Pieces // H.S

Chapter 21: Matthew: Proud

Jane left the stage so quickly; I didn’t get a chance to praise her for her swift cover of Harry’s wobbly at the beginning of the performance. Something was wrong.

I had known Jane since she was about thirteen - just after she had lost her parents. I was twenty-four at the time and my life was going nowhere. All I had left was about my scouse accent, £4.50 and a degree in law that couldn’t get me a job anywhere. Then I met a crying girl on a train. We were alone in the carriage. I didn’t want to sit next to her, because that would get me into trouble with the police if anything happened to her. Her face was covered by her hands and she sobbed silently. I couldn’t just leave her like a cold fish.

“Er… Miss… Are you ok there?” was how I started this lifelong friendship with her. She told me that her parents had died, her father of an illness he had picked up while working and that her mother was in a car accident shortly after her father had died. Jane had called her grandmother when no news came from either parent, while she was staying in the hotel not so far away from the hospital. Her grandmother had been contacted about both deaths but Jane had not been informed. After talking to her grandmother she took some of the money from her mother’s purse and got on this train. Somehow I managed to convince her to allow the police to find her and that she needed to go through the procedures with the law. When the train stopped at the station in Edinburgh, news headlines flashed around the large screens showing sky news. They told the station of her disappearance. I couldn’t be seen with her; otherwise I would be accused of child abduction. Her name was Jane Smith. She waited on a bench in the station while I called the police to report her whereabouts.

Once the Police had managed to question her, the formalities began. The legal team that was in charge of her parent’s will found out that I had a law degree. They employed me to handle her case, fortunately. I did a clean job of her case and the law firm decided to keep me on.

I didn’t know that I would see her again a few years later. Mr Marsh, my new boss, decided that he wanted help on his first case as manager of the law firm. He would handle the case in person but he would appreciate someone working on the case in the background. He picked me for this task.  This case was the one of a fight over rights to a song created by three teenage girls. The band who stole the song was One Direction. It was only after the case had finished that I realised that one of the girls was Jane Smith, only she had changed her name since we had last met. When I asked her if she was the same person, she told me that no one called her that name anymore and that her new name was Jane Hamilton. Mr Marsh had asked me if I would be interested in being the new band’s official manager, since he knew the band would need someone like me to guide them. I wonder if he knew that the girls would be such a huge success.

After the performance at the UK Pop awards, I was glad in a way that I could get Jane alone. I needed to warn her about Harry: he was a threat to her.

Harry had dropped his phone when he was about to go on stage to rehearse with Jane and the others. I was going to give it back to him when I noticed an email alert come up. The email alert became my business when I saw that it was about Jane. Naturally curious, I opened the email (his phone had been unlocked when he dropped it). The email was an email alert from Google showing that Jane had been mentioned in an article on the internet. Why would he have an email alert on Jane? I decided that the answer may have been hidden elsewhere on his phone. Putting leather gloves on, like I was a spy in an action movie, I trawled through his phone for an answer. He had pages on his web browser bookmarked about Jane. I carried on searching, he may have just been interested in her career, and after all, she was a part of ending his. Then I found that he had downloaded pictures from the Internet of her. His browser history showed that he had made several visits to her Tumblr pages and asked an anonymous question on Wikianswers asking the general public if anyone knew her mobile number or where she lived. More and more evidence pointed towards an obsession. He was stalking her. Stalking was a criminal offence and I could have reported him immediately, but I decided that I needed to show Jane first. She might not want to be involved in another legal battle.

I caught up with Jane, quickly after talking to Harry. She was standing in an empty dressing room with the door slightly ajar. I knocked.

“Who is it?” She asked with a shaky voice.

“It’s only me, Matt.” I pushed the door open to reveal Jane just simply sitting staring at the cream wall, in complete darkness. “Jane, are you ok? You ran off so quickly after the performance that everyone was worried about you.”

“I’m not upset. I just… We have to go sit at the table soon, so shut up and I’ll just tell you why I’m upset. You took Harry’s phone… and I’m just so confused right now because I don’t know…” her voice faded into distant sobs. I could tell that she didn’t like that fact that I was spying on Harry, but why did she care so much? I then realised that if nothing romantic was going on between them, then it must be somehow related to her past. I didn’t need to ponder this any longer as she gave me the answer. “You’re acting like my parents always did. Always poking their noses into my business. Harry is MY friend, which means I trust him. Just don’t you go ending up how my parents did!”

With that she stormed out of the dressing room and into the open. I couldn’t just let this go.

“WAIT! There’s something important I need to show you!” She turned to face me and I extended my hand, holding out Harry’s phone. I scrolled through everything I had found about her on Harry’s phone showing her picture after picture of her and bookmarks on websites, even the question he had asked on Wikianswers. “Look, I’m only showing you this because I’m worried for you. I only came across this by accident, honest. Just enjoy your night tonight then stay away from him, you hear me?”

Jane seemed to be absorbed by what I had found. She looked up at me in disbelief, and then her emotions quickly changed. She squeezed my hand tightly and whispered “I’m sorry and I should thank you.”

I squeezed her back and told her that I was ‘so proud of her’.

A/N: So I tried a different perspective for this chapter (Matthew's, the manager) I would love to hear what you think, and whether you think it should have been told through Jane's POV, so please comment if possible :)