Voodoo Doll «ᴊᴀᴅᴇsʏ»

Chapter 2

“Jade? Jade, are you all right?” Leigh-Anne asked. “You look a little off.” She pressed her hand to Jade’s head, confusing the younger girl just a tad. “Do you have a temperature?”

“I’m fine, Leigh,” Jade assured, pushing Leigh-Anne’s hand away. “Just a little woozy from jetlag, is all.”

Leigh-Anne nodded, though she was a little skeptical. Jade didn’t seem like herself, and Leigh-Anne was worried that she had caught some sort of a bug. Leigh-Anne shrugged it off, and she walked over to the other side of the hotel room to wake up Perrie.

Perrie reluctantly got out of bed, yawning loudly. Leigh-Anne, always in the mood for a joke, smiled slightly. “Say, Perrie, with your new hair, you can hardly even tell if it’s a bedhead or not!”

Perrie blushed, her hand immediately reaching over to touch her hair. Leigh-Anne laughed, sitting next to the blonde. “Kidding, kidding!” Leigh-Anne said. “Your dreadlocks are beautiful.”

Jade laughed at her best friends as she got up from her bed. “I’m gonna head out; you girls need anything?” Jade reached over for her parka, grabbed her clutch, and waited at the threshold for an answer.

“Give me some food, yeah?” Perrie asked.

Leigh-Anne playfully rolled her eyes. “We don’t need anything,” she said.

Perrie groaned, but she had managed to carry on with her day. Jade laughed and walked out the door. She walked down the streets, enjoying the sun on her skin, but she suddenly felt a little sick to her stomach. What was happening to her?

Deciding not to have a day to herself, Jade went back to the hotel. She suddenly crashed on her bed, groaning out in pain. Leigh-Anne rushed to her side, and Perrie looked for some medicine. Jesy came out in the midst of the commotion, confused.

“What’s going on?” Jesy said. She put the object in her hand away, and she walked over to Jade. “Oh, gosh, are you okay?”

Jade suddenly shot up, and she looked around the room. “I… I suddenly feel a lot better. The pain in my stomach… it suddenly disappeared…”

The rest of the girls sighed in relief, and Perrie put the medicine away. “You probably caught a little bug,” Perrie said with a small smile on her face. “Want me to buy some easy-make ramen?”

“That’ll be nice, thank you,” Jade said. Perrie grabbed a sweater and rushed out the hotel door as Leigh-Anne stayed by Jade’s side. Jesy went back to her bed, playing with the tiny object in her hands. Suddenly, Jade started feeling sick again.

What was happening to her?

✘✘✘

The next day, the girls were back in their special black van. Perrie was singing along (quite loudly) with the radio. Leigh-Anne was on her phone, interacting with the Mixers via Twitter. Jade was reading a book, and Jesy was still playing with that tiny object. She has yet to let go of it.

Jade looked up from her book, and decided to converse with Jesy. “What do ya got there, Jess?” she asked.

Jesy suddenly looked up, a little baffled. How was she supposed to answer a question like that? “I, uh… It was a tiny poppet that my mum gave me when I was younger. I just found it, and so many memories are coming back…”

“What kind of memories?” Jade pressed.

“I used to take this thing everywhere. I remember losing it once. I threw a fit, and then my brother found it. It was under my bed—probably the first place I should’ve checked, since I lost all of my toys there. It’s just really nice to see it again.”

“Did you have a name for it?”

“Amelia. I know, coincidental, right?” Jesy gave her a small smile, and then looked back at the doll.

Jade studied the doll, and looked back at Jesy again. “Hey, it looks sort of like me!” Jade exclaimed.

“Does it?” Jesy asked. She brought the doll closer to her face, and spun it around. “It does! Well, what do you know?” Jesy chuckled, trying her best not to sound the least bit nervous. If she cracked just the slightest, she would give herself away.

“That’s a lovely doll,” Jade said. “May I see it?”

Jesy’s green orbs widened, and she quickly shook her head. “No! Er, I mean… I had just found it, and there’s just so much sentiment, and—you understand, right?”

Jade nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand. It’s alright, Jesy.” She eyed the doll warily. To Jade, something was off with that doll. The doll Jesy was holding was giving Jade a bad feeling. But Jade simply brushed it off. What can a doll possibly do to her?

✘✘✘

Once the girls had made it to their destination, Jesy immediately rushed over to the dressing room. Just as Jade suspected, Jesy had went in there with her beloved doll. Jade was starting to get a bad feeling again, but she shrugged it off.

Perrie had gone to the snack bar, Leigh-Anne following her to “make sure she doesn’t get in trouble.” Jade simply chuckled, and she walked into the dressing room. Jesy was sitting with the doll in her hands. She looked up, made eye-contact with Jade, and gingerly put her doll down.

“I was just about to fix my makeup,” Jesy said softly. She laid the doll carefully on the booth, and she went on to applying mascara.

“Hey, Jess?” Jade asked.

Jesy stopped to take a look at Jade. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, obviously,” Jesy smiled. “I couldn’t be grander.”

“No, I—I mean, that’s great, but—I was talking about us. Are you okay with what’s between us?”

“Of course I am, Jade. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you were still into me—”

“It was just a crush.”

Jade sighed. It was miscellaneous was to whether it was a sigh of relief or despair—it was merely a sigh. “I’m glad we’re friends again, Jesy.”

Jesy smiled at Jade. It was a nice, genuine smile. “Me, too, Jade.”

Jade pulled Jesy into a hug, resting her head on Jesy’s shoulder. Jesy wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, enjoying the hug as much as it lasted.  After that hug, Jesy would have to put up with the fact that she and Jade were just friends. She didn’t want that. It killed Jesy inside.

She was stuck in the friend-zone.