Pretend It's Okay

13 - Waiting

Four days passed before Jade heard back from one of the girls. In those two days she had a full work schedule to promote her new EP including two live performances of a few songs and multiple radio interviews. It was her first time performing all by herself and neither Perrie or Leigh-Anne turned up to watch and support her. Norma was there along with Holly and of course the Little Mix style team, but it wasn't the same. They weren't supposed to be her sisters and closest friends and didn't know Jade as well as them.

Of course they noticed the absences of Jade's former bandmates but no one felt comfortable broaching the subject. The obvious explanation was that something very serious had happened between the three of them and they weren't currently speaking. It was the only reason why Leigh-Anne and Perrie would miss such a big day for Jade like this, because if it was any kind of emergency they would surely know about it. Zack was more suspicious than anyone else, knowing about the confirmed reunion and Jade's belief that Perrie was betraying her, but even he didn't want to ask Jade about it and risk throwing her off at such a crucial time in her life.

Claud made it back from Italy with only two hours to spare before Jade's first performance. It was fortunate that the choreography she was performing was very similar to what she had to learn for her music videos, and the few alterations he made Claud was able to show her over zoom the night before. He ended up spending an extra day in Italy filming with Perrie and based on his brusque attitude towards Jade she assumed the delay was due to Perrie's mental state after their facetime chat.

She was in costume stretching with the other dancers when the door to the warm up room opened and Claud rushed in. "Hey, you made it!" Anders cheered, eliciting laughter from the rest of the dancers and Jade herself. Warming up with the familiar faces from Little Mix was enough to let her forget that none of them turned up for her.

Jade walked over to Claud ready to greet the man with a quick hug like she often did but he ignored her approach, instead turning to put his bags down and stand in front of the mirrors ready to watch the dress rehearsal. For as long as she had known him Claud had always been a friendly soul and didn't have a short temper so his behaviour thoroughly confused her. She wondered what could be bothering him before realising that he likely came straight from the airport because of Perrie's video shoot. It was a rather simple jump to connect the dots and Jade realised the dancer was mad at her. She had planned on asking him about how Perrie was, try and get some info seeing as Leigh-Anne was taking forever to call her, but his current attitude put her off of that idea.

The rehearsal went very well, everyone still remembering the choreography. It was only two weeks ago when they learnt it due to Jade accelerating her schedule and only now realising how much extra pressure that had put on her dancers. Guilt flooded her stomach at her oversight but there wasn't time for that. She had to perform now and dance intimately with the man who wasn't talking to her and one of the new dancers she had hired.

Jade had to hire a new dancer for her performance because none of the women in the dance crew were blonde. In her videos they had used a few different dancers but brought back Jade's favourite from her song Forever Apart. Penny was a lovely girl and got on very well with both Jade and the dancers which made the situation easier. Looking at her now though, all Jade could see was the devastated look in Perrie's eyes and the tears just starting to fall down her cheeks before she hung up the call.

The performances had both gone okay. Jade was always an expert on hiding her true feelings from the fans and media but to those close to her it was obvious that she wasn't fully into the choreography. The brunette had an almost magical ability to portray chemistry with anyone she was interacting with, allowing for many funny moments over the years with friends and interviewers, but with Penny she just couldn't turn it on. Jade wondered if it was because she wasn't turned on by Penny anymore.