Everything After (3) *editing in progress*

Chapter 2: Walk Away

Jade's POV
"Oh h-hey Jade! Er-uh... Sorry." I immediately regretted not looking where I went, colliding with someone and I looked up slightly. I felt some frustration grow when I realized who it was. I watched as she slowly started turning tomato red. I looked down seeing her hand flat on my abdomen. "Perrie." I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible. "I-I um..." Her sentence died out before she could finish. It was cute how red she was turning, I bit my lip to keep from telling her my thoughts. I think I'm going crazy by now, but that connection strangely seems to be calming me down.
"What happened?" She asked looking concerned. "I-its nothing." I whisper, willing myself to calm down. "C'mon Jade. Can I?" She asked gesturing to me. "What?" I asked pushing my hair away from my face once more. "You need..." Perrie pulled me up, but she hesitated, as if she knew what she needed to say but I shook my head, I couldn't do this right now. "No, I'm fine, you don't have to." My eyes stung as the words left my lips with ease, she seemed to hesitate once more. "I do, I just...I'm just scared." She murmured quietly. "You said it yourself, you were scared and unsure. I don't want to make that worse. Trust me." I said before turning and gently pulling my wrist from her grip, my anger subsided a little and I walked away.

That's how the week sort of went, a little bit of acknowledgement but I meant it when I said I needed to give her space. Jesy and Leigh were keeping their distance from me as well, I didn't blame them. But I did need to apologize to Jesy and badly. I was wrong to even think about laying a finger on her. I sighed, watching them in the recording booth and studied the fading bruises from my hand as well as my knuckles. If I were the lyrical genius I was supposed to be, I could've written an entire discography about my fucked up hand alone, but alas here we are. Maybe if I took inspiration from an evening out? I frowned a little, the public was still fresh from our latest interview. But that didn't mean it could stop me from going out. I told Kyle to leave me alone, he respectfully told me he would tail me from further away and that's how I'd learn to shake him hopefully, and that would start tonight.
Making up my mind, I walked over to the solo booth and felt something snap in me, I did my best to record my part of one of our newest singles that Jesy and Leigh were commandeering and after four takes, I was satisfied for the time being. I hummed along, trying to listen to the beats and relax, it was mostly working. Until I felt my stomach growl and that signaled lunch. I saved the session records and went to grab my sudoku book, my bag and waved to Adam and Tyler, two of our studio assistants. They looked over and waved back, letting me be. I relaxed once I made it to the cafe, finding my usual window nook and grabbed my usual biscuits and sandwich before curling up and going through some more pages, my headphones went on immediately as well.
I liked to stay here occasionally, people watching and just letting myself relax. I saw Jesy and Leigh surface with Perrie after maybe half an hour, Perrie was at the front of the trio going right for the pizza line, no surprise there while the other two went to the starbucks. Well, at least some things didn't change.
I put my head back down and went back to my book, humming along quietly to some good Diana Ross beats. I saw something out of the corner of my eye after I was stuck on a portion of my puzzle, and watched three pairs of shoes start coming my way. But I didn't look up, I wanted to see if they'd come over anyways, but I wouldn't pressure them into anything. They sat closer to me than I'd imagined, but I was still in my peaceful corner while the other three took over a booth.
I guess we still weren't ready to talk yet, I breathed in a little and leaned back, closing my eyes. Tonight would hopefully help me get into a different swing of things, it had to.

Leigh-Anne's POV
It had been a couple of days since any of us had spoken to Jade. I watched her lean back against the window and couldn't help feeling sad. I knew she didn't mean to take her anger out on Jesy-we had a talk about their entire exchange, and when Jesy admitted what she'd said, I whacked her on the chest myself but not-well not a fist to the face like our little fighter. Jesy got mad at me then for calling her out but later that night she came to apologize at our flat before going to get Perrie for some dinner. I had decided to stay in and left some spaghetti for Jade before going to bed, and the next morning I had come down the steps to see my Tupperware clean and with a thank you note on top. We had a bit of an understanding but I was still worried. Jesy was holding onto this because she was called out and I understood, as was Jade. I knew that the two just needed time. But Annecka was furious when she found out. She ripped the Geordie a new one and was on the brink of sending both her and Jesy to therapy. I wasn't sure what that meant for the four of us as a group. I knew Perrie was still healing, we kept an eye on her at all times. So we didn't leave her side almost at all. We were not keeping it as together as it seemed.
"Leigh, you're in your head again. Is it because of the riff?" Jesy poked me out of my thoughts. "A little, and we have to do something about this." I cut the waiting and addressed the elephant across the beanbags. "Oh come off it Leigh, she'll come to us, or me later. I still need to let it roll off my back."
"If you hadn't said what you said, she wouldn't have reacted the way she did Jes! You also owe her an apology, you know that." I shot my girlfriend a hard look, she gulped a little and leaned back into the booth. "I still...I'm not exactly up for it." She answered after a moment. "Well figure it out soon, because remember Annecka said you two will go to therapy if you don't sort it out yourselves. Jes, I know you can." I reminded her, watching the brunette nod.
Perrie on the other hand was silently chowing down half of a pizza practically all by herself. I knew she was nervous, she didn't speak to Jade as often, I think it really hit her a little when Jade told her they were done in the meeting previously, that she was hurting her fellow Geordie. But she didn't know how to make it better.