Pearl's life had been tossing her in so many different directions since the moment she was able to walk. It started with her parents divorce when she was three and continued with the constant moving back and forth in between households and states and then countries. Her mother worked in the theater and she was always destined to follow in that path. Taking lessons which seem to come naturally to her and getting the same lecture that started the downfall of her parents marriage from her father when she expressed wanting to be a dancer.
She didn't see much of her father after he had remarried and her mother was so stuck on her practices and performances and teaching that when worse came to worse the only person she had to rely on was herself. She had a method for everything. She would wake up at five in the morning, work out, eat, shower and get ready for school. The six different schools she had gone to living in the states, the two in France and then again when she moved back to the small beach city she came from.
She was a stranger to everyone and her mother was still caught up with her own work to acknowledge how she had felt about the situation. The constant moves, her desire to stay in France or Italy or wherever they were and of course she needed help. It didn't matter if she spoke to her mother who was far too busy to talk or her father who was so concerned with his new family. No one seemed to listen to her.
She was fifteen and starting her first year of high school. The school had refused to allow her into the proper grade because of the sudden move; despite her almost perfect placement score. She kept herself busy with school so she would rarely have to be home. She joined chess club, French club, the Language Society, a writing magazine and of course the dance team. Dancing was where she met her two and only friends til this day. Garnet and Amethyst.
Garnet was a senior in high school and everyone had such good things to say about her. Her one mother was a police detective and her other mother worked for crime labs and out of that came this strong, confident and independent teenager who Pearl couldn't help but having a crush on. She was three years older and planning on becoming a doctor and everything about her was so cool and collective that the one time Pearl ever see her pull herself apart over something was when someone used her.
Amethyst was also a freshmen like Pearl had been. She was fourteen and had so much boundless energy that it sort of drove Pearl up a wall after a while. She was always goofing off and getting into trouble with teachers but with Garnet around they seemed to make a perfect team.
They had known each other since they were kids and Pearl envied the closeness. She had never had friends outside of the two girls or let alone anyone that would talk to her. With Amethyst however, she was always asking her how to say bad words in French and Garnet would just ask about the future. She always gave good advice and helped out when needed but she always spoke so much about the future. Sometimes Pearl wondered if she was trying to get out of this place.
Her sophomore year was different without Garnet around. Garnet had her own apartment right on the outskirts of town and Pearl would spend as much time at that apartment then her own. She was sure she would have called it her home if someone asked. They understood each others needs to be away from their family. Garnet didn't exactly have a bad family life she just felt like her parents were too protective of her and expected so much of her. Pearl always had to add that she was lucky to have parents who cared about her and Garnet had to reassure her that family isn't always blood.
Pearl came out as a lesbian to her family early on. Amethyst shared a story about a junior in their school who she once made out with in a closet at a party and Garnet explained her own opinion on sex and romance and everyone just seemed to accept one another so peacefully. It was a relief to the three. Especially when Pearl met Amethyst's cousin who she automatically teased for being practically jaw dropped in sight of her. Her name was Jasper and she was even older than Garnet—at least two years—and Pearl couldn't help but having a thing for people taller and stronger than her. She assumed it was her need to have some sort of safety and protection that her parents never provided for her.
The legal age in their city was sixteen for consent and Pearl didn't miss a beat when Jasper had invited her to a party that her friends were going to and Garnet and Amethyst both came. Her reasons weren't for anything other than meeting someone or even going as far as to having sex. Sure she was nervous and everything in her head was telling her not to do it but Pearl had made few mistakes in her life and knew this wasn't one of them.
It was the first time Pearl had ever had a drink outside of water or tea and she had learned she One: had an extremely low tolerance to alcohol and Two: making out with your best friend while drunk had its problems. Amethyst couldn't help but teasing Pearl about it for the rest of the school year and Pearl couldn't help but thinking about the way Garnet's lips felt against her own. Garnet never said much about it and Pearl never knew why. She was sure it was the age gap but at the same time she wondered what a relationship with Garnet would entail. How different it would be to be with someone like her or with someone, anyone at all.
