𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 / 𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑳𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒏

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ― Emily Brontë

︵‿︵‿୨ ˚♡⋆˚୧‿︵‿︵

17th July 1956

Pennie dragged her sodden, no-longer-white Mary Janes slowly through the numerous puddles scattered around the streets. No umbrella, no coat. Just herself and her broken heart.

She knew this day would come at some point. She'd be stupid to think it wouldn't. She didn't know what to do with herself. She'd promised her mother at the start that this would never happen, but guess what? It did.

Pennie's stocking-coated toes were curling at the feeling of the cold rain quickly reaching them by running down her leg but she didn't care at all, she was quite frankly too upset to care about any thing except one thing, John.

-

Her pink fingers wrapped around the door handle whilst her legs trembled with frigidity from the cold. She twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open, awaiting the welcoming words better known as a mother's scolding, though when stepped onto the wooden floor of her hallway, she realised her mother, nor her father were home.

''Thank god'' she thought, as she trailed watered-down mud onto the hardened floor. She slipped off her filthy shoes and allowed the squelching sound of the water that her white stockings had collected on her pitiful, walk back home to lead her to her bedroom.

-

After her well-deserved bath, she curled up in bed and didn't do anything except think. Thinking about what John had said.

"Oh but Nelly, this is the first bloody college thats accepted me! Why can't you join me?"

"I know, and I understand, but I wish you'd told me you'd applied to a completely different college before telling me you'd applied to the same one as me, John!"

"I'm sorry, okay?"

"I forgive you" she said with tears in her eyes, you can't hold a grudge against someone who's love fills your heart right to the top "But my college is in London, John. Its got everything I want to do and I can't just turn down the offer because my boyfriend wants me to paint pictures with me and kiss me at lunch at his art college, okay? So no, I'm not joining you, I'm sorry"

"Look, this isn't the full reason I called you here" He said, looking down "Nell, I can't always drop everything each weekend and see you in London"

"I never asked you to-"

"Nell, look. I love you...but we're gonna have to break up."

"What? I never even asked you to come see me, John."

"But still! It's gonna be too hard to keep up with each other!"

"It's not the middle ages, John! It's 1956, phones exist!"

"And? You'll be too busy becoming a professional nerd whilst I mess around with my mates and guitars"

She couldn't remember much of what happened after that. He walked off, his gelled quiff being bounced on by the small drops of rain that were falling from the sky in a steady pace at first, but it soon picked up and her glasses became a blurry mess which caused his silhouette to blend into the distance.

-

All that night, she couldn't stop thinking about how he tried to make the worst thing good by starting it off with 'I love you' and then finishing it off with '...but'. But now all the knowledge Pennie had about a teenage relationship was that the words I love you are strong enough to melt anyones heart, especially when theyre leaving the mouth of the person that you love the most. But once theyre followed by the word but, it turns the melting into burning and turns the feeling of warmth and happiness into sorrow, and guilt.