Under Your Skin | Jude Bellingham

019

Setting my cup down on the table, the steam still rising from the dark liquid inside, I looked towards the door as a gust of air crept under my skin. The woman who strolled in wasn't who I was waiting patiently for in the quaint cafe I'd happened to come across one afternoon. I was surprised I'd never visited this place before — I'd lived here my whole life, yet this was the first time I'd heard of it. I seized the opportunity to take in my surroundings, taking in the slow-turning ceiling fans above, the large windows, and the small glasses of yellow carnation flowers placed on each table.

I took a sip of my drink, letting it creep over my tastebuds and down my throat. My eyes trailed over to the ticking clock behind the counter. It was after one — the person I was waiting for was late. I let out a heavy sigh. These days, time was my enemy. All everyone ever told me was to 'give it time, you'll move on eventually.' I was still waiting for the day when thinking about Jude didn't bring me so much pain. Even the casual mention of his name in a conversation had my eyes brimming with tears.

The little bell above the door jingled again, and this time Jadon Sancho walked in. He immediately clocked me sitting in the corner of the room, and his face lit up with a smile. "Hey, Jadon!" I beamed at him, standing up to hug him.

"Hannah," he grinned, "it's so good to see you."

We made casual chit-chat for the next few minutes, taking the time to catch up on the events that had happened in each other's lives since the last time we saw each other. Jadon had in fact decided to go back to Borussia Dortmund on loan for the rest of the season, and it made me happy to see him so excited about reuniting with some of his old teammates.

"How have things been with you?" Jadon asked me.

"Oh, you know, same as usual," I gave him a dismissive reply.

Jadon tilted his head to the side as he looked at me. "I'm going to assume that means things have been shit."

I laughed. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. But enough about me...when do you leave for Dortmund?"

"Tomorrow morning. I've gotta be honest, I still haven't finished packing."

"Oh Jadon," I grinned.

He took a bite of his food and then finished chewing before speaking again. "Now I know you didn't just call me for a catchup," Jadon said, "so you want to tell me about what's really going on?"

I anxiously messed with a loose thread on my jumper. "That's not true, I wanted to see you," I told him.

"Yes, but I know there's something else you wanted to ask me, so tell me. I'm here to help."

"I wanted to know if you'd heard from Jude recently?" Hayley, Trent, and Jobe had stopped discussing Jude in front of me, and whenever I asked them about him, they refused to tell me anything. It was driving me crazy not knowing how he was. The last interaction we'd had didn't exactly go smoothly, with me blurting out how I felt about him and him not giving me any indication how he felt about that revelation aside from making a swift exit, so that meant we didn't really talk anymore. It'd only been a couple of weeks, but it felt like it'd been months since I'd last seen him. Really what I wanted to know was if he and Grace had finally gone ahead and made things official, that way I could have some form of closure to finally move on.

"Jude's okay," Jadon answered. "He's finally learning how to drive," he added with a laugh.

"That's good," I said with a slight smile.

"He was actually asking about you the other day."

"He was?"

"Yeah. He wanted to know how you were after the incident on New Year's."