Pearl rarely brought it up and spend most of her time around Garnet nervous around her. She knew something was wrong and would directly ask her but Pearl never spoke of why acted the way she did. She just wanted to remain friends and not have what happened or what could have happened affect them in any way.
Her junior year was just as uneventful as the years prior. She became co-captain of the dance team and joined three more clubs just to keep herself busy with school work and after school activities. She was taking two college classes outside of school just to avoid people. To keep herself away from often sought after heartbreak.
She met two people in her college. One was a girl who she vaguely remembered as being a friend of Jasper's whose name was Peridot. She was twenty one and Pearl was seventeen and they declared each other rivals and were always together at this point. Studying and scolding each other and somehow among their rival they started dating. Well, Pearl was sure they weren't dating but most of the time whenever she went to her dorm they would study and then there was just a lot of touching. So much touching and kissing and Pearl was sure if she ever questioned her sexuality that this made her stop.
Pearl wasn't one of those people who had her self worth bottled in her date-ability but at this point she felt like she couldn't survive without having someone. Everything in her head was telling her she was useless without someone with her. Being in a relationship was something so important to her and it was because she wanted to prove her parents wrong. She loved Peridot but their relationship was just casual and Pearl wanted something permanent.
The summer before her senior year she started a short term relationship with a woman who was nearing thirty. Pearl knew her son from school but outside of that there was nothing better than threading her fingers through those curls and those soft little whimpers from all of those nights they spent together. But it still wasn't permanent.
Pearl didn't seem to get the relationship she wanted either. She graduated high school the following year and was eighteen and single and was somehow seeing less and less of her friends and could honestly not remember the last time she spoke to her parents. Hell, her own mother who she lived with rarely saw her daughter. It was different when college had started for her. She had moved in with Garnet per her request and continued dancing as she went through school.
Her first year of classes went by smoothly. She was overwhelmed with classes but still managed to organize them properly and get good grades in all of them. She spent her breaks studying and taking online courses and somehow never seemed to leave the apartment outside of school or the library job she got at her college campus.
People started worrying about Pearl the fall of her sophomore year of college. She had lost a bit of weight and she promised she was fine. It wasn't like she ever had problems with food or eating she just found herself so busy that she didn't have time to eat. She also couldn't help but hear that the food and drinks were poison no matter how she tried to put that voice out of her kept asking her to slow down but Pearl continued at the same pace she always had been. Mostly rushing and slightly frantic. Sometimes it was like she was trying so fast to move on with her life and so much to show her parents who she was and how she was fine without them.
She wasn't fine without them. It wasn't the big lie she had ever told herself. She had been worried about every single thing and the biggest one was failing. She couldn't slow down and she refused to just stop.
She was twenty years old and remembered her first panic attack in grocery store when just shopping with Garnet. It came from the constant arguments she started to have with Garnet whenever she asked what she wanted to eat or buy for their grocery list and Pearl never knew. She didn't honestly care because she rarely had time to fit food into her schedule. When Garnet had her go to the grocery store with her it was sudden. Pearl had been pulled away from studying and all of the work she had lined up to do. She didn't care about food and she didn't care about what kind of cereal they had in the house.
It wasn't just her panicking about class it was also the people. Her college classes had maybe twenty people in and the classes were large enough that if she sat in the front or back she never felt crowded but the stimuli inside. It was wall to wall. People and shelves and items and she felt light headed and the lights became that much more intense and the crowd just seemed to get even louder. She remembered how embarrassed she had been waking up on the floor of the store and how horrible she felt when she had to go to the hospital and couldn't stop apologizing for it happening.
She started taking medication after this event but just started feeling worse. Almost hopeless. She quit dance the winter of the next year and dropped out of school all together by the second day of her next semester. She kept it a secret for a few weeks but once people started to put the pieces together they couldn't understand her sudden change in heart and everyone seemed so shocked by it. Dance was her life and keeping herself busy and stimulated was so important for her. She just had grown to stop liking it. It was wearing her down and so was the constant day to day schedule.
