Doing Alright // Ben Hardy

xv. real life

It had been a couple of weeks since Jasmine and Lucy had drunkenly embarrassed themselves in the work group chat and a lot had happened since then. Well for Jasmine it had.

She wasn't sure if it was the fact they say 'drunken words are sober thoughts' and the fear of Richard leaving her had slowly seeped into reality and it was constantly on her mind making her distracted at work. Or the reality of when her and Richard were in the company of one another it was like two strangers were sitting in a room together and not partners/significant others/lovers of over two years.

Jasmine had noticed that even though Richard was now back home in London and there were seeing each other a lot more than they previously had over the last couple of months. That when they tried to hold conversation, you could cut the tension with a knife and when they weren't hanging in uncomfortable silence, they were screaming at one another.

Jasmine had previously thought her and Richard held a pretty good track record for not arguing over the time they had been together. They weren't that couple to argue over petty things, both being quite level headed. Richard thought the exact same thing but now they were breaking records on how quickly they could start their next meaningless argument.

***

It wasn't until the last week of filming before Christmas and Jasmine had come onto set; tear marks settled across her cheeks as she walked into the make-up trailer and plonked herself down next to Rami; who side-eyed her from his position as he was having his prosthetic added to his own nose. He simply just reached out his hand, feeling Jasmine's small hand encase itself in his big one. It wasn't long before he felt his right arm start to shake knowing his best friend was crying and he needed to do something because this wasn't healthy anymore. Taking her in his arms the moment his make up artist was finished, he kissed the top of her head and pulled her close as his heart broke for his closest friend.

Then it happened the day after, Jasmine had arrived on set after another pointless argument with Richard and this time more than just Rami noticed her mood. It was inevitable that Rami most likely told Lucy and Jasmine was okay with that, she was also one of her best friends. But it was when Gwil, Ben and Joe were also starting to get more suspicious and it was distracting them at work too she knew she'd have to do something sooner rather than later. The last straw was when Allen asked if she was okay whilst she picked up an apple in catering and she burst into tears, frightening poor Allen to death. Lucy decided an intervention was needed.

That week's annual wine night Lucy made sure was capped to one glass and substituted the rest with ice cream. Nothing was better for a broken heart than eating your body weight in Häagen-Dazs pralines and cream. Lucy sat and listened to Jasmine tell her her troubles whilst crying into her ice cream about how she thinks it's over but she doesn't want to have this conversation six days before Christmas because she would be in a foul mood and didn't want to ruin the holidays for everyone else. Lucy nodded along and chimed in when she thought was necessary but the one thing she was stern about was Jasmine finding time to sort this shit out once Christmas is over, because it was time she put herself first instead of everyone else.

The second part of her intervention was making sure the boys knew to not push things too far and she left them to their own devices knowing each of them individually would know exactly what to do.

***

Jasmine walked into her trailer two days later to find a gorgeous bouquet of flowers sitting on her dresser. She stopped, eying them and picked up the small card next to the vase.