At All Costs || Jerrie

Chapter 5

Perrie
The mixtape Jade made for me back in high school was playing. So far I had heard five songs, each one of them bringing back thousands of memories.

At the moment I was listening to Bleeding Love, a song I had a strong hate/love-relationship with. Hated it, because it reminded me about the bad parts in my past. Loved it, because during the hard times, Jade told me to listen to it whenever I was in doubt or feared she'd leave me only to remind myself it wasn't going to happen.

It perfectly described how grossed out half of our school was when they found out Jade and I were dating.

We became targets. People we thought were our friends turned the other cheek. Even the teachers had a problem with us being together.

"Trying hard not to hear
But they talk so loud
Their piercing sounds fill my ears
Try to fill me with doubt
Yet I know that their goal
Is to keep me from falling

But nothing's greater than the rush that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness
I see your face
Yet everyone around me
Thinks that I'm going crazy, maybe, maybe

But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I..."

A single tear rolled down my right cheek. This specific part of the song hit so close to home, as it was the part Jade had wanted me to focus on as soon as I doubted us and started to think the people at school were right.

With the back of my hand, I wiped it away. Before I'd shed another tear, I filled my head with positive thoughts, focused on how our lives looked like now.

People accepted us and we had friends who had our backs and always lent us a hand whenever things got hard.

But most importantly, we were happy and confident in ourselves. We didn't doubt one another, nor questioned if our relationship was right or wrong. Because we knew, we knew being together was the right thing.

As soon as the song ended, I closed the sketchbook my mum and dad got me last Christmas and went to the kitchen.

When I got there and saw what the clock was, it hit me I had been drawing for almost four hours. Four hours!

Last time I spent so much time drawing was when I drew a portrait of Jade, who used the phrase "draw me like one of your french girls" to throw me off and get my mind on other things, things that caused a reddish colour to take place on my cheeks just by thinking about them.

I grabbed a highball glass from the cupboard above the sink and filled it with cold, delicious orange juice.

I gulped the juice, then I put the glass in the dishwasher and headed to the living room to continue drawing.

But right when I was about to collapse on the light grey couch, the doorbell rang.

"Coming!" I shouted, although the unknown visitor probably couldn't hear me.

When I arrived in the hallway I unlocked the door, without looking in the peephole first (which would aggravate Jade since she had this rule to always check who was knocking before opening the door).

Once I had swung the door open, an all too familiar young woman appeared. For being in the middle of April, she dressed lightly, wearing a white shirt and light blue denim shorts covering her body.

"Leigh-Anne!" I exclaimed happily.

"Hi, babe" she smiled.

She opened up her arms. With a smile on my face, I crashed into them. I had really missed her this week, so it was nice to have her showing up at my door.