Without her school work and without dance the only thing that kept her busy were the online jobs Peridot had needed helped with and would always split the workload and the pay. It was something for her to do in the morning but most of the time she was lie around the house in baggy clothing and Garnet wouldn't even speak to her at this point. She wasn't sure what she had done or what was going and if Amethyst was there she would only shrug.
Pearl just wondered at this point of it was her. If she was making peoples lives worse by just being around and being a nuisance. She shared how she felt with someone once and they only reassured her she was being silly but it didn't stop how she felt.
She started to think it was the medication one morning. The medication was changing her and she stopped taking it and after that she started to get worse. She started becoming increasingly paranoid about the most simple of tasks and there was a week later she refused to leave the house and refuse to even talk to anyone.
Amethyst still came over and the two would sit in silence while watching television. Amethyst would sometimes just ask questions and Pearl would make a sound and sigh along with the answer.
"She's still not talking?" She could hear the conversation from her bedroom door one evening.
"I don't know what's going on with her. She was fine and one day she just completely changed. She's a different person now and I don't know what to do. She won't talk to us and she clearly won't talk to her parents."
"Maybe we just need to get her help..." She could hear Garnet sigh,
Pearl was over eighteen. Her friends had no right to force her into any sort of treatment or therapy program and somehow she found herself agreeing into going though. It was almost a month since she had stopped talking and even though she sat in the office she still refused to speak to the doctor and had to write down her responses which still seemed vague.
They were a mixture of questions which required long answers but the psychiatrist seemed to change her approach to yes or no questions. Have you ever experienced people talking to you when no one was present? No. Do you have a tendency to worry about minor things? Is the window shade bothering you? Yes to both questions. It went on for a while but there was one question that was asked that she hesitated to answer. Do you want help?
Garnet had set up an appointment at a behavioral treatment house about an hour from their apartment. Pearl got moved around to a few different places. One was an inpatient facility for women that interviewed her twice but sent her over to an outpatient facility just down the road from their building. It was nerve wracking for Pearl who sat in the office of a new therapist and a new psychiatrist and she felt so sick after the first day that by the time she made it home she had vomited and slept for the rest of the day.
Every morning for the first few a weeks a van came to their house to pick Pearl up and take her out to the facility and every morning she dreaded getting up and it got so bad at one point Pearl had locked herself in the bathroom and Garnet had to break the lock to get her to come out. She started talking again at this point. Protesting that she didn't need help and she was fine and the paranoia just seemed to grow ever so slowly.
At first it was simple things. Sometimes she could hear someone calling her name and it was usually with multiple people around. Other times she could swear there was this nagging voice in the back of her head that wouldn't go away. She never thought anything of it until now. She could remember the constant beeping noises and strange static sounds she had heard in high school but now it was clearer and whispering. Constant whispering in her head. Sometimes there were words but Pearl wanted it to stop and never tried to make them out.
It was one specific morning she remembered the most. She was feeling terrible, there was a strange sickness in her stomach and she called out of going to the therapy program after telling Garnet how she was feeling. She stayed in bed almost all day until a strange idea had crossed her mind. Drinking would make her feel better.
She wasn't sure how she even got out of the house or how she made it to the store. Everything that happened felt like a dream. Like she watching her body move and act against her wishes. She was a lightweight when it came to drinking and with nearly half of the bottle gone she was left sitting against her bed with a bottle of her old anxiety medication in one hand and half of a bottle of vodka in the other.
Hospital visits were always a sore spot for Pearl. She remembered being there as a child with a sprained wrist and another time where she ran into a glass door and got stitches in her arm but being here for this was different. She was almost zapped of her freedom. Stuck in some hospital gown with no phone or visitors for three days because she couldn't help it. "If you let me go home I won't stop." Was something to the remark of what she had told the staff.
She didn't know what was wrong with her at this point. She took a blood test and urine test and she was partially unconscious when she came here in the first place. Who knows what else they had done to her here.
