The show must go on Part II.

Chapter 8 - the fronts harden

I don't even know where to begin. I'm so sorry I left you all hanging for so long. I promised you a while ago I'll never leave a story unfinished and I intend to stick to that. But with my new job time was so limited in the past months that I just couldn't write properly. I'm back now and I am really trying my best, but can't promise you frequent updates. So from now on I'll just update as I go. Hope you like this new chapter though! ♥️

Narrator POV

"Okay," Jesy says slowly, trying with great difficulty to stay calm, for everyone's sake. "Okay, now let's all just take a deep breath and calm down and..."

"I am calm," Perrie interrupts her.

"Sure," Jesy says sarcastically. "Then we'll all calm down even more and..."

"I am calm."

"Okay..." Jesy says again, closing her eyes before looking pleadingly at Leigh.

"Jade and I are going to go get breakfast and..." she tries in a calm tone to leave Jesy and Perrie alone, but she too is interrupted, "I don't give a fuck what she does."

Leigh stops abruptly, wanting to give Jade a sympathetic look, but suddenly worrying for other reasons. Jade doesn't look at her, she is transfixed with a stare into the distance. Leigh takes a step towards her, touching her on the arm before she hears Jade's whimpering voice, "I'm so sorry."

With those words, she sprints towards the bathroom and slams the door shut. Loud gagging noises are followed by an awkward silence until Leigh-Anne walks into the bathroom without comment and Jesy looks worriedly at the blonde's face in front of her. She sees so many emotions all at once. Anger spreading through her body like a blazing fire. But she also sees the inner conflict she seems to have. So used to be the one rushing to Jade's aid when she is unwell that it physically hurts her to just sit and not listen to every instinct in he. Throwing up is particularly bad. How many hours has she spent holding her hair back, stroking her back to comfort her. Her face twitches with each loud gag, her gaze fixed on the door to the bathroom, angry, unsettled, sad and yet so full of love.

"Pez, look..."

"No," she's quick. "I've been thinking about this all night, okay? It's the only way."

"Don't you think you should sleep on it for a few nights?" suggests Jesy. "Remember when I said that? How pissed you were? How you came to me and gave me hell?"

"I did that for her," Perrie explains quietly, quickly lowering her gaze. "And that was a completely different situation."

"It was," Jesy quickly agrees, could smack herself for finding such a miserable comparison.

"But...you love the band too," she reminds her then. "Don't you think leaving it all would only hurt yourself?"

"It hurts less than staying," she says meekly, wiping the many tears from her face that she has long since been unable to control.