Jerrie Oneshot Book

Interrupted

Summary: Five times Jade tries to tell Perrie and one time she succeeds.

1

The feeling had been brewing for ages, so long that Jade couldn't put her finger on when the brewing actually began. Part of her thought that maybe she used to be able to. Maybe she used to lie in bed at night and think of some particular moment, some look or touch or laugh that had hit her like lightning. A spark to the chest. A flash of light, and then there, she thought. There it was, that feeling, and she just knew.

Another part of her thought that there was never a moment. There was never a light bulb hidden inside a look or a touch or a laugh. There was never an a-ha moment or an oh moment, because that feeling, that truth, had always been there.

Maybe all the moments were the moment since the moment she first met Perrie.

She had walked into that emergency room with too little sleep and a bloody towel for a hand, and she had walked out with six stitches woven into her palm and Perrie's smile etched into her exhausted mind (and Perrie's number etched onto the top of her prescription slip).

Yes, Jade thought, the brewing began with that smile. It began with the way she tapped her badge as she introduced herself and the way she chewed her bottom lip as she stitched up the gash in Jade's palm. It began with her raspy laugh and the press of her hand to Jade's shoulder as she reminded her to get at least five hours of sleep before attempting to chop up another onion.

It began at the beginning, and it had been bubbling up under her skin ever since. Bubbling and bubbling and bubbling until every time Jade was around Perrie, she felt like her heart was bobbing at the back of her throat like a buoy in the ocean.

Words etched themselves across the insides of her eyelids so that every time she went to bed, she drifted off reciting confessions in her head – all the things she wanted to say but that always felt too big for language or voice or expression. Still, she tried. In her head, she tried – and outside her head? Outside her head, she just continued to boil and bubble, always only on the verge of spilling her guts. Every pulpy, goopy bit of them, she knew, would be painted with all the ways she loved and Perrie.

She just had to find the right moment.

That's what Jade resigned herself to thinking. If she couldn't find the right words, the exact right way to express how she felt, then she had to find the right moment. The perfect moment. The moment Perrie deserved.

It came on their fifth date. Fifth, yes. Their fifth date.

A soft, warm glow haloed around them as the lights were dimmed in the restaurant. Okay, so actually, the bulb over their booth was just nearer the end of its life than the beginning, but Jade was a romantic at heart, so she made the most of it in her mind.

Pizza Hut was significantly less crowded than it usually was during the lunch buffet, so they could hear each other clearly; plus, they didn't have to suffer the discomfort of being seated practically on top of someone else. The parmesan and red pepper shakers at their table had recently been refilled and there was a freshly baked thin-crust Hawaiian pizza on the buffet bar when they arrived.

They were celebrating. Jade had just learned that she would be promoted, so celebrating seemed in order. A celebratory lunch since Perrie was working a double shift and couldn't get the evening off to go out.

Everything was exactly right.

Perrie sat across from her in navy scrubs and a messy ponytail, and every time she took a new bite, she added to the little red sauce stains at the corners of her mouth. She was telling Jade about the time an intoxicated old man came into the ER complaining about having too much belly-button lint, laughing at her own story every few seconds, and Jade felt this incredible pull in her chest.