On the second day or maybe the first—she wasn't sure when she was found or when she had arrived and just trying to think made her head hurt—she was subjected to different interviews. Doctors and psychologists and she just felt so violated and hurt and the voices didn't make things easier for her. She just remembered them shouting at her not to drink this or take this and she was sure she would be restrained after struggling when one of the nurses touched her. Knocking her down onto her feet and trying everything to run away.
Most of the time she wanted to run away from herself. Even for a little while if she come become someone else or just pretend to be someone else then maybe everything would go back to normal.
They gave her a diagnosis and a plan and made appointments to go to. Even scheduled interviews with some of her close friends since her family didn't seem to be in the picture. They wanted to help Pearl more than she wanted the help.
Schizophrenia? She thinks that's what they told her. Something about it being a rapid onset and without medicine and therapy she would get worse and nothing would ever help her get better. She had to want to get better and Pearl just wanted to go home.
The entire time there every other question or sentence was about her desire to go home. When she could go home and when she could see her friends again and especially when she could put on real clothing because the fabric of the dress was so uncomfortable and irritating that she had taken it off twice and of course the doctors just had her redress.
She had the ability to walk around on the fourth day because it was the day she was leaving. They spoke a lot about her sudden suicide attempt, which in Pearl's defense wasn't an attempt in her opinion. It just sounded like a good idea to make everything stop hurting so much.
The floor was deserted but there were flickering lights in the distance where a few nurses had come from. There was something inside of her that had made her want to go deeper into the hall. Something she could see off into the distance but she was stopped. She felt Garnet's hand touch her shoulder and she turned around to see her friend. Handing her a bag of clothes. A simple pair of jeans and sweater were better than that thin garbage they put her in. Remembering how good it felt to be in her own clothing no matter how baggy they became on her.
Being at home was anything like it had been before. There was a tension in the air and whenever Pearl wanted to do something she had to be supervised at this point.
Garnet went to school for nursing after she had graduated and now worked in a hospital for the night shift. She sometimes got done early but from the evening or mid afternoon she couldn't keep an eye on Pearl she would ask Amethyst to do it. Amethyst would always oblige but she started bringing Jasper over after the third week. It was a shock to Pearl. Just seeing this person after four years was different.
Jasper was twenty-five and helping Amethyst study for some fitness class which apparently was what Jasper was doing. She wanted to be a physical therapist and at the moment just worked as a trainer at a gym in her spare time. Studying was hard, getting her doctorate was harder and Pearl never realized that someone like her—the loud mouth with that snark attitude cousin of Amethyst's—was going to grow up into someone like her.
It wasn't like Pearl hadn't liked Jasper when they had first met those few years ago. It was just different now because Pearl didn't talk as much as she used to. She hated that she was being babysat by her friends. When to take medicine and when to eat and there was a point where they were afraid of letting her shave without someone watching her. They both were afraid that they were going to end up right back at square one and Pearl understood their fear and did the best to cooperate.
Jasper and Amethyst came over almost every single day though. Pearl always felt a little uncomfortable around Jasper just from barely knowing her and that strange attraction she had towards her. It was bad enough Jasper had given her her phone number and told her to talk to her if she ever wanted to talk. Something about being a third party and being unbiased if she wanted to complain about her Amethyst and Garnet. She accepted the offer but at the same time Jasper's number sat untouched in her cell phone.
Every night when Garnet was gone was the same though. Pearl would sit on the floor with her back against the couch. She would be picking at food from lunch and Amethyst and Jasper would be on the other side of the table studying something. Sometimes Pearl would be playing a video game and trying to distract herself but when it didn't work Pearl just went off to sleep.
She didn't do much over these days. She was turning twenty one in a few weeks and she just wanted to get out of the house which she could only do with supervision according to Garnet. She was tired of feeling so trapped and it just seemed to get worse with the oncoming days. Most of the time she and Garnet would get into an argument about eating or her taking medication and Pearl knew Garnet cared. Her friends cared about her so much but Pearl couldn't stand it anymore. She couldn't stand the silence between them and the arguments and when Pearl stopped taking her medicine there was a noticeable impact on the situation.
