Jerrie Short Stories

The Fake Girlfriend - 6

It doesn't.

To be fair, it's entirely Jade's fault.

The morning after they got back from Egypt (and they slept in separate beds, something that Jade hadn't realised that she didn't like until she spent four days with Perrie), Jade is the one who knocks everything off balance.

She woke up early to make her class, because while she could have skipped it, she also missed her Friday classes. She shuffles into the kitchen, where Ellie and Perrie were drinking coffee and talking. Jade barely registers that they stop speaking once Jade walks in.

Perrie hands her a cup of coffee, with all the sugar Jade likes, and Jade leans up and kisses Perrie with her eyes half closed. She takes one sip of the coffee before she realises what just happened.

Her eyes open wide immediately. Ellie's mouth has fallen open, and Perrie's cheeks are pink and her eyebrows are higher than Jade knew they could go.

"Um," Jade says. "Sorry."

Then she flees the room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Leigh-Anne laughs for probably a solid five minutes when Jade tells her.

"It's not funny!" Jade cries, her eyes wide.

"It's pretty funny." Leigh-Anne disagrees, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "Oh god, I needed that."

"Lee Lee," Jade whines.

"Look," Leigh-Anne says, "it's not that big of a deal. You just pretended to be her girlfriend for, like, four days. You were half-asleep and not thinking clearly. I don't think Perrie's going to hold that against you."

Leigh-Anne's words roll around in Jade's head for a few beats. "You're right." she decides.

Leigh-Anne scoffs. "Duh."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's not until they're back in their normal environment that Jade realises how much has shifted.

Or rather, how little everything has shifted, Jade was just oblivious to it before.

Jade does her best to fall back into the role of Best Friend, but it's kind of difficult. It's difficult now that Jade needs an excuse to want to sleep in the same bed as Perrie. It's difficult now that Jade knows how it feels to kiss Perrie and she can't do that.

So, two weeks after they return, Jade implements a brilliant plan.

She's going to avoid Perrie and wait for these weird feelings to subside. That'll do the trick.

Except deliberately snubbing Perrie's attempts to touch her, talk to her, be near her, that all kind of fucking sucks. Because Jade likes to cuddle with Perrie, she likes to talk to her, and she just likes being around her.

Perrie kind of backs off after a week of this harsh treatment, though, and Jade doesn't know how to feel about it. It makes it easier for her to try and get rid of these feelings, but... she misses Perrie.

"I don't know what I did." Perrie says from the other side of the kitchen. Jade's not eavesdropping, she's not. She's just... lingering by the wall and admiring the paint job. "What did I do to make her treat me like this?"

Nothing, Jade wants to say. It's all her fault, her and these dumb feelings.

"I don't know, Pez." Ellie says. "But whatever's going on, it'll be alright. You're Jade and Perrie – you always make it out intact."

Ellie doesn't normally visit this often but Perrie keeps inviting her cousin over at the moment. After her mother disowned Perrie for being gay she told their family to cut Perrie off. She was always super close to her younger cousin though and Ellie is the only relative Perrie still has contact with. She's working on things with her mother but they aren't really making any progress and almost never talk.