#(they hate each other. they make out sloppy style. her boot knife has seen a lot of action. if you get what i mean-)

[sonicprim3d]

@determination-personified

Ian said Surge would nickname her "Sunshine" if she ever became a real permanent member of the Neo Diamond Cutters, thank you Ian.

[hazzasgayvodka]

29 * NO PEACE * 29

Impact: chapter 29

Chapter title song: No Peace - Sam Smith 

JESS

I stand in front of my dresser, gripping the edge of the wood with white knuckles. I look into the mirror, staring into my own bloodshot eyes. I don't know if I can do this. I look at the dangly diamond earrings in my ears and the giant necklace across my chest, all of it borrowed from Eliza.

My hands are clammy, shaking against the wood I'm leaning on, holding myself up on. I can feel the tears threatening to spill over my cheeks, but I breathe in, keeping them at bay in order to not mess up the makeup Sam just finished putting on my face. I dab under my eyes, my red lips trembling as I grab my purse and slide it over my shoulder.

I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror by the door, the red dress fitting me perfectly in all the right places. My heels match it perfectly. I almost look like myself, the most myself I've looked in weeks. My hair is shorter and more purple than red. Every time I saw it in the mirror it reminded me of him and how much he loved it, so I cut it off and dyed it. Sam said I was being rash, but I felt ages better after I did it.

I run my fingers down the red satin fabric of my dress as I slide my arms through my long black peak coat jacket. I look like a million bucks as I stare at myself in the mirror but inside I still feel empty. I'm wobbling on my heels, it feels like a single gust of wind could knock me over.

I know he'll be there tonight, he has to be. It's the night before the trip, the big company dinner to celebrate the new San Francisco location of Styles Publishing. My stomach feels sick as I head out the door and to my car. I can't imagine seeing him again, not after the wedding party. I didn't realize how horribly it would mess with my mind, how fast it could hinder my breathing.

I pull out of the parking lot and collect myself as I drive, following my GPS to a convention center down Seminole street. I park outside amongst a sea of BMWs and get out of the car, wobbly walking to the front doors. I'm greeted by staff in suits who offer to take my jacket, but I tuck it tighter against myself and push passed them.

I'm already on edge, looking around at the countless faces I don't recognize. A waiter approaches me with a platter of champagne flutes and I take two from the tray before he even asks if I'd like one. I down one of them in two sips and leave the empty glass on the table behind me. I hope it numbs me soon, flowing through my veins and making my head stop spinning.

I sip through the second glass, savoring the smooth taste as I walk around uneasily, searching anywhere and everywhere for just one familiar face. I hope to run into Lex or Vance soon as I position myself in one of the corners of the room and look out amongst the sea of people bustling around.

Suddenly, my eyes land on Audrie at the other end of the room. I spring up from my solemn position on the wall and walk to her, as fast as I can in these god forsaken heels. She smiles as I walk up to her, taking me in her arms and giving me a squeeze.

"So, you're coming with us then?" She asks excitedly.

"I am." I sigh, trying to sound as eager as I can.

"Why the change of heart?" She asks quizzically.

I don't have the heart to tell her that it's because Harry ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it with his stupid pair of boots. That every time I see him, my chest cavity feels like it's collapsing and suddenly I can't breathe let alone work.

"I don't have plans after school," I say thoughtfully, "This seems like a pretty good plan."

She nods, taking a drink of champagne from her own glass. She looks gorgeous too, standing in simple pumps with a white cocktail dress. It contrasts against her tanned skin beautifully, she looks effortlessly perfect.

"Well," She nods, gesturing to everyone filing into the ballroom as the doors are opened, "I guess we should get inside and snag a seat."

I follow her inside and stare in awe at the giant chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It's as big as the entire room and it matches the countless white and gold decorations on the tables placed around the ballroom. Audrie grabs my hand in the midst of the crowd and drags me to the table closest to the open bar. I laugh as she takes a seat and nods, clearly pleased with her choice.

Lex steps up to the front stage that all of the tables are surrounding with a mic in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other.

"Good evening everyone," He smiles, "I'm glad you're all here. Let's make this one to remember as we prepare ourselves for a great adventure tomorrow. Don't drink too much and don't be afraid to dance."

He grins, toasting the air and everyone cheers. He walks off the stage and music begins to play, lights illuminating the floor in the center of all the tables. I shake my head as he dances his way over to me and Audrie, sat in the corner.

"Well come on ladies, let's liven this thing up a bit," He laughs, "You two are the youngest, liveliest we've got."

"Maybe in a few more drinks." Audrie smirks, taking a sip of her peach Bellini through her straw.

Lex shakes his head and makes his way back to his table at the front of the room. I watch him take a seat and my eyes flicker to the person next to him. My stomach is in my throat as I stare at him, dressed in a black suit with a burgundy dress shirt underneath. The wind is knocked out of me as I watch him drink the last of his champagne and look around the room.