Garnet threatened to kick Pearl out one evening. It was almost a week after Pearl had quit her medicine and a hallucination had sent her into some spiral which destroyed most of her bedroom, broke a mirror which cut into her hand quite badly and broke both of the living room lamps.
This next hospital visit was different than the last. They were only there for a few hours but she had to once again sit with a psychologist to talk about her medicine and her mood and state of mind at the time. It was all nonsense to Pearl and the doctor happened to leak that the absence of medication was going to make things much worse.
"You're not even trying to get better are you?" It was the first thing Garnet had said to her when they had gotten home and Amethyst had been there. Trying to clean up the mess for her friends. "When were you going to actually tell us that you weren't taking your medicine anymore? When I find out outside in the middle of the night run over by some car chasing something you thought you saw? Or when you down another bottle of pills?"
Pearl only remembered a lot of yelling on both of their parts and crying. She couldn't stop crying and there was a part where she couldn't breathe and Garnet had to break from her own emotions. She remembered being on the floor and Amethyst was there and God, she felt so stupid at this point. She was making everything harder on everyone and honestly wanted to try to get better. She didn't want people blaming her and didn't want to end up causing everyone to drift apart like she did her parents. Even if she was still a child she had to blame herself for it.
Pearl blamed herself for almost everything.
Now things were getting better. Her birthday had passed and the new year was coming and everyone always lied before but now Pearl was almost confident things were going better. Today she had woken up and taken her medicine and cleaned and ate breakfast and was slowly getting back into the same routine as before. She wondered if she might go back to school one day or go back to dance but those were thoughts for the future. Taking one day at a time was the best approach for now.
There were other reasons for her to get better, too. She got a text from Jasper—she wasn't sure how that woman obtained her phone number—and they spoke. Almost all day aside from the times Jasper had a client. They reminisced about that party they went to in high school and Jasper even joked about a few things Amethyst did as a kid which she would in fact be strangled for later. They didn't speak about Pearl's illness at all. Jasper didn't ask her if she took her medicine or had eaten or how her therapy session had gone. Jasper was that third party that didn't know what was going in her life and it made her even more satisfied when Jasper came over more and more.
They went back to their usual study sessions when Pearl was feeling up to it. The stitches in her hand had come out and there was a deep scar over her middle finger down to her hand and a few small scars against the other fingers. She promised herself she wouldn't pick at the scabs and that feeling of healing was making her feel better.
Being around Jasper also made her feel better. Sometimes they would flirt with each other when Amethyst wasn't around but most of the time Amethyst just seemed to tease them because she knew. She could tell that they liked each other and hell if they made each other happy they should go for it.
Pearl couldn't bring herself to ask Jasper out let alone talk to her about dating. They were messaging each other one night though. Pearl was having a bad night and swore all she had to do was take her medicine and sleep and everything would be better when she woke up but she couldn't do it. She couldn't ask for help because she just felt like a burden when she did but Jasper...She was different.
"What's wrong?" Pearl read the text and scrolled back over their conversation. She had mentioned that she couldn't sleep at one point and the conversation just spiraled downward from there. Jasper knew bits and pieces about Pearl from Amethyst and a few things she had told her on her own but it was harder explaining how she felt to someone.
"Don't think I'm crazy but sometimes the voices I hear are comforting and I don't want them to go away."
"If you ever want to hear a voice you can call me. I'm sure I'll piss off my roommate but I love talking to you."
Jasper had autocorrected the word love to like and Pearl blushed. Laying on her stomach and kicking her feet on her bed like a schoolgirl. It was how Pearl had made sure she took her medicine. She would take it and call Jasper and they would just talk to each other. Sometimes she just let Jasper tell her a story about something stupid or nonsensical and it made her better after a while. Sometimes Jasper even stayed the night in her bed when Garnet was working late and even the comfort of her being next to her was better than the talking.
