``the kids you used to love``I G G Y ! !

[jenna]

are we growing up, or just going down?
it's just a matter of time until we're all found out
take our tears, put 'em on ice
'cuz I swear I'd burn this city down to show you the light

Have you ever had a day where you just felt a breakdown was imminent, where you felt those tears pushing at the back of your eyeballs and dropping a fork could set you off? Jenna was having one of those days. They were occuring with alarming frequency lately, although a cheerer-upper extraordinaire like our little heroine was quite adept at hiding them. She knew all the tricks in the book--music, singing, drawing, taking a nap, cuddling a kitten (or a friend), getting into her handy dandy stash of candy that she so readily doled out to random people on the lot...but sometimes? Sometimes you just had to cry.

So, our dear little Jennadoll curled up under the blankets in her bunk, headphones in, and let it out. It felt good, it always did. She cried over her mother, who had shoved religion at her and eventually abandoned her for it. She cried for the father who never raised a finger to stop it. She cried for all those nights she'd had to stay with friends and act like neither of them knew that it was because she wasn't allowed in her house. She cried for being seventeen and having only had broken hearts with no reciprocation of love from all those thousands of crushes. She cried for being seventeen and not having a home except for what these people had given her to sell merch with them. She cried because she just couldn't let herself feel sorry for herself--she knew that, if for nothing but this job, she was so lucky it hurt. And she cried because even with that as true as it was, she still was sad. She just couldn't help it, as much as she tried. And that scared her. It terrified her--what if she could never truly be happy, under the smile? What if nobody ever was there to cuddle her and tell her it was all right? What if she never even let anybody know? Because she really was a coward, for not even being all right enough to show that she was sad, that she had to keep it hidden and put up a front. How pitiful was that? And here was where things started to get shaky, where that fine line of control slipped from her, like she was finding it to do a lot. That was scary. Finding herself all of a sudden over the sink, clutching at her wrist and being quite shocked that she had somehow hurt herself...again....that was scary too. But shaking and trying her damndest to not keep going....that was scariest. Because it felt good. The blood dripping from her fingers into the sink, from the cuts so carefully concealed under bandaids under bracelets...she could control that. When she got off the phone with her mother after a particularly failed attempt at "reconciliation", "saving her daughter's damned eternal soul", or just plain "talking", as had just happened...Well, when she was pushed to it, it felt best when things turned out this way. The bad day could leak through her fingers, and she could stick that smile back into place. So that was what she did.

...Careful now, don't get it on the counter, you wouldn't believe what it does to the porcelain. That's it, slowly put pressure above the cut, slowly get it to stop. Rinse, bite your tongue even if it stings. Rinse again. Pat dry, wad the toilet paper up and shove it way down in the trash can. Put a bandaid on, if you want it can be a Snoopy or Elmo or Spongebob if that would make you laugh. It's not particularly deep, so you don't need to put any gauze on, which is good because it's June and the more cover your arms have, the more suspicious you look, and hoodies are not an option. Ditch whatever you used, in this case one of those big safety pins. Rinse the sink twice, dry your face, jump in the shower. Just like every other morning.

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'cuz I'll keep singing this lie
if you'll keep believing it

[/b]

That was how to control that situation. Jenna'd been controlling all kinds of situations for a while now, practically raising herself since about ten, this was just a new development, right? Maybe even a fad. She didn't mean anything by it. She didn't want to die. Just...sap a bit of the pain here or there. It felt good, right after you did it. Like you had something in your control. Like you'd managed things and it was all right to go back out in the world.

After a half hour long luxurious shower or so--there was no hurry to go anywhere, she wasn't on merch duty until later tonight--and carefully curling her hair into loose ringlets, Jenna scrutinized herself in the mirror. Pale, with her large irridescent sea-green eyes fringed by dark lashes, pink curved lips with the lightest tint of gloss...simple. The cutesy little sister of everyone on tour. Always looked after, always protected...and utterly and completely off limits by some unspoken rule. Not exactly a desirable position for a seventeen year old, oui? But, then, Jenna was a little bit more immature, a little more trusting, a bit more naive, and certainly more chipper and childlike of spirit than most seventeen year olds. Somebody had once told her that it was to make up for not getting to really have a childhood. But, then, she didn't know what to make of that. This was just how she was. She was just that girl who sat there with a bag of candy to hand out to anyone who came up to the merchandise table, the one who everyone knew as "the Rest in Pieces merch girl", "the cute mercher", "my adopted baby sister", or "that really cute kid who gave me candy yesterday!" Not that those were bad titles, not at all. They just...were difficult to get around. Kind of limiting when you wanted your crush to be that one to finally make a move and end the seventeen year streak of no-proximity-love. But hey, that was life, and far be it from Jenna to complain, oui?