I divert my eyes as soon as he starts to turn and get up from the table to stand at the bar and order a double whiskey coke. I sit back down and Audrie frowns.

"We're supposed to be drinking champagne and fizzy fruity drinks," She huffs, taking another sip of her Bellini, "We're celebrating."

"I'll drink a spritzer right after this." I sigh, tipping my head back and letting the entire glass of liquid burn my throat.

She stares at me wide eyed before tipping her head back and finishing her Bellini, her sipping straw forgotten. She orders us each vodka sodas and despite hating them, I sip my down quickly, my view becoming hazier and soon I can't even see him on the other side of the room.

Eventually she drags me up from my seat and to the dance floor. A man I've never seen before asks me to dance and I nod, allowing him to put his hands on my waist and move me to the music. The world is blurring, moving faster than my mind can comprehend but I don't care. I melt into the numbness filling my body and welcome it with open arms. I embrace the sloppiness of the mystery man's actions, placing my hands over his to guide him with my hips.

I'm startled by the screeching sound of feedback from a microphone on the stage and I look up to see Harry at the front, the microphone gripped in his hand. His eyes are beyond glassy and he's swaying while he's standing still, another glass of champagne in his free hand.

"I'm Harry Styles," He introduces, "I'm head editor here and I'd like to make a speech."

His words slur out of his mouth to the point of being hardly intelligible. I can see Lex bounding over to the stage to get him off of it, but he puts his hand up and shakes his head.

"No Lex, let me do this," He sighs, his eyes fluttering closed as he raises his glass in the air, "To douchebag stepbrothers," He cheers and Lex cringes, "To deadbeat dads," He smirks, pointing his glass at me, "And to your biggest fear becoming your reality, losing your best friend, because you were stupid enough to fall in love with her."

His eyes latch onto mine as the words pour out of his mouth. His voice is malicious, cutting through me like a knife. The tears I've been trying so hard to hold back burst from my eyes. I turn away from him, wiping my eyes hastily and looking at my hands to see makeup smeared all over them. Audrie reaches for my arm but I pull away from her, running back towards the front and shoving through the bathroom door.

I grab onto the counter and steady myself, my sobs wracking through my body with a vengeance. My throat burns as my stomach threatens to empty its contents. I rock back and forth, using the counter as my stable base. I can hardly bring myself to look into the mirror and see what I look like.

My eyeliner is running down my cheeks and creating white lines in my foundation and blush. My lipstick is beyond smudged and I cry harder as I realize I can't go back out there looking like this. Audrie comes bursting in in a few seconds, wrapping an arm around me and trying to console me.

"He fell off the stage," She says, "Lost his footing and hit the ground."

I wish I could say that the image rectifies my night, but it does anything but that. I find myself worried for him, even after all he's done. Even after he got up in front of everyone and said those things just to hurt me.

HARRY

I wake up in a pile of my own vomit on my couch with no memory of how I got home. I can vaguely remember Lex driving me home and throwing up in his car. I remember him saying that he was serious, I can't go to San Francisco like this.

Suddenly, I remember her. I remember watching her dancing with another guy. She was swaying, too much alcohol coursing through her system. She was in that red dress, my favorite. Whenever my eyes landed on her she looked nervous and I had to nearly bolt my feet to the ground to not charge her and pour my heart out.

I sit up quickly and look around, staring down to see myself still fully clothed in last night's suit. I shake my head as I stand up and hear a knock at the door. I walk over to the door lazily, dragging my feet as my head pounds in my eardrums making the ringing worse.

I pull open the door and I'm surprised to see Ryland standing outside. I want to shove his face through the dry wall and he shoves past me before I can get the chance to slam the door in his face.

"Listen, I know you're pissed, I fucked up, I shouldn't have helped Zack," He rambles, his hands held up in surrender, "But you need an intervention man!"

"I don't need anything from you." I shout, restricting myself from picking him up and tossing him through a window.

"Harry, you've still got it. You're intelligent and handsome, you've got your whole life ahead of you and you're throwing it all away over some girl!"

"She isn't some girl, Ryland!" I shout, surprising myself with how quickly the adrenaline fueled me.

"Then go get her, man," He sighs, his voice strained, "What are you doing here?"

"Because it's not that easy." I huff.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair in frustration with my unwillingness to listen to him. I can tell he's near done trying to convince me.

"What do you think we'd be doing if we never got into this, Styles? He asks, his voice low and his eyes glazed over.

"I'd be with her."

I don't catch it before it's out of my mouth and suddenly I can't breathe. Ryland nods his head as if he understands. Her face taunts me behind my eyelids. I want him to say something to fill the silence, but he just stares. I need the words out of the air, I need something else to repeat over and over in my head.