Even better than laying next to her or talking to her was touching her. She wasn't sure how she got into these situations with Jasper on top of her or her warmth pressed against Jasper's mouth but she never wanted them to stop. There was always petting and light touches and rubbing and Pearl could spend the rest of her life wrapped up in Jasper's arms and wouldn't even care.
It was more than just comforting. It felt like something she was missing her entire life.
"You want to do what?" Pearl's voice came from her bedroom one evening while getting dressed. "Go where?"
"On a date." Jasper sat up in the bed, eying Pearl from where she stood. Watching her slip off her towel and rummaging around her drawers to find a pair of underwear.
"Why do you want to date me?"
"I don't know because we've been at this for a few months and I just thought maybe we could leave the bedroom for once."
Pearl's eyebrow furrowed. "That's not what I meant."
"Because I like you."
"Why?" She turned to look at Jasper as she slid a shirt over her head and came onto the bed.
"I know it's hard to believe that someone actually wants to be in a relationship with you especially after everything you told me."
"You mean the random and frequent sexual encounters with people I've had because people would rather use me for my body rather than my impressive personality and dancing skills."
Jasper just rose an eyebrow. Not exactly sure what she meant and laid back in bed when Pearl had crawled next to her to lay down. "So tell me about those first."
"Which ones?"
"I know about Peridot because we're best friends."
"There was Rose, too." She was about to snuggle into Jasper before she looked up at her. Shocked and not meaning to spill that information.
"You wouldn't look at me unless it was a person I knew." Jasper bit her lip. "Rose...Quartz? Steven's mom?"
Pearl blushed, dropping her head into Jasper's side.
"Holy fuck. You slept with the history teacher. How was it?"
"Amazing." She mumbled.
"Shit. Wow. Better than me though?"
Pearl pinched Jasper and she jumped. "I mean, you're both special in your own ways. If you ask you might be able to sleep with her and find out." She was teasing Jasper at this point, shifting against her and getting more comfortable.
"Right now you're the only one I want. I can't be with multiple people and I understand people do it. My last girlfriend did it but I just worried too much that maybe I wasn't enough..." She sighed and felt Pearl's arms around her. "It was fine when it was me, her and D but like...she wanted to date Amethyst which is fine with me. We're barely cousins and it wasn't like we were all dating each other but like I got jealous and we talked about it and it was something that could be solved so easily."
"It's like, we were both looking for relationships with one person and everyone else just wanted multiple people or didn't want to be exclusive."
"And if you would actually accept my offer and go on a date with me."
"I haven't left this place since my birthday. I can't go outside, Jasper."
"You trust me right?" She looked down at Pearl who nodded. "Trust me then. If you're feeling uncomfortable just let me know. We can just go down the street if you want. Baby steps."
Pearl felt like her entire relationship with not just Jasper but her friends as well had all taken baby steps to build. Garnet was finally trusting her again and Pearl had more freedom than she had in the past year. Even with that freedom she still found herself with overwhelming anxiety just to grab the mail from the downstairs box. It helped if someone went with her and talked to people who said hello and she wanted to prevent as many horrible possibilities as she could.
Even with medication she still didn't find herself to be getting much better. Her doctors tried raising the dosage but Pearl didn't feel like that had even helped. She constantly felt restless and sometimes even her hands would jerk in the middle of doing something. She had dropped and or broken countless numbers of objects and most of the time she was just tired of it. Tired of the side effects and one morning she woke up with a bloody nose so badly that she had to go to the hospital again. They were side effects of her medicine and this was the third time they had changed her medication to something else.
Pearl's body was always so sensitive to chemicals and medicines and no matter what she seemed to take always brought out the worst in the medicine but this third one she was on—with the mixture of the other medication she had been taking from her first hospital visit—seemed to do more good than harm. She was slowly feeling more and more stable.
