Jesse's Girl

Chapter Five

Startling awake at 4am, Stacie laid in bed as she listened for the wakening sound. She heard slight clanging from the kitchen followed by the sound of Dirty Dancing flickering on the TV. She sighed and slowly pulled herself out of bed, trudging to the door of her shared room. She stumbled back when the light hit her eyes and she squinted as they took their time adjusting to the blinding view.

After almost tumbling down a flight of stairs, she stood at the living room doorway and watched as the ball of vermillion hair sat on the couch shoving spoonful after spoonful of mint chocolate ice cream into her mouth. "Wow, she really did quite the number on you. I haven't seen you eat ice cream like that since Zayn split from One Direction."

"Don't you dare speak that traitor's name in this house again." Chloe grumbled, her gaze never lifting from the television screen. "They could have been glorious together, instead they're doomed to become the next NSYNC. Damn Timberlake and Malik." She plucked another spoonful and shoved it into her mouth. She began to speak again, mouth still full of the delicious dairy treat, "What the hell makes them think they could make it solo? They work better as a team. Fucking bastards."

"You know, Justin Timberlake is actually successful right now." Stacie stated, testing which emotions filled Chloe the strongest. "But they work better as team. The band is their other half, don't they know that they'll crumble to pieces if they don't have it in their lives?" Stacie crossed her arms over her chest, "Are you sure this isn't about someone else?"

"Of course I am. Who else could it be about?"

"I don't know, maybe a special Bella that you maybe have some more than friends feelings toward." Chloe stayed silent, not moving in the slightest. "Do you want to talk about it?" Stacie asked as she began to make her way to her side. "There's nothing to talk about." Chloe quickly shot the attempts down, but Stacie was being a particularly persistent snake on the subject. "Chloe, you are binge eating ice cream right out of the tub. We both know actual Chloe would have gotten a bowl from the cabinet and kept everything as pristine as she found it." She lowered herself to sit on the cushion next to her friend, reaching her arm out to try and offer some solace. "Please talk to me. What happened at the bar?"

"Fine, I'll tell you." Chloe whined, "But you have to promise not to tell anyone. Especially Jesse." Stacie nodded at the agreement. A long sigh was expelled from the depths of Chloe's lungs as she sat the tub of ice cream on the coffee table. She glanced from her friend down to her hands before she began to speak. "At the bar...what happened is...uh..." She stumbled as she tried to find the words to say it. "Come on, spit it out." Stacie encouraged her. Opting to just tell the truth, Chloe blurted it out as fast as possible, "I kissed her."

"Woah! You did what now?! You kissed her?! Are you crazy? Did she kiss back?" Stacie rambled off a multitudinous amount of questions as her state of pure shock took over, leaving her with little to no control over her own actions. Chloe's head moved in a nodding motion to answer Stacie's final question, leaving Stacie to sit stupefied. After a long minute of sitting in complete silence, the sudden urge to defend herself slowly dawned on Chloe and sent her into a rambling fit, much like the one Stacie had just portrayed just mere moments before. "We were both completely intoxicated and we were just having fun. We got caught up in the moment and I...planted one on her. She returned and I felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long time. But it quickly escalated and I couldn't do that. I couldn't let something happen that could quite possibly threaten her relationship with Jesse and with me."

"And you're sure that's the only reason? It has nothing to do with not wanting to be some kind of rebound chick?" A head shake played Chloe's response this time, but wasn't strong enough to cajole Stacie completely. She let out an exasperated sigh and decided to try a different coaxing method. "Did I ever tell you about the story of my love?" Shaking her head again, Chloe verbally added to the response as well, "You've started to before, but things would interrupt you."