Page 1 of Jade
Chapter One
Olivia
“I love you so frigging much!” Jade, my sisters wraps her arms around me and shouts in my ear. I hug her back and kiss her cheek.
It’s her bachelorette party. She’s allowed to be outrageously drunk.
“I love you, too,” I tell her. “And I’m so happy for you.”
She lowers her voice to a course whisper and tilts her head to the side. If I didn’t know her better, I might think she was about to puke. But this is the face Jade pulls when she’s had one too many glasses of wine and wants to tell me a secret.
“You’re my favorite sister,” she says, hiccuping loudly and then stumbling backward into a table.
“Hey!” Hazel, one of my other sisters, steps in. “What about me?”
“You’re my favourite, too!” Jade says, regaining her balance and then looking at Rose, my third sister. “And you Rose,” she slurs. “You’re all my favourites. And I just really wanted to tell you that.” Tears well up in her eyes. She puts her hand to her chest. Her bottom lip starts to wobble uncontrollably. “You guys!” she blurts. “I don’t know what I’d do without you!”
“To Jade!” Rose shouts, lifting her glass in the air and whooping and hollering like she’s at a rodeo.
I pretend to take another sip of wine, and then hug Jade once more. “I really have to get going,” I say. “I love you. Have an amazing night. Come into the bakery tomorrow when you're out of bed and I’ll make you an extra special breakfast.”
“See!” Jade slaps Hazel on the back so hard she flies backward, hits a table, knocks all the drinks off it, and somehow manages to take out a group of men who look like they’re all linebackers. “That’s why she’s my favourite. Getting up early. Opening up the shop.” Tears start to well up in her eyes again. I slowly edge away from her. If I don’t escape now, I’ll end up staying up all night, and then I won’t wake up at four o’clock in the morning to go to work. “If it wasn’t for her…” she swings her arm to the spot I was standing in, but I’m no longer there. She looks around. Confused. Then spots me on her other side. Still facing her, but now only a matter of feet from the exit. “To Jade!” She says, lifting her drink in the air. And then, in a slightly lower tone of voice. “I think I just wet myself.”
Outside, the cold night air hits me like a slap in the face. I love my sisters. More than anything in the world. But it’s no fun being out when you’re the person who has to get up super early in the morning and start work.
I walk over to a bus stop and sit down. My Uber says it’s still a few minutes out, and I’m not the kind of gal who will just stand around for no reason when there’s a perfectly good seat waiting for me. Even if it does kind of smell of piss.
Jade and Rose are already sending me a stream of crazy photos, telling me how much they miss me. I message them back with a huge smile on my face.
Half the stuff they’re saying doesn’t even make any sense. Just a gobbledegook, hodgepodge of random letters. But somehow, through sisterly intuition, I can kind of understand the meaning, and it makes it all the funnier.
I’m literally sitting there laughing to myself like I’m at an Eddie Murphy concert when I notice a shadow fall across my legs.
“Excuse me, miss.”
I look up, and my hand instantly flies to my mouth. The man in front of me has the scariest face I’ve ever seen in all my life. He’s like something out of a horror movie. His cheeks are sucked in. There’s a huge tooth sticking out from his bottom lip. It nearly hits his nose. Which isn’t as difficult as it sounds, because his big, droopy nose - covered in spots and craters and veins - hangs down almost to his chin. Red-rimmed eyes glare at me. They’re open so wide it’s like he doesn’t even have any eyelids.
“Can you tell me the time?” he growls.
His hand shakes in front of him like he's trying to draw a picture in the air with his finger. I notice a wet patch spread down his leg and I think… oh my God, this man is literally pissing his pants in front of me.
I fumble for my phone, nervous as hell, and hoping my Uber turns up immediately.
I push my thumb to the fingerprint reader, and then, just as I’m about to tell him the time, he rips it from my hands, pushes me to the floor, grabs my bag, and runs off down the road with a surprising amount of speed.
I can hardly believe my eyes. My arm's wet, and when I look down, I realize I'm lying in a fresh little puddle exactly where the man was just standing.
I wretch. My stomach convulsing in disgust. Saliva fills my throat and I clamp my mouth shut. Forcing myself to keep the night’s drinks safely in my stomach.
It’s bad enough I’m covered in urine, I don’t need to add vomit to my outfit.
Then, as I’m getting back on my feet, I see a blue flash speed across the road. A policeman. And he’s sprinting towards the thief who just robbed me.
Unconsciously, I grab the little pendant on my necklace. I bite my lip. then…
Whack!
Chapter Two