By the time the next year had come around she had kept herself out of the hospital for at least eight months and for some reason her and Jasper's relationship had managed to last over a year. It was strange to Pearl, someone liking her and wanting to be with her and she always felt so worried that Jasper would leave her and it was some sort of prank. Except, one day Jasper asked her to move in together and Pearl just stared at her. The expression on her face was strange and Jasper just chuckled at her. "What's wrong?" It was the constant start to their conversations.
"Why?" And this was usually Pearl's constant reply. Why was Jasper doing this to her? Asking her to move in or asking her to stay the night at her own apartment or a week. Pearl had most of her belongings at Jasper's in the first place and she might as well already live there but Pearl rarely stepped out of the house. The few occasions she had it was early in the morning and she had to make sure there was no one around to judge her.
"I love you and I want to be with you. Why else?" She knew Jasper loved her and of course she loved the woman the same. Too many ideas had flooded to her mind though. A future with her and getting married and adopting children because she was so worried having any biological children of her own would just be as bad as her. Most mental disorders did seem to be genetic from what Pearl had knew. She wasn't sure when she started crying but Jasper had pulled her into her a hug. For the brute she used to know, Jasper had a lot of patience for her.
Moving in with Jasper wasn't something that seemed to go smoothly. Pearl hated going outside and she hated looking at her reflection and going through her clothing with Peridot—who was Jasper's current roommate—just seemed annoying. They were the same size but Peridot wore clothing that actually fit unlike Pearl. Most of her clothing were too big for her now and she had tried gaining the weight she had lost back but whenever she ran her hands along her sides she could feel her hip bones protruding and the feeling was disgusting. She hadn't realized how thin she had become. She rarely looked at her reflection.
Things seemed to change when it came to moving. She saw very little of Garnet and she would stop by for lunch or just to see how Pearl had been doing. They tend to have parties at Jasper's house frequently, too. The apartment was much larger than the one Pearl and Garnet had shared and there was so much more room for all three of them. Peridot never left her room unless she came out to game in the living room and Jasper had started trying to help Pearl gain a little weight and try to start dancing again.
She was unmotivated. She would go with Jasper but end up sitting there and feeling completely too weak to even lift anything heavier than a few pounds. Jasper put her efforts in focusing on food. Pearl was at least eating even if the pattern was a bit erratic. Sometimes Pearl would throw a fit about It however and any efforts from anyone would cause Pearl to completely shut down. Things got worse some days and better on other. Sometimes Pearl wouldn't speak to anyone and just sit with the television on. Other days you couldn't get her to stop talking or singing and her personality would change day to day and no one really knew what to expect after a while.
Pearl's therapist had suggested her writing how she felt early on in their sessions and Pearl never thought anything of it until now. She made a calendar and ignored with a scale on how good her days were and how bad they were. Anything she specifically did and even started keeping a food journal just to stay on track with everything. Even her medication was listed and if she forgot to take it. Jasper tried to help her with it. Even found some way to reward her girlfriend for a week complete and of course it always ended up with Pearl on top of her.
It was getting simpler by the end of the second year of them dating. Pearl figured out things that triggered her and made work to help herself get better. She stopped missing therapy sessions and appointments for her medicine dosages and started dancing again.
She was twenty-two now and started taking classes at the gym Jasper had worked at. Trying to stay on top of everything again and slowly rebuild what she tore apart two years ago. If it wasn't for her support system she wasn't sure what she we do. Her family hadn't known and gave up on her years ago but her friends always seemed to be there for her. Even if Pearl herself had broken them and made them pull themselves apart over her. They loved her and Pearl was slowly starting to see why.
When Christmas had come back around, Pearl's mother had asked for her to visit and Pearl couldn't do it. She couldn't risk her mother knowing what had happened to her or what she had become. All of the bills from the hospitals and therapy facilities and doctors were in her name and coming to her address. She knew the records would be on her insurance but it was in her father's name and her father was at least more understanding than her mother.
She spent another year not seeing her parents and was sure she had barely spoken to them in the past four years. She didn't know if this disease was genetic and if her mother was the same way as her or even her father. At this point she didn't even care. She had Jasper and her own family. Amethyst and Garnet and the friends who carried her throughout her worse nights. Things her parents would have never done for her.
