How hard could it be? • LM / SS

Chapter 85

                 "Couldn't really love you
                                anymore,
                  you'd become my ceiling."

Tw: binge eating

Jade rolled her eyes, sliding across the button to ignore another one of sixteen missed calls. If someone denied your call that many times, you think they would take the hint that you didn't want to talk to them, but apparently not. And Lydia, Scott and Melissa all classified as people she didn't have the head for right now.

She used her straw to stir around the cream that was filled halfway to the top, the rest being full of chocolate milkshake.

Yes, she could have been helping with the nogitsune or seeing if Ethan was okay, but to put it simply, she couldn't care less. All she needed was some time to herself, before she said something she would regret- or even worse. So, here she was, eating her seventh apple pie from this, surprisingly wonderful diner, and downing her fifth milkshake.

"You all right, honey?"

Jade glanced up from the table that her elbow was resting on, checking to see who was talking.

There was a woman behind the counter, an eyebrow raised expectedly. She was tall and slender, her skin a shade of golden brown. She had ebony braids that brushed down her back and off her shoulders as well as a playful smile on her lips. She was wearing the standard light blue and yellow uniform that she had jazzed up with iron-on patches and pins.

"Just a bad day is all," Jade smiled half-heartedly, returning to stirring the contents of the glass cup in front of her. The woman must have thought she was a right mess, the way she came in here and spent a full thirty dollars on food and milkshakes.

"Boyfriend trouble? Girlfriend? Fling? All of the above?" she rested her chin in her hand, leaning forward to talk to the blonde. To be fair, she looked like she could use someone to talk to. And if there was one thing Emery was good at, it was making cookies and dishing out advice on the side.

Jade laughed lightly, surprisingly feeling her mood lift slightly. Maybe the change in scenery and people had helped a bit. Okay, maybe it had helped a lot. "Girlfriend. Fling. I don't know what you'd call it, to be completely honest."

Emery hummed along in understanding, tapping her wedding ring against the marble. "I know how that can feel. I had a girlfriend once when I was younger, acted a bit like that. Blew hot and cold like the worst climate change you'd ever meet."

"Yup," Jade sighed, taking a sip out of the glass, while also trying to think of how to explain it without going into too much detail or being too annoying. "It's kinda hard to explain. Like, something will happen and then we won't talk about it ever again, like it never happened. And she has a boyfriend and I don't think it's fair what we're doing. Basically I confronted her about it and told her to choose; me or him. Then she said it was all a drunken mistake and I left. Huh. Wasn't that hard to explain."

Emery grabbed a chair from behind her, sitting down on the opposite side of the counter. Calling over her shoulder, she screamed for another member of staff. A young guy turned up behind her, before she waved him off to serve a customer that had been waiting in line. Yup. She lived for the drama. "Want my advice?"

Jade nodded, desperate for some help. Hey, people that were older than you apparently had more life experience, so it would benefit in some ways! Even though the woman only looked in her late twenty's, that counted as older- to her, anyway. Besides, it could be better to have an outsiders view to make sure you weren't overreacting.

"Sometimes it can be hard for people to accept who they are. It sounds like that's what's happening with your girlfriend. Maybe she's scared about what people will think about her and that's why she completely avoids the topic like the plague. And maybe she's worried about what her boyfriend will
think and how she's meant to explain it to him and so many other things. But your feelings are valid, too. You deserve to be loved in full, not some thing that gets cast to the side and hidden in a corner. That girl should be shouting it from the rooftops when she's ready. She also can't expect you to wait for her but you can't expect her to come out, either. I think you both need to sit down and talk it through, without having all the anger present. A mature conversation."