Ocean Eyes

#24 - Jordan

I sat back and watched her, and suddenly I felt myself overcome by a flood of emotions that I didn't know I had. As I climbed in my teenage years, I had always felt as though I was made to understand, not be understood, and moments like that just further proved my point. Moments where I felt so crazy, so full of emotion and feelings and love, that no one could possibly understand all of the galaxies within me.

It was only a minute or two after Jordan and I had been having a deep conversation. From the moment she sat down in history, I knew something was wrong. I could read her as easily as I could a book. I immediately took action, for the thought of something hurting her from the inside hurt me from the inside as well.

We talked, for a small minute. I could barely squeeze just enough information out of her to understand the situation, but by the time she was done, I did. I understood. Unlike other people, it doesn't take much for me to 'get it'. 

As she slowly faded out and away from emotional vulnerability and back into her shell, I could feel the wall rising up, separating us, and I knew she was blocking me out, so I began to talk, hoping my words would be a sledgehammer to her steadily rising wall. I told her all of the things that I felt that someone in her situation would want to hear, but took careful precaution to never say a thing that I didn't mean. Lying to her had gotten me in trouble once before.

This continued for a minute or two before she shut me out. She sat back in her seat, hid her face, and watched the movie playing on the screen of the SmartBoard in the history classroom. 

Looking at her right then, I felt a flood of things that I couldn't describe, and don't think I ever will be able to. It was just so much all at once. I wasn't even sure if the feelings that I was feeling were even feelings. 

I studied every single part of her, even though I knew full well that she would be able to feel my gaze and would know how I was staring at her. I looked at her hair. Her smooth, silky, beautiful hair. Her eyes. Her grey (as of then, they change colors) kaleidoscope eyes that held more secrets than the United States government. Her guarded demeanor - the way she folded her arms across her chest in a protective stance. 

It's amazing what you can learn about someone from their body language. For instance, she was crossing her arms over her chest, and that told me (although I already knew it) that if push came to shove, her fight-or-flight instinct was to fight. Countering that, I tended to hug my knees to my chest in a frightened stance that showed that I was hiding. Which told everyone around me that my fight-or-flight instinct was to flee. 

I noticed her attire that day, what today's hoodie of choice was, and pondered the meaning of it. As I sat there, taking in every detail of Jordan that I possibly could, so many thoughts raced through my mind. They were like Ping-Pong balls, banging against the cavities of my brain. I struggled to stop them or at least slow them down, but it was to no avail.

My last option, if I couldn't stop them, was to purge them. I ripped a piece of paper from my Quotes notebook, titled it Angel and began to write.

I wrote about everything. I looked at Jordan, and I wrote about what I saw. I wrote about what I thought of her, what it had been for me to look her in the eyes. I wrote about how I loved her and to what depth. I wrote about how she appeared to the outside world, and how she appeared to me. But most of all, I wrote about her. I wrote about how strong, yet fragile, she was. I wrote about how brokenly beautiful she was. However, in all of my writing, I had one recurring thought that I kept coming back to. One thought that the entire piece of writing was based off of.

She was an angel with black wings and a dirty, cracked halo.

I wrote about Jordan. 

I wrote about an angel with broken wings.