Her name is Jordan. She’s been alive on this earth for over two decades. She’ll never win a beauty contest, her weight makes sure of that. She’ll never blend into a crowd, her hair makes sure of that. Those are the first two things you notice about her, her hair and her weight. But, then she starts talking. There’s a 90% chance that within the first moments of meeting her she will make you laugh. She’s got a sharp Irish tongue, she exudes false confidence, and she laughs when anyone is watching. She’s passionate, or dear lord is she passionate. There is not much grey in her life, it’s love or hate, right or wrong, good or bad and she relishes in the extreme. When she commits to belief it takes over her soul. She is forever trying to keep it positive when it comes to other people. She wants them to feel loved. She wants them to feel like she would do anything to support them, because she would. She wants to be a P.R. maven and help the people of the world fall in love with the people she already loves. In the decades she’s been alive she’s perfected the art of loving other people. With no holding back, with no shame, she loves. She wraps her loves in perfect blue paper and stores them deep inside the softness of her soul, forever careful to not let those people venture into the harden, bitter depths she hides from the world. Oh she’s jaded. Little parts of her soul have been blackened by her loving ways. She never learned to love herself. She thinks she’s ugly because others have told her so. She thinks she’s a lost cause because others have let her wander. She knows she’s heartbroken because she can’t feel it beating. There is dead tissue left and it festers. It hides behind her eyes and she smiles.
Her name is Morgan and she is forever 21. No, no, not like the store. No, forever 21 in that she doesn’t age. She’s a young adult with a chip on her shoulder and a beer in her hand. She’s the protector. She comes around when Jordan can’t be seen. When the darkness creeps into Jordan’s eyes, Morgan hides Jordan away in a room with a book and a Hanson CD. Morgan doesn’t play games. She too does not believe in grey. It’s now or never with Morgan and if the answer is never she won’t bat an eyelash, she will simply walk away. Morgan drinks too much and she talks too much. Morgan will tell you things Jordan wouldn’t dare utter. She’ll give truth out like it’s candy on Halloween and she’ll laugh when your teeth rot. At any given moment she will spew all of Jordan’s secrets and let them leak into your ocean like an oil tanker run aground. She’ll start off quietly passive aggressive and then shift into full blown aggression. She doesn’t like when Jordan gets hurt, because then she has to make an appearance and it’s not the kind of appearance she likes to make. She likes command performances on the stages of bars and townhouses making people laugh, complaining about the music, and blowing people’s minds with her unbridled drunken dysfunction. She likes to be a good time, she doesn’t like to be the center of a bad time. But, she will be, she’ll make your night the worst you’ve ever had if she has to. She’s the fury and the storm and she talks.
Her name is Penny. She has no age, just an old soul. She’s quiet, poetic, and kind. She’s shy in the worst times and can only ever express herself through art. She loves music, she lives inside a melody, and she’s sure every song she hears was written just for her. She’s the kind of girl you could fall in love with. She’ll hold you as tightly as possible while you fall apart and she’ll cry tears over your pain. If you need her she will entangle herself with you and you won’t know if the tears on your cheek are hers or your own. Penny will write you songs. She will immortalize you with the swift movement of a pen or the click of fingers on a keyboard. She won’t be the one to make you laugh. Jordan and Morgan have monopolized that venture, laughter is their defense. Penny has no defense. Penny is the heart on the sleeve left for the elements of life to erode away. But, she never fades, she just quietly creeps back inside until the storm has passed. Then she’ll process it. Penny will take Jordan’s heartbreak and Morgan’s drunken mistakes and she will make something of them. She will be the one to find the moral at the end of the story and say the things the other girls don’t want to hear. She is honest, she cannot, will not lie. She will tell the others that she loves him and the others have no choice but to listen and to love. She will create the playlist of sad songs and make Jordan and Morgan feel something they don’t want to feel. Like Morgan, she never likes to see Jordan hurt, but she won’t pretend it didn’t happen. She lives in the grey the other two claim don’t exist. She knows nothing is clear cut so she thinks and she feels. She will over analyze a situation until every moment has been gone over and then she will talk about it some more. She is the hurt and the pain and she feels.
They are three girls. Three completely messed up sides to the same person. They go through life taking turns so that not every side is seen at once. Jordan’s broken soul hidden by love and laughter take center stage. Morgan makes appearances and her fury leads to conversations most people don’t want to have. Penny tries to never show her face, she lies hidden in prose and teardrops. But, all three of them fell for him. It was a general consensus that this boy was different, he laughed at Jordan’s jokes and looked into her eyes even as the darkness crept. He sat next to Morgan while she gave her performance, he listened to her fury, and he didn’t run away. But Penny, she liked him best. He stirred within her that quiet, peaceful warmth, that had long been forgotten. He had side stepped the other two and he looked Penny in the eyes, he saw her, he’s the only one that’s ever actually seen her. But he hurt them. He told Jordan the words she couldn’t handle hearing again. He forced Morgan to step out and drink and laugh and then he forced her to truth and she gave it to him. But, Penny, he hurt her the worst. He denied her the chance she’s been waiting on since the moment she looked at him. She was going to be the best she’d ever been for him, she was going to forget the hurt and feel and write and sing and dance and love. Now, here they are again, all three huddled around the computer while Jordan pretends like it’s no surprise, Morgan smokes her millionth cigarette, and Penny types and she cries. Tomorrow they will all go back out into the world as one to smile, to talk, and to feel, lost in Penny’s grey.
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