Dressed in shorts, conveniently placed bracelets, one of her favorite tee shirts (who wouldn't love a kitten wearing a mustache?!), some converse, and hair bows, Jenna found no desire to really go out and see anybody in them. But, then again, staying home wasn't an option either. So, she snagged her handy dandy cell phone, flopped onto the couch with a pudding cup from her stash in the back of the fridge, and hummed to something or other on her iPod while she texted out "Hey, you should come see me 'cuz I'm suuuuper bored C:" and sent it to the last person she'd texted, which was a random shot in the dark considering she texted a lot of people. This time it just so happened to be her adopted brother Iggy, who was incidentally one of her favorite people in the whole world...and one of the spearheads in the "let's keep all boys away from Jenna!" campaign, but hey, she loved him anyway. So, now she could only wait, phone on her stomach, pudding spoon stuck in her mouth while she got her Ms. Pacman on.

I need to keep you like this in my mind
so give in or just give up

[/b]

h'okay! this post is for iggycakes/jarrod and it's about 1234 words long! you can see miss Jenna in this

[/b], and other than that this post sucked D: so yeah! ^.~[/blockquote][/center]
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[jarrod01]

Well, that was the reason for all of the recent fights he'd had with the two people he loves the most. His best friend in the whole world, Jenna, and his ex girlfriend, Sophie. To him, it seemed that Sophie had never really seemed to understand why he acted the way it did. Like she had only assumed that it was a little fit, and that it would low over and Iggy would apologize. Well Sophie was wrong. Iggy had been pissed off about her attitude pretty much all day. He didn't understand why she had to poke and prod at him, like he was some sort of experimental lab rat. Whatever her problems were, they were the very least of Iggy's worries. He was going to end things with her anyway, and he was starting to love the feeling of being single and free for the first time in a very, very long time. He wouldn't worry Jenna about it though. Iggy would only keep it in until the very day, and probably end up sprinting off. He'd have a great reason, of course.

Lazily rolling out of his bed, Iggy rubbed the sleep out of his bright blue eyes and stretched out his arms to touch the bus ceiling. He yawned, and scratched his head, thinking about what to eat for breakfast. He walked over to the small white miniature refrigerator and swung the plastic door open. To his disappointment, the only things in the fridge were tall and colorful cans of Monster energy drink, and a box of leftover Chinese food from the other night when he spent time with Jenna. "Oh well... Looks like Iggy's not eating breakfast today." He said softly to himself. He didn't know why he whispered, though. The whole bus was empty, leaving only himself and a large empty tour bus. Oh the fun he could possibly have today...Not.

Sighing, Iggy walked over to the small counter top in the "kitchen" area of the bus. He flipped open his sleek jet black laptop computer. He quickly went to the tours website, and opened up the chat window for band members and their crews. Signing onto the chat server, he saw that Sophie was on. "Just what I fucking needed..." He said, shaking his head. He somewhat had hated her for the dumb assumptions she'd made about him. Iggy knew it was wrong to hate, but hell. When someone tries to tell you you don't have your own problems, they might as well have smacked you in the face.

A few minutes had passed, and Iggy hadn't said a single word to his soon to be ex-girlfriend. Then as he slowly started to rise from the stool at the counter, he noticed that Jenna, his best childhood friend and confidant had logged onto the chat. She started to try to break up the fight that was occurring between Iggy and Sophie, but it didn't work. Sophie ended up leaving, which made Iggy feel twice as bad than he already had for starting the fight. 'Hey Jennadoll! What's up girly?' he typed, sending the message into the chat box. His lips slowly crept into a smile, as they kept talking to each other. Jenna was the center of Iggy's entire world. He wouldn't know what to do if she had ever left him.