"You were in love with her." He says finally.

The words knock the wind out of me. They sting like nothing else, like fire against my skin. He's wrong, he's got to be wrong.

"No I wasn't-"

"Don't lie to yourself because of me, you did, and Zack ruined that, we both did." He seethes.

I look at him out of the corner of my eye, but he doesn't move. His eyes are trained in front of him, the gears turning in his head. I block out his words, I erase them from my mind like I erased her from my skin.

"I'm sorry." He says, his voice whispered.

"Don't-"

"No, it's my fault you lost the only thing going for you. She was good for you and I hated that I was jealous, we both were!" He shouts, his focus finally breaking from the wall, his bloodshot eyes locking onto mine, "You only meet a girl like that once in your life and I fucked it up for you."

"It wasn't you, it was us, we didn't fit-"

"You two are like a fucking jigsaw puzzle and you know it."

My mind is exasperated by Ryland's sudden change in character as I open my mouth, trying to find any sum of words to counter him. I'm cut off as the door opens and slams shut once again, my head whipping up to see Jason standing in my doorway.

I take a step forward, trying to gauge how upset he is with me. He surprises me as he grabs me around my back and pulls me to him. His embrace is strong, squeezing me against him, his fist balling up around the fabric of the back of my shirt.

"You fucking asshole, I thought you were dead." He says, his voice cracking.

I half-heartedly laugh, patting his back as he holds me tighter, letting out a sigh of relief. I know he was worried, I should have called him but he's still tied to her. I needed to completely separate myself as much as I could what with the wedding party and work. No matter how much I distance myself she still seems to show up everywhere.

He holds me back from him, taking me in, assessing the damage I'm sure. He purses his lips when he inspects my eyes shaking his head.

"Would you please back me up and tell him he's being a fucking idiot?" Ryland huffs, joining us.

"It doesn't matter, it's over!" I shout, turning to him and hoping he shuts up already.

"Of course it does! If you want something you've got to fight for it!" Jason says, shaking me by my shoulders, "You of all people should know that!"

"What if they don't want to be fought for?" I ask, barely meeting his eyes from underneath my hair that's fallen into my eyes.

"Then you're not fighting hard enough."

JESS

I walk over to my dresser after getting out of the shower. It's still early, six in the morning. I have to be at the airport by eight. My mind is swimming in numbness, so many thoughts swirling in my brain that I can't seem to distinguish one from another. How am I supposed to feel about this? I should be happy right? And I am, but not the way I should be.

I'm happy because I get to travel the city of San Francisco with my very best friend. I'm happy because I'm living one of my greatest dreams, I'm traveling. I'm happy that I'm going, that I'm taking a huge step towards a successful future with Styles Publishing but every time I really contemplate leaving, it feels like a dagger in my chest.  

It seems the words one month keep reappearing in my mind. Half of me wonders how it could possibly be that long already, and the other half swears it's been much longer. Some days feel like eons and others go by in seconds.

I realize then that I miss him. Each day he's been gone has felt like a bullet hole in my chest, and whenever I try to pull it out another one takes its place. I miss him so much that looking at him hurts because all it does is bring back everything I've ever felt for him and suddenly I can't breathe. I've seen him at the office, but I always turn my head. I can't bring myself to meet his eyes, to let him suck me in like he's done before.

That's the thing about him I suppose, his eyes. His face. His lips. His freckles. His jaw. He is so beautiful. He is so lovely in his own conventional way that everyone else are flecks of brown and grey. He is wildflowers in June, the eye of a hurricane, city lights at midnight, sunlight coming through a window. He is nothing manufactured, nothing plastic. His eyes are formed from stars and his freckles are marks of Earth sprayed across his skin.

I can still picture his face; every angle, every line, every indentation. I studied it every time i got the chance. I studied the way he furrowed his brows in concentration and bit his lip. I studied the hole where his lip ring goes and the curve of his cheek bones. The freckle on the right side of his chin and the bleariness to his eyes when he first wakes up. I've memorized the gravelly sound of his voice in the early hours of the morning and the way his hot breath works its way into his words when he whispers.

I remember it all and it exhausts me. To know that despite everything he's put me through, he is still the only thought in my mind. To know that even after everything we've been through I can never erase him from me because he is engraved in my mind. His name does something to me. Every time I hear it my throat closes up as if I'd said it. My heart starts beating faster and suddenly it feels as though I can't breathe. How does he do this to me?

I want to erase him from me completely. I want to scrub him from my skin, scrub him from my mind. I don't want to think about him anymore, I want closure.

I realize that that's the problem,

I deserve an ending.

We deserve an ending.

Even if that means sitting in silence, screaming at the top of our lungs, making love on the soft cotton sheets, or fucking on the rough tiled floor.

We deserve an ending.