When Saturn Returns | Jerrie

Chapter 18

PERRIE

After returning from their writing trip, the girls kept in touch and started planning for a proper reunion. They got the ball rolling on bringing a team together and got in touch with some people they wanted to get into the studio with to perfect the songs they'd written in Tenerife.

It feels like a little bit of a whirlwind to Perrie. It's much more on their own terms than when they first started out, but everything was still going really fast. Career-wise, she has no wish to slow it down. She has wanted the band back together officially as soon as possible for a while now, so she's happy that it's finally happening.

Relationship-wise, she's starting to feel herself panic a little bit. Jade is still very careful about letting other people know about their relationship and Perrie wants them to have more time to figure out what to do. She wants them to have the time to go public on their own terms. Or, rather, on Jade's terms. If it was up to her, Perrie would've made them public already. But, she does understand Jade's apprehension. Or she tries to, at least.

Realistically, she knows that they have time. She knows that they're not announcing their reunion tour tomorrow and an album will take even longer. But it doesn't feel like it. She doesn't want their relationship to be a publicity stunt for Little Mix. She wants people to know that it's real and she's afraid that people will misinterpret if the two are too close together.

Jade told her that she's getting there and to just have patience, but Perrie is not a very patient person. She hates feeling like she's keeping a big part of herself hidden from the outside world.

And now she's going to have to pretend to be perfectly happy for a weekend with some of her best friends, who, now that she thinks about it, don't know anything yet.

"Pez, what's wrong?" Jade asks at breakfast. Perrie knows she should be excited about going on Georgie's bachelorette trip, but she's sulky and thoughtful and Jade has obviously picked up on it.

"Nothing," she smiles, but she knows that Jade will see through her.

"Nope, something's definitely wrong," Jade states, as expected. "Come on, you'll feel better once you let it out."

Perrie sighs. She really doesn't want to bring this up now. She should just wait until after the weekend when they have time to hash it out.

"No, it's fine," Perrie says, hoping Jade will let it go.

But of course, she doesn't. "Pez. Tell me," she almost commands.

"I don't think I will," she says, still frowny. "And I have to leave in twenty minutes and I will only feel worse knowing that this thing will be unresolved."

Jade's face drops, the shock clear. "Okay, now you've got me worried," she says and Perrie can't help but feel bad for her. She knows that not telling Jade what's on her mind will only make her feel nervous and uncertain. And they can't talk to each other the entire weekend, which makes it even worse timing.

Perrie groans and hides her face in her hands. "Noo, now I've made you feel bad and I don't want to leave on a bad note."

"Is it that bad?" Jade asks quietly and Perrie feels a careful hand on her back, softly stroking up and down.

Perrie raises her head and looks at her desperately. "It's not. It's just the same discussion we've had since the beginning. And at first, I agreed that we should keep this to ourselves, but I've been struggling to do that recently and I..." She stops talking, shaking her head because the way her train of thought is going isn't helpful at all and completely the opposite of what she wants.

"You what?" Jade asks, a little scared and her hand disappears from Perrie's back.

Perrie takes a deep breath before answering, trying to pull her thoughts together and form a coherent sentence that will keep the damage to a minimum. "I was going to say that I don't know if we're going to work out if we keep going on like this." Jade visibly startles at that and leans back in shock before Perrie quickly continues. "But I love you and I want to fight for us. And if you're not ready, I'll wait until you are. Even if it's hard."