Christmas had in fact been spent in Canada with Jasper's dad, Jasper and of course her cousin Amethyst. Pearl brought Garnet in on the trip last minute and Pearl's excitement seemed to seep past her hatred of going outdoors. She wanted to have fun and forget about her illness. She wanted to spend time with Jasper and her family and she was just so tired of feeling alone.
Jasper always reassured her she was never alone. She always reassured her that she'd always be there for her and if anything ever happened. If she felt too uncomfortable or if something clouded her judgment. If she started hearing the voices again or seeing things or feeling completely incapable of doing anything...to let her know. That she'd help however she could.
Jasper knew that being in this relationship was hard on both of them. There were some nights where Jasper was so worried leaving Pearl alone in her old apartment that she couldn't sleep. There were other nights where Pearl had gotten so bad that she was scared of losing her girlfriend. It's why they always talked at night no matter what. Calling and texting and just being there for each other. It helped especially whenever Jasper's family came to visit and she wasn't around for a week. Jasper wanted to give Pearl that constant support she desired. It was hard and it overwhelmed Jasper herself sometimes but she loved Pearl. No matter how much Pearl told her that her comfort came before their relationship and before herself. She couldn't help herself around the girl.
The thing was, Pearl knew how hard it had been on Jasper and constantly offered to break up and make things better but Jasper just reassured her they were fine. Jasper seemed to not want to let her go even when things seemed to get harder on them.
It's why Jasper had proposed to her.
It was a shock to everyone. Even her own cousin who didn't know she was planning on doing it. Didn't even take her along to buy a ring and she was mad for it. The problem was that Pearl had said no at first. She wasn't comfortable making Jasper deal with her mental state for the rest of their lives.
It wasn't until a few weeks later. Pearl had woken up and sat straight up in bed and started crying. She wasn't sure what had happened or what came over her but Jasper just pulled her against her chest. One massaging into her hair and the other rubbing at her back. It wasn't uncommon for Pearl to wake up feeling like this or just to start crying and Jasper would come over and take care of her until she felt well enough to get up. Sometimes it might take an hour and Pearl would go back to sleep and Jasper would lay with her until it was time for her to go to work.
When Jasper came back Pearl had been waiting for her in the living room. There were two candles sat on the table and Jasper just found herself smiling in the dimly lit room. Her jacket came off and she sat next to her girlfriend. They just talked about things here and there. Pearl was fidgeting when she brought up the proposal and how she wanted to give it a try. She was sure she had never seen Jasper's smile ever wider than it had been.
The actual planning of the wedding was something Pearl completely took over the moment everyone knew. It kept her mind off of things and she found things less stressful than usual. It wasn't like they had the money to do anything big—Jasper did but Pearl refused to use it—and decided on the small chapel in the city which was more than happy to have the first wedding they had seen in a long time. It was the small beach city they lived on the outskirts of. Where Jasper grew up and where her family had been.
Pearl had only met Jasper's family a few times. The first just at a holiday party which Pearl never spoke much about because she was so anxious about leaving the house and being around so many people that she almost broke down right there and then. Jasper had her lay down in her old bedroom and Pearl found the nostalgia of Jasper's teenage life so distracting that it strangely made her feel better. The second time was just a simple dinner and Pearl had been on her medication long enough that she felt she was able to participate in a social setting.
Jasper's parents loved Pearl. They seemed to mention things about her being Jasper's type and beautiful and so intelligent and a perfect match. Pearl was sure that Jasper never told them the things that went on her mind. When the voices were bad they seemed to dismiss everything she was told. Not to eat that or drink this or that they were secretly making fun of her whenever they laughed and Pearl could hear it. She learned to dismiss those voices after a while but she still missed them.
The news of the wedding was something everyone seemed to look forward to. It wasn't anything rushed. Pearl had taken her time with this event and with the setbacks and her emotional state it wasn't until she was twenty-three and Jasper was twenty-eight.
It was the end of January and the beginning of the rest of their lives together.