Passionate Protector

“Are you coming tonight?” Cora’s anticipation could be sensed through the phone, and Jade could almost imagine her crossing her thin fingers and her big blue eyes wide with hope. 

“I don’t know Cora.” Jade sighed, gripping her phone tightly in her left hand as she flipped through pages in her textbook with the other. “I have a ton of homework to do.” 

“That’s a lie and you know it, Jade Daniels.” Cora scolded, and yet again Jade could imagine her best friend jutting out her hip and furrowing her brows. “It’s the first week of school, there is no homework yet.” 

“Some of us don’t just take remedial classes because we’re too lazy to actually try.” Jade said, annoyed by Cora’s persistence, though she insisted it was one of her best qualities. 

Cora and Jade had been best friends since freshman year of highschool. Jade would sit alone during lunch, at a table near the garbage cans. And Cora would be surrounded by football players and dancers, laughing and joking and being seemingly unbothered about everything. Then one day, Cora didn’t go and sit down with her friends at her usual table, instead she brought her lunch box and plopped it down at Jade’s table. “I’m Cornelia. But if you call me Cornelia I’ll probably burn you alive. So just call me Cora.” And ever since then, Cora came to her table. 

Their friendship grew since freshman year. Cora was still ridiculously popular, going to parties, hooking up with boys, auditioning for plays and becoming captain of the soccer team. She was still well known for how amazing she was at being an average highschooler. But now she was also known as the girl who ditched all of her friends to go hang out with the weirdo by the garbage cans. And eventually not only at lunch, but during classes, at parks, at restaurants, and each other’s houses. Soon enough, Cora and Jade became inseparable. 

Cora had always tried and failed to get Jade to do things with people other than just her. But Jade didn’t like people. She was untrusting and antisocial, and if people didn’t want to be with her, she didn’t want to be with them either. Cora and her cat Rufus were the only exceptions to her rule. But that didn’t stop Cora from trying. And she was trying yet again. 

“You know I don’t like parties Cora.” Jade whined. She had been to a party once. 

It was sophomore year, and after much begging from Cora, Jade had finally agreed to go. Jace Olnman, a senior, was throwing a party at his house as his parents were on a business trip. Cora showed up at Jade’s house two hours before the party in a black leather skirt and her mother’s high heels, her blonde hair tied out of her face, and a ridiculous amount of red lipstick on her lips. 

“Tell me you’re not wearing that.” Cora nodded down to Jade’s skinny jeans and sweatshirt in disgust. And fifteen minutes later, Jade was wearing a light blue skirt that fell a little higher than she was comfortable with and a black crop top that seemed too short to be deemed a shirt. 

Half an hour later, Cora, with the driver’s license she had received one week prior, drove both girls to the party. Even from outside, the pounding music could be heard from the ridiculously large house in the ridiculously nice neighborhood. 

The inside of the house might have once looked nice, but was currently trashed by teenagers. At least one hundred people were shoved into the large living room, a huge sound system blasting trashy rap music that shook the floors. Kids with red solo cups clutched in their hands grinded on each other and made out in dark corners. Jade had to admit it was one of the weirdest things she had ever seen. Why do people find this enjoyable? 

Within the first five minutes, Cora had disappeared into the crowd. Cora had always been a socialite. She knew everyone and everyone loved her. So Jade shouldn't have been surprised by Cora disappearing with her other friends. Just because Jade only has Cora doesn’t mean Cora only has Jade. 

Jade somehow found a red solo cup shoved into her hand as the music screamed in her ears and she continuously bumped into drunk teenagers. Jade shuffled over to one of the many couches in the room and collapsed down onto it. She was alone on the couch except for a couple that was currently doing things that Jade never intended to do in public. 

Feeling ridiculously uncomfortable with the entire party scene, Jade decided that she would stay for an hour, just to prove to Cora that she could, and then she would go home, curl up in her pajamas, and binge watch the newest released Netflix show. 

The minutes passed by slowly, as Jade clenched her undrunken cup in one hand and her phone in the other. She watched couples dancing. Some of them looked like they enjoyed it, while others just looked like they were bouncing up and down on a trampoline. The music was horrible, and the amount of drunk teenagers grew steadily fast. 

After the hour finally ended, Jade let out a cry of relief that she got to leave this horrible party. She stood from the couch quickly, and the couple that was sitting next to her was now even further in their activities than before. 

