Cry Pretty || Mike Chang

Chapter One

Summer was coming to a close. Most girls would have been upset because they couldn't spend the day in pool anymore. Jordyn wasn't most girls. Having been out of the hospital for the last few months, Jordyn's summer was relatively uneventful. For the most part she was spilling her heart into her notebook.

For the last few weeks, Emma had told her all about McKinley High School. As much as it tore her apart to rip Jordyn from her friends in Denver, Emma knew that a fresh start would be in Jordyn's best interests. Also, at McKinley, Emma could look out for her.

So, the night before she was due to be starting the school, Emma knocked gently on the door to Jordyn's room. When there was no answer, she pushed it open to see the girl curled up with her headphones firmly in her ears. Tapping her fingers on her thigh as if she were playing a piano, Jordyn looked more at peace than she ever had done before.

Sitting on the edge of Jordyn's bed, Emma caught the girl's attention, gesturing for her to remove her headphones. Letting as smile fill her face at the lack of pain in Jordyn's face, Emma let out as sigh as she asked, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

Raising her shoulders, Jordyn pulled her eyes away from her aunt. There was something about the idea of going to school again that made Jordyn happy, but there was also a part that terrified her. She had spent a year away from the bustle of high school and now she was going back. A year later than she was supposed to, Jordyn was started her Freshman year.

"I mean, if you need to you can always come to my office. I'll show you where that is tomorrow." Emma explained, reaching out to place her hand on Jordyn's knee, the girl flinched slightly.

"Emma, I'm sorry I'm like this." Jordyn sighed, biting the inside of her lip. "I want to be able to act like a normal person."

"Where's the fun in being normal?" Emma smiled, earning herself a glare from Jordyn.

"You know what I mean." She whispered. "Tomorrow I'm likely to end up in your office by lunch time. I don't think I am ever going to have a normal life, or even semi-regular."

"Once again, where's the fun in that?" Emma questioned, folding the cardigan at the end of Jordyn's bed once more. "Tomorrow will be hard, I'm not denying that, but you can't let anything that happens tomorrow take control of your life."

"Thank you. For everything."

"You don't have to thank me, that's what families for, isn't it?"

Sighing, Jordyn met Emma's eye when she asked, "Why didn't my dad take me in then?"

Emma didn't know how to answer. She had no clue why her brother had given up the chance to have his daughter in my life, but she did know it was a big mistake.

"I know they contacted him." Declared Jordyn. "So why didn't he want me?"

"I don't know Jordyn," Emma sighed, shaking her head as she stood up and walked towards the door. "I'm going to start cooking in a minutes so dinner will be about forty-five minutes."

"Okay," Jordyn nodded, looking down at her phone as she heard her door close.

After a few moments she noticed that something was wrong. A sudden urge to stand under the dropping beads of water that could wash away everything, but the sins that wrapped their hands around her neck, filled every piece of her being. However, no matter how many times she scrubbed her skin until it bled, she couldn't wash away the dirty feeling that consumed her mind. There was nothing that could stop that feeling from invading her mind.

Deep inside Jordyn-Jocelyn Pillsbury was a war zone that held every feeling of resentment and anger that she felt towards the man who had done this to her. Each and every moment she was a second away from a breakdown, from letting everything that had happened in her past take away her hope for a future.

Stepping into the bathroom, Jordyn pulled the door shut twisting the lock until she heard it click. Sighing as she realised that she finally had even a small element of privacy, she turned on the shower allowing the water to warm up gently. Slowly and carefully, Jordyn began removing her layers of clothing. One by one peeling off the layers that defended her eyes from the truth of her past. The cotton cardigan and blouse were a thick armour for her mind and soul, shielding her from the agony of memories.

Scanning her torso in the mirror, Jordyn's hands traced the dark marks on her skin, her nimble fingers assuring that her pain remained minimal. Every cracked rib and fracture bone that had gone unset had left her structure flawed and imperfect. Each resetting of the bone had hurt multitudes more than the initial break, but the new normality of her structure had mended the portions of her soul that had been truly affected by the proof.

Stepping out of her jeans, Jordyn's eyes fell upon her own factors. There was nothing that she regretted more than the marks that now plagued her skin from her own doing. There was nothing she regretted more than the sins she had committed when she dug her hatred into her skin. Tears fell down her cheeks as Jordyn slipped out her remaining clothes before ducking under the warm water that dropped like rain from the shower head.

As the water worked away all of the sweat and dead skin that had been covering Jordyn's body, the dirty feeling inside Jordyn's head remained strong. Reaching for the soap, she began to once again scrub her body trying to clean away the feeling of his hands trailing alone her skin. His nails digging into her wrists. The feeling of his lips forced themselves on hers. She wanted it all to go, but no matter how hard she scrubbed the feeling lingered. Jordyn wasn't sure if that feeling would ever go away.