolishing what had taken them so long to reconstruct, what they'd fought so hard for.

She was still too upset. She didn't even wait for an answer, she turned around and walked downstairs, completely tired of hearing the same lame sentence over and over. She took her laptop, sat on the sofa with her steaming cup of tea close, and dived into her emails. Maybe focusing on work was the best solution to calm her nerves.

But there clearly was a problem that sooner or later needed to be solved or at least faced. Not that she had not understood it sooner, but the frequency with which it was now happening was making her realize how serious the situation was. They had been together for 7 years now, she knew that man better than herself.

Yet she had never really understood that side of him, what many years before had caused everyone to be worried about their relationship. She didn't know that Jordan so well, how vulnerable, complex, and sometimes scary he could be.

He had appeared on the day of their car crash but after that, she had wrongly thought that he'd just left forever.
Instead, in the last few weeks, she had to be in his presence. He had kept her awake and worried at night, afraid that something awful would happen, that someone would call her to inform her that he was hurt, or even worst dead somewhere.