Jade looked away and decided to head into the kitchen to look for Cora. She walked into the crowded kitchen, to dozens of bottles of alcohol and cups stacked on the counter. Through the window, Jade could see two kegs in the backyard, one of which a teenage boy was currently balancing on top of as people around him cheered. 

Jade scanned the kitchen for a shock of blonde hair or that leather skirt, but Cora was nowhere to be seen. And when Jade went to leave the kitchen, she found her path blocked by a ridiculously tall boy with a poorly grown out beard. His hands here on either side of the doorway, his tall frame bent slightly. Jade could smell the beer on his breath from inches below him as the boy scanned her body unashamedly with his eyes. 

“I need to get through.” Jade said quietly. She didn’t have confidence to begin with, and if she did, it wasn’t working right now. 

“What was that beautiful?” The boy slurred, leaning down further so now that he was level with Jade’s face. “Could I offer you a drink?” 

“I’m good, thanks.” Jade forced a smile, holding up the red cup in her hand. She knew what the boy was doing. Cora had warned Jade about it weeks ago. (“Never take a drink from anyone. You get your own and you keep it on you. And try to keep it covered.”) 

When Jade went to push through the door, the boy leaned closer to her, his chest now pressed up against hers. 

“Oh come on sweetie, don’t you wanna get to know me? Cause I know that I wanna get to know you.” The boy stumbled forward even further, pushing Jade back and making her spill her beer all over the skirt Cora had let her borrow. “Oh no.” The boy smirked. “Why don’t you let me help you change?” And just like that, in front of all of the people, the boy started to lift up her shirt. 

The boy didn’t have time to do anything else before Jade was pushed out of the way and a punch landed right in between the tall boy’s eyes. The boy stumbled back, cursing loudly and holding his head as Cora whipped around with wide eyes to look at Jade. “Oh Jade, are you okay?” She grabbed Jade tightly and hugged her. “Did he do anything to you?”

Jade shook her head, her heart pounding and her eyes burning. Everyone in the kitchen was now laughing at the boy on the floor, groaning in pain. Cora, her eyes darkening, turned back to the boy. And she didn’t think twice before pressing her heel right in between the boy's legs and applying pressure. The boy cried out in pain as Cora said, “If you lay one fucking finger on her ever again MIcheal, I swear to God I’ll sneak into your house in the middle of the night and cut of your miniscule dick.” 

And with that, Cora lifted her foot, leaving the boy groaning on the ground, and she grabbed Jade’s hand and pulled her out of the kitchen. “Oh Jade, I’m so sorry.” Cora said. And she repeated that statement at least twelve times as she drove Jade home and got her comfortable in her bed. 

Cora had never asked Jade to go to a party again. Until tonight. 

“You know I don’t want to go to a party Cora.” Jade said, still flipping through the textbook, not taking in anything it was saying. “Please just respect that. You’ll have tons of fun without me.” 

Jade could hear Cora sigh from the other line. And she didn’t say anything else before she hung up the phone. 

Jade felt her stomach twist. She’d been hung up on. She tried to ignore the way her heart ached and her eyes stung at the thought of her best friend hanging up on her. Cora could survive just fine without Jade, but Jade couldn’t survive without Cora. And Jade found that unfair. Why couldn’t she be important enough to be needed? 

Jade felt the tears fall, warming her cheeks and wetting her textbook. She wiped the tears away and walked over to her closet, looking for something she could wear to a party. If it would make Cora happy for her to go to a party with her, then she would suck it up and go. 

But just as Jade settled for her black skirt, she heard a knock on her window. She turned around to see Cora standing outside her window, a backpack slung over her shoulder. 

Jade opened the window and Cora crawled inside. She wasn’t wearing the clothes she normally wore to parties, instead a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, her hair tied up in a bun and her glasses on instead of her usual contacts. Only Jade ever got to see her like this. 

“What are you doing here?” Jade asked as Cora collapsed on her bed. 

“Hanging out with you of course.” Cora said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I brought some stuff to do. Movies and food.” 

“But- the party-” 

“Jade, I rather hang out with you than go to a stupid party anyway.” Cora said, smiling up at Jade. “I promise. There’s nowhere else I'd rather be.” 

So Jade collapsed on the bed next to her best friend, as she pulled out a dozen old disney movies from her backpack. And in that moment, Jade had never been more grateful for her best friend.