Fix Me || Jerrie

Chapter 12

Warning: mentions of rape and abuse

I took a deep breath and tried to find the courage to speak to Jade. I'd tried for so long to repress the memories so it was difficult now to actively dig them up but I wanted Jade to know. My eyes locked on hers and the patience within them and the encouraging smile she gave me helped.

"Okay, so... errr... a couple of years ago I had a boyfriend and he was honestly perfect." I watched Jade frown slightly at the mention of my ex boyfriend but I didn't dwell on it; I simply continued with my story. Jade knew how I felt about her anyway and if she didn't then I'd tell her afterwards. "He played football and he was smart and kind and he was just perfect, treated me like a princess. My parents loved him."

At the beginning everything had been perfect, but it had all changed very quickly. "I'd been with Ethan just over a year when things started to change. He had an older brother, James, and they were so close; I'd never known a pair of brothers that were as close as Ethan and James. Ethan looked up to James so much, he idolised him, wanted to be exactly like him and James would do anything for his little brother. But then James was killed in an accident. The parents of one of the boys in our year had gone away so he had a huge party and I wasn't feeling very well so Ethan decided to take me home but he'd been drinking so he called James. James was hit by a drunk driver on the way to come and get us, he died in surgery at the hospital."

I could feel tears pooling in the corner of my eyes and I squeezed my eyes shut to try and contain them. James had been like an older brother to me too. Ethan's parents were always working and I used to spend so much time round his house that James began to see me as his little sister and he became a big brother to me. He used to tease me and annoy me and Ethan with jokes like any brother would but he was fiercely protective and between him and Ethan I was always looked out for.

"Hey, are you okay Perrie? If it's too hard to talk about then you don't have to tell me, it's not going to change anything." Jade's voice was soft and gentle and the concern in it wrapped around me like a blanket. I slowly shock my head and ran a hand through my hair.

"No, it's fine. I want to tell you; it's just difficult remembering it all. I haven't thought about it in so long and now it's just a little bit overwhelming. It still hurts to think about James because I'd loved him like a brother and his death had been awful. He'd come to pick us up at 2 in the morning because I wasn't very well, no questions asked and no complaints: he'd just woken up and got in his car and then he died."

"He sounds like he was pretty amazing and a really good big brother." Jade said comfortingly.

"He was and his death had been hard on me but it had absolutely destroyed Ethan, it broke him. He was completely and utterly devastated. I remember the night it happened: we'd been waiting for James for about 45 minutes and it should of only took him 15 at most to get to us so Ethan called him to see where he was. A paramedic answered the phone. They hadn't been able to identify him at the scene so they'd had no way of contacting anyone so we were the first people who knew what had happened. When Ethan told them he was his brother and asked what had happened they told him to call his parents and get to the hospital. They said there'd been an accident and that it was bad and we needed to get there as quick as we could. I'd never in my life seen Ethan so scared. We got a taxi to the hospital and he clung tightly to my hand the whole way, he never once let go. That was the only time I'd ever seen him truly terrified, the look of fear and desperation in his eyes haunted me for months afterwards." I paused to take a deep breath and try and control my emotions.

"It got worse once we got to the hospital because they wouldn't tell us anything, they needed to wait for his parents. Ethan was shouting at the staff and demanding to know if his brother was okay. He wouldn't calm down and he wouldn't listen to anyone but he still wouldn't let go of my hand. Finally his parents arrived and they told us James was in surgery and that we'd just have to wait but that it wasn't looking good. He had massive internal bleeding on the brain and huge blood loss as well as a punctured lung and a couple of cracked ribs. There was still hope though and Ethan clung to that like his life depended on it. When the doctors told us he hadn't made it Ethan shattered, he shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and he was never the same again. It was like a part of him had died with James, the most important person in his life was gone and he didn't know how to survive without him. He cried all night, like proper heart wrenching tears and I held him, he begged me never to let go and I promised him I wouldn't. I've never seen anyone so devastated and so broken and I hope to never see it again because it was awful. Ethan was the lad that didn't cry, that night was the first time I saw him cry and I only ever saw him cry once more after that. It was after that night that everything changed."