Prude

Jordan

JORDAN
[ jor-dan ]

Jordan was overly aware of Eli's breath fluttering against the soft shell of her left ear. She was squashed into a corner of a lumpy sofa and he was sat tightly beside her, his arm slung casually over her prominent shoulders.

She tried to distract herself with the goings on of the discordant room but nothing in the world could capture her attention the way Eli could. Effortlessly, at that.

People from her year group were dotted around the sun-lit room, chatting, sipping, kissing, laughing. Their crippling exams had finally ended and an extended summer lay before them, promising endless intoxicating nights and sleepy, forgettable days.

"Are you excited?" came Eli's voice in Jordan's ear, intimately close. Jordan's mind taunted her with a shiver that skipped down her spine. Tipsy Eli was next level touchy and at times she convinced herself that it wasn't something she enjoyed.

"For what?" Jordan asked quietly as she took another sip of her drink. Over the rim of her cup, her eyes caught on a familiar figure who was stood a few feet away. In Jordan's squinted gaze she appeared a stick of pink-peach skin in a black bandeau and a tiny denim skirt.

"Concert." Eli replied before letting his head fall into Jordan's neck. He buried his face in her thick mass of hair, inhaling deeply. "Your hair smells nice." he sighed.

Jordan hummed, her mind half elsewhere. The girl she'd been watching had edged closer and was now sitting on a nearby beanbag, clearing her throat as she pulled down the hem of her quickly vanishing skirt.

"Aren't Eli and Jordan cute." she said, her eyes crinkling as the result of a smile so broad that it seemed to harbour more malice than kindness.

Eli raised his head from the depths of Jordan's hair at the mention of his name, his glazed hazel eyes skittering across the room for the source of the voice.

"Shut up, Alice." he said with a slight laugh. Faint dimples pinched at his deep brown skin.

"No, honestly." Alive went on, quirking her brows at Eli in a manner that irked Jordan. "You guys probably beat every night, right?" she said. Her sentence ended with a light chuckle but her glinting eyes hinted at a darker sentiment.

Eli sighed, his eyes rolling. He glanced down at Jordan, his fingers tapping a short rhythm against the bare skin of her upper arm. She ignored him, staring into her plastic cup.

"None of your business." Eli quipped, noticing more people drifting towards the corner of the room they were sat in, nonchalantly moving towards what they assumed to be a brewing altercation.

"Was that a yes? Wait 'til Kaden finds out what you guys are really up to when you told everyone you were studying in the library." Alice taunted with an icy smile.

Jordan shook her head slightly before downing her drink, hoping that no one had heard Alice's statement, that it was buried in the general hubbub of the room. Eli was sat weirdly upright, his arm feeling heavy around Jordan's shoulder.

"Imagine having sex in a library." someone mused from over the shoulder of the lumpy sofa the pair were sat in. "That library as well. Smells like weed and old people in there."

Alice laughed much too loudly at the statement, throwing her head back and flashing her blue studded braces.

"Imagine." she said. "What kind of freaky—"

"We're just friends." Jordan snapped, her cup collapsing slightly under the pressured of her clenching fingers.

"Yeah?" Alice challenged, her watery green eyes glinting. "Or are you just a pair of fucking prudes?"

"Shut up Alice." Eli said sharply, pulling away from Jordan and shifting around so that he was glaring straight at Alice who wore an annoyingly smug expression. "Why are you so concerned?" he hissed.

"Who cares? You're fun to annoy. So protective of your little..." Alice paused to let out a callous laugh, flicking her wavy hair over her shoulder. "Let me not even—"

"Yeah, that would be a good idea. For once why don't you—"

Jordan tuned out of the impending argument, her gaze drifting to the floor. The honey-coloured slates of wood were littered with crisp packets, suspicious metal canisters, deflated balloons.

One word of Alice's kept playing over and over in her head. Prude, prude, prude. Something about it made her uneasy, it created an itch that she could quite scratch.

"So what if I'm a prude?" Jordan said suddenly, the words tumbling from her lips before she could think herself out of it. There was a brief silence before Alice let out a strange wheezing noise.

"What?" she choked out, gripping her stomach as she leaned forwards, her eyes squeezed shut and her small body shaking erratically with laughter.

Jordan's heart dropped slightly as she heard more wisps of laughter leak from the mouths of those around her. She scrunched the crumpled cup in her hand into a flattened cylinder before pushing herself up from the sofa stalking towards the door with her head bowed. She could her Eli behind her but his words were jumbled, a sorry excuse for a comforting pep talk.

Over that, she could still hear that five letter word, playing over in her head in Alice's stupidly memorable voice. Prude, prude, prude. And then it manifested again, but in Eli's voice.

"What?" Jordan asked, glancing over at him. The pair were now stood outside, loitering in the neatly pruned front garden of the house they'd left.

"There's nothing wrong with being a prude. It's just a word. You know?" Eli said, throwing his hands about vaguely and mustering a half smile. Jordan stared at him for a few seconds before her lips stretched into a smile of her own. She let out a short laugh before shoving Eli away slightly before walking over to the front gate.

"No Jordan seriously though," Eli called out, clasping Jordan's fore arm and trailing behind her down the pavement, "prude, slut, whatever. Everyone's going to chat either way. Don't let it piss you off, yeah?"

"Yeah." Jordan answered slowly, her brows furring slightly as she fell back into her thoughts. Maybe Eli's words were just words too, tipsy ones at that, but they made her feel somewhat better, though she would have never admitted it aloud.

She looked back at Eli, he had paused a few paces back and was struggling to tie up his laces. He then, after emitting a loud sigh leant backwards and splayed his body out across the uneven pavement.

She laughed, the thoughts of Alice's words leaving her mind as she crouched over her friend, eyes crinkling at the corners.

__________

hi everyone! thanks to Charlotte for posting this, it was so fun to write. i have a short story posted about jordan for anyone interested in that (: thanks for reading!!

ely xx

This beautiful piece was written and authored by the lovely spark_ely ! Go give her a follow! She's such a wonderful human!

Sorry for my absence as of late. Last week I graduated high school and so I've been busy dealing with all that. I can't promise speedy updates yet, but never fear; I've got more updates coming!!!
Xx Charlie