Teenage Fever // Jude Bellingham

41

Saturday, 25th of April

"Stop showing me that!" I complained, shoving Emma's phone out of my face. She giggled as she continued scrolling through the handful of tiktoks people had made about me.

It had now almost been a week since I deleted all of my social media, and exactly a week since we went public.

I had no idea what people were thinking or saying, but I didn't think I wanted to. Besides the one time I had read through an article of last sunday's newspaper that was explicitly prioritizing the events of last Saturday, I've been practically shutting myself out from any form of media.

Surprisingly, it wasn't even a hard thing to do. Maybe I actually needed this. You know, to become a 'better version of myself' or whatever.

"Some of them are kinda real though." She shrugged, "there's someone saying that you're too hot for him."

My ears perked up at that, "really?" Emma simply nodded, "Send me that." There was no way that I wouldn't send him a screenshot of that. I loved humbling his ego.

"You should just grow some balls and get back on instagram." She said half jokingly, half seriously before the notification of the message that included the link of the tiktok I had asked her to send popped up on my screen.

"I think I'll pass." I replied halfheartedly, as I was too busy thinking of something to caption the screenshot with.

"What are you so scared of though?" Emma asked, now looking at me as she tilted her head. She looked genuinely confused. "Personally, I'd never shut up about him if I were you."

"I'm not scared... just a little overwhelmed, that's all." I replied, "and I don't want everything to be just about him. If people are only interested in me because I'm with him, I might as well ignore them."

Emma kept her eyes on me for a second, before nodding, "that's fair."

I nodded as well, while finally texting the finished message to my boyfriend with a smirk. Given the time, which was 18:53 p.m., he should be in the locker room by now.

He had had a game today, which me and Emma had watched from home because I hadn't felt like showing up in public again.

I felt bad, but Jude had been rather convincing when he had held me in a headlock until I took back what I had said about myself when I had voiced my worries of not being there for him enough.

I still felt bad after that though, so I was planning on waiting for him to get home. My parents were home, so I even had the rare privilege of driving there. Taking the metro after a game was... interesting, so I was happy that I didn't have to do that.

"Are you not even a little curious though—"

"Oh my god okay, there." I sighed, throwing my phone across the bed and at my best friend, who was laying on her back, her legs draped across my lap as I sat against the wall.

It landed on her stomach with a thump, making her groan dramatically. Luz stirred in his sleep next to me, causing me to quickly pet him so that he wouldn't leave.

"Seriously?" She groaned, but unlocked my phone nevertheless.

"You look first and tell me if it's as bad as I imagine it to be or if I'm being overdramatic again." I ignored her sassiness, and she mumbled a 'k' under her breath.

After a while, I heard her gasp. Great.

"What?"

"Nothing." Emma said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible as she also tried keeping a straight face looking at my phone screen.

"Emma."

"What do you consider 'bad' ?"

"What?" I straightened my posture, back leaving the wall as I bent forward into her direction to try and sneak a glance at my phone, but she held it closer to her own face so that I was unable to peek past the back of it from this angle.

"Emma, just give me the damn phone." I sighed, growing slightly anxious from this anticipation. What had she meant with that?

"You said i should look first!" she complained, before gasping yet again. "Didn't you remove Kelce from your followers?"

"Yeah, why?" My brows furrowed as I tried understanding why she'd ask me that. Obviously I'd want to get rid of him in every dimension of my life.

"Cause he sent you a following request." She snorted, finally showing me what she had been doing as she showed me the screen.

I squinted my eyes, taking back my phone to make sure she saw that right, before snorting as well.

"Ew." I commented, taking a screenshot to send to Jude as well. Besides making fun of each other, we liked to make fun of people like Kelce as well.

I didn't bother looking at anything else before closing instagram again. The clock in the upper left corner of my screen now read 19:20, which meant I had to get going if I wanted to arrive at Jude's before him.

After having dropped off Emma and struggling with the parking system, I had finally managed to reach my boyfriend's apartment.

I unlocked it with the extra key he had given me a while ago, given how we spent most of our time together in here.

I threw off my shoes and glided my feet into one of the million pairs of slippers. He had a weird obsession with those.

It was quiet. This was the first time I was in here all alone. The lights were off, the big windows in the open space area granting me a great view of the sparkling city lights.

I've seen these lights countless times in my life, and yet it seemed like they always looked the prettiest when I watched them from here.

Or from the stadium.

Truthfully, I wasn't even sure what I'd do now. My plan just went this far.

My stomach growling interrupted my thoughts, which led to me making my way over to the kitchen.

It was when I placed my phone onto the counter of the island that I noticed an object laying in the middle of it.

From my point of view — with the only lights coming from the lounging area across the spacious room from when I had switched them on before entering the kitchen — I couldn't really decipher what it was since there were shadows casted all over it.

I shouldn't mind it; I left things in random places all the time. But something about it irked my interest.

I turned on the lights for the kitchen and went back over to the island, where I could now clearly see what it was: a dress.

It looked like it had been squeezed to fit into wherever it had been kept, because it was pretty crumpled up; the white satin material had wrinkles all over it, and one strap was weirdly bent.

I'd be pissed about the way that dress had been treated if it was mine.

I had this really good idea...🤭
btw guess who I saw yesterday lol