A Dying Patch of Ivy PV Burkhart closed

America...? Jesse had always wanted to go to the country, it was so vast and big, and she'd finally met someone from there. England was wonderful but she was the type who wanted to experience everything and go everywhere, and being a witch had opened so many doors. Now she had a ton of questions for Eleanor but she realized that she was talking too much, they were in class after all. She waited a moment, making sure that the professor wasn't paying too much attention to them, before saying, "Yes, I actually do have many questions for you, but maybe we can talk...later. I-I...I'm sorry to hear about your mum. And I hope you enjoyed living with your grandparents...can I ask..."

What was up with her? Her tongue felt like it was full of withering snakes, forbidding her to speak correctly. "Can I ask what happened to your father?" Although Jesse's guardian was now her brother, it hadn't always been that way. Her brother claimed them just three years ago, when he was twenty-two. Before then she and her sisters had been living with their parents, who were very poor and could barely support their children, her mother being sick and her father a drunk. Her brother had worked very, very hard to be able to fully support his sisters, knowing that it wasn't good to grow up the way they were.

Jesse wondered what Eleanor had gone through that meant the disappearance of her mother, and she smiled at her, hoping that she knew that she appreciated her telling her such dear information. It was then that Jesse noticed marks on her hand. Without thinking, she reached over and grabbed the girls hand. Blushing, she said, "Uh, what h-happened to your hands...?"

Eleanor let out a small, bitter laugh. “Enjoyed might be a bit of an overstatement. My grandparents are...demanding to say the least.” She shuffled in her seat a bit at the mention of her father. “And you can ask. My father is the reason why they’re that way. But he’s alive, and that’s...about all he is to me anymore.” He was the sole reason for the scars on her hands and to say she resented him for it wouldn’t be going far enough.

It was almost as if the girl could hear her thoughts as she felt Jesse take her hands, revealing the half moon marks marring her olive skin. A bad habit she had picked up when she was younger, stuck in a home that she had felt so trapped in, with no control over her situation. The marks on her skin...they were the only things she could control.

“It’s...nothing.” Eleanor murmured, though she didn’t pull her hands out of Jesse’s. This was the first human contact she had had in...she actually couldn’t remember the last time somebody had touched her. “It’s just something I do when I get stressed or angry or...I don’t know, I do it a lot.” she shrugged.