Raising Laila

Chapter 14 - Jade

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the prettiest smiles hide the deepest secrets, the brightest eyes have cried the most tears, the kindest hearts have felt the most pain

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January 7, 2018: 2.56am. 

Jade was wide awake. 

She had barely slept all night, in fact she had barely slept at all since the car accident in September. And now the sleep that she was getting had gotten less since she was checking on Laila at least twice a night. 

The dark circles under her eyes, that she tried to hide with makeup were now far too dark to be hidden and all of her energy was going straight in to Laila leaving nothing left for herself. 

The first few weeks after she returned home she was working, jumping from meeting to meeting and rehearsals and photoshoots. She had no time to actually grieve and give herself time to recover and now while she wasn't working she had a six year old to look after making time to herself even rarer except at almost three in the morning. 

Her grief was keeping her up at night, the only time she had to think about things. And it would all get too much, everything would, Laila and work and her Mum and Dad. She was in over her head but had absolutely no idea what to do about it! 

Working it out in her head, Jade realised that if she fell asleep now she would have exactly three and a half hours sleep before Laila woke up at about half past six. It wasn't long enough, but it was all she was going to get. 

November 9, 2017: 1.52pm. 

"Jade? Earth to Jade?" Leigh Anne waved her hands in front of Jade's face halfway through the admin meeting. 

"Wha? What? Oh, right. I'm here," Jade said zoning back in to the room. 

Since Jade got home from South Shields, it had been a whirlwind of meetings, rehearsals and more meetings. Currently they were rescheduling the tour dates that they postponed after the accident. The last month of Europe dates were going to be rescheduled to February 2018, followed by dates in Japan. 

"Is that all alright, girls?" They were asked regarding the various dates and hectic schedule they would have from now until then rehearsing. 

The three other girls all replied in response but Jade was half asleep again and barely managed a nod. 

"Okay, well you can go then. Get some lunch and start rehearsals again tomorrow," 

'Thank you's' were heard from around the table, again nothing from Jade as the four girls decided to go to the cafe downstairs to get some lunch together. 

"Jade, are you okay?" Perrie asked concerned in the elevator down to the cafe. 

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'm just tired," She responded, her usual response to those kind of questions repeated over again. 

"You sure? No offence, but you look awful," Leigh Anne chimed in. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just need to get some more sleep," She explained. 

"Okay, well if you need anything, then you know you can just tell us," They tried to explain, but Jade wasn't one to really ask for help. 

November 10, 2017: 10.12pm. 

'As some of you may have heard...' 

Nope. Delete. 

'At the end of October, there was an accident in-'