"Hey, you should come see me 'cuz I'm suuuuper bored C:", Jenna had texted him about a minute ago. Iggy smiled widely, and dressed into comfortable clothes to head over to Jenna's bus. He showered first, making sure he was clean before he went to cuddle with his best friend. After he was dressed, he started to walk over to the Rest In Pieces bus. When he arrived, Iggy knocked on the door softly. "Jennaaaaaa!" He called playfully.

outfit

[jenna]

are we growing up, or just going down?
it's just a matter of time until we're all found out
take our tears, put 'em on ice
'cuz I swear I'd burn this city down to show you the light

There was only so much you could do at one time. You could listen to music and play Ms. Pacman out the wazoo, but that didn't mean the thoughts wouldn't invade. Blocking out your brain was a whole other activity different than distracting one's self, Jenna was finding out. So it was either brood silently whilst looking normal, or sit there doing nothing and actually have a clear head. Well, Jenna was a pro at keeping her poker face up, so she kept playing, ignoring the receding throbbing of her wrists and the roar like the ocean in between her ears that was the product of a good cry. It was the beginning of that headache that screamed dehydration that could fuck up your whole afternoon unless you combatted it. But just now, Jenna was feeling too lazy to bother, so she settled for gritting her teeth through it, making herself try to think of it as more good pain. Hah, wasn't it funny that she had gotten to the point that she'd refer to any pain as good? Well, truth was, none of it was good. Obviously she wished it didn't have to come down to this, day after day. Obviously she'd rather she was at home right now with a mother and father who loved and cared about her, maybe with a little brother or sister. But she wasn't. She was on a lonely tour bus, shivering at the emptiness of the space around her, staring at the last bit of a plastic pudding cup and trying to push back tears again before Iggy got there. Wasn't the whole point of the cry-and-cut to feel better, not worse? And yet, here she was, scrunching up her nose and trying to fix her smile in place. It was like rearranging melting ice cream to look good enough to sell, in her opinion, and she knew it was a crappy attempt.

With a sigh, she rose, rolling out the muscles in her shoulders, leaving Ms. Pacman to rest on pause while she sought out something sugary and liquidy to knock out this headache. It was when she was snagging one of the Monster energy drinks from the fridge that she heard her best friend coo in. The girl couldn't help but let out a shoulder-sagging sigh of relief. He hadn't taken too long, maybe with some instinct that she needed him, and she was glad that he had. Her Iggster had the best hugs of all time, and she really hadn't been able to bear another second alone with just her thoughts. If nothing else, he could be another voice to add to the drowning out.

[/size]

'cuz I'll keep singing this lie
if you'll keep believing it

[/b]

Padding over in socked feet, the girl stood on tiptoes to throw her arms around his neck in their customary greeting, clinghuggling perhaps a second more than necessary, but to be fair it was taking all she had to act as if nothing was wrong and just be cool and not cling to him for cryinghuggletimes. But, of course, she was strong, right? She could keep up a smile, she did all the time. She'd never indulged in her need to go all primitive repressed-childhood and curl up against someone's side to cry herself out. That was a private ritual. That's not to say she wouldn't if she had someone to indulge it, but hey, you could never tell because she was terribly stubborn about this...and afraid. Afraid of what she'd be without her smiling facade. She'd put it up for so long, if she were to take it down, what would happen? Would she simply dissolve into an inconsolable mess of tears on the ground, a puddle of sadness that she'd inevitably drown in? Well, she could keep up the front if that was the alternative!

Padding back to the couch, she nudged the N64 controller up onto the arm so there was room for Iggy, tucking her feet up underneath herself and arranging her arms so her hands were in her lap. Sadly, it had become necessary as of late to have to know how to conceal the marks of self-harming very well. "Come sit down!"[/b] She chirped over to him happily, or at least, faux-happily, in a very good cover up I might add. It got easier the longer you did it.

I need to keep you like this in my mind
so give in or just give up

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h'okay! this post is for iggycakes/jarrod and it's about 730 words long! you can see miss Jenna in this

[/b], and other than that this post sucked EVEN MORE D: so yeah! ^.~[/blockquote][/center]
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