sroni | First story in a long time

Penelope Lane had been walking down the street, minding her own business, when something through a store window caught her eye. The little blonde slowed to a stop, not considering that people could run into her, that she was at a dead standstill on a busy street. Not considering that people who had known her since she was born might see the expression on her face and put two and two together and realize that “Little Penny Lane” had just fallen in love for the first time.

The little curly-headed blonde with the waist length pigtails and huge blue eyes and button nose walked into the store and began conversing with the owner. Penny was a friendly sort, and she’d been the town darling for as long as she could remember. She liked people and they liked her back. Being absolutely adorable helped, though she didn’t realize it. The owner could see Penny’s earnestness and desire, and since Penny was agreeing to pay for it, she saw no harm in moving the object of Penny’s affections out of the front window and into the back storage area until the six year old could pay for the second hand guitar.

The first thing she did was convince her parents to decide on a fair price for extra chores — a quarter for dishes — washing and drying and putting away, another quarter for dusting, a dollar for sweeping and mopping, etc. She then brokered the same deal with people in town to do yard work or housecleaning or painting or anything. She managed to convince her teacher to let her stay late at school and clean the classroom for a quarter — and then made the same deal with all the other teachers at school.

The adults had always considered Penny to be cute, and headstrong, and chuckled about it. Now they discovered just how coercive she could be, and how dedicated.

Within a month, Little Penny Lane had her guitar. She carried it home carefully. She didn’t care that it had nicks and scratches and dents. It was hers. Hers hers hers hers hers. Penny borrowed a book from the library explaining about guitars and how to tune them, how to read music, and what strings to press at which fret to make which notes. From there, she learned which notes made up which cords.

Penny would come home from school and do her homework and chores in record time, and then spend hours with her guitars, learning to play it, and then later, learning how to play different songs.

Years later, her first love was her solace when she fell in love with a person for the first time.

She was ten years older, and no less cute, no less headstrong, and the people of her hometown still thought of her as “Little Penny Lane”. She was walking down the street, sipping on a Grape Slurpee and chatting with her friends, when she spotted the new boy in town for the first time. Sawyer Matthews, with permanently windswept brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and delectible cheekbones. Penny had come to full stop, just gaping at him for a moment, not caring that she’d come to a stop on a busy sidewalk, not caring that the people who’d known her from birth could look at her face and know that Little Penny Lane had just fallen in love again.

After a moment of staring, she squared her shoulders, raised her chin and walked right up to him and introduced herself. By the end of the ten minute conversation, she had herself a date.

She threw everything she had into her relationship with Sawyer. She didn’t change herself completely — she knew who she was, and what she liked — but she gave herself up in order to be what he wanted her to be. She didn’t change herself completely, but only because in order to change yourself, you have to keep yourself, and she gave herself entirely over to Sawyer. She stopped taking her guitar to school and only played it when she was at home alone. She’d always been a bookworm, but Sawyer wanted someone who was fun, so Penny stopped reading her books. Her grades started slipping, her parents were unhappy with the changes she was making, but Penny didn’t care. All that mattered to her was Sawyer, and being what he wanted.

The night she lost her virginity, it wasn’t because it was something she wanted to do. It was because she could feel Sawyer pulling away, and this was the only way that Penny could think to hold onto him. She needed to hold onto him. It was not romantic. It was not everything she’d ever hoped it would be. It was clumsy and awkward, on top of a picnic table, and when they’d finished, he’d rolled off of her, zipped his pants, kissed her on the forehead and said he’d see her at school. She’d had to clean herself up and walk home — she lived two miles outside of town — and assure her parents that everything was fine when it wasn’t, that she was okay when she was trying desperately to not fall apart.

The next day at school, Sawyer avoided her. Walked right past her with his group of friends without acknowledging her. She knew, she knew that she should wait to deal with him by himself, not in front of his friends. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself from chasing after him.

“Sawyer! Wait.” She saw his shoulders tense, and then relax, as though he’d given a heavy sigh. She ignored her misgivings, though, as he stopped and turned around.

“What do you want, Lane?” The annoyance in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by her.

Penny forced herself to not turn tail and run, and instead kept her head high. “I just wanted … I just wanted to talk to you about our next date?”

“Not gonna happen, Lane. No more dates. Last night was the last one.” His voice was flat. Gone was the annoyance, even. It was just empty.

She was expecting it. Dreading it. But the words still affected her like a physical blow and she stepped back, her eyes widening as though she’d been literally slapped. “Why not?”

He gave a derisive snort. “Why do you think, Lane? I’ll give you props, you have the cute little girl next door thing down pat, but a guy wants to be with a gal who knows what she’s doing. You’re cute, and fun, but let’s face it: you don’t know the first thing about keeping a guy once you’ve gotten him. And you for damn sure don’t know anything about pleasing one.”

She opened her mouth to say something and just as quickly shut it and simply walked away. There was nothing more to say.

Penny went straight home, not caring that she was skipping a full afternoon of classes. She went straight home, went straight to her room, and took her guitar out of her case. She played for hours, not stopping for dinner. She played, sometimes songs she’d learned, sometimes songs she’d made up, but she played. And played. She played until her fingers were bleeding because her calluses had softened during the months of trying to please Sawyer.

She played and she played. She played all weekend when she wasn’t sleeping. Her parents made her do her homework, and she got through it quickly and played some more.

That set the pattern for the next month. She would take her guitar with her to school, and would play during any free time. She would play on the bus ride home. She’d get home and do her chores and homework quickly but proficiently, and then she would sit down and play her guitar. She would play and she would play and she would play. Slowly, her first love helped her to recover from the heartbreak of her second love.

She decided that love wasn’t for her. She could have fun with people, she could enjoy being with people and they with her, she could be whatever someone needed her to be, whenever they needed her to be it.

But never again would she fall in love. It hurt too much, giving all of herself and being told that all she was was worthless.

It hurt too much, and she could not do that to herself again.

For eight years, she stuck to that. She was whatever people wanted, whatever they needed. She was bouncy and cheerful and energetic, and she never let herself consider that there was something missing.

And then she met someone that made her want to abandon her belief that love wasn’t for her. He made her want to believe in love again.

So Penny fled. She fled to her first love, and played her guitar, seeking refuge in the music, music she’d learned and music she’d created. She wouldn’t fall in love again.

She wouldn’t fall in love again.

She would not fall in love again.

No matter how much she wanted to. No matter how much she needed to. And as the music poured out of her heart, through her fingers and into the guitar strings, she refused to let herself think about the fact that she had already fallen for him.

* * *

Penny Lane is one of my characters for an RP. I was talking to a friend about her this morning, and shared how Penny had found her guitar. I can see her guitar clearly in my mind — it and it’s case are covered in stickers or her writing — in the case of the guitar case, it also has her friends’ writing. Each sticker means something. The peace sign is from her hippy days. The flower is from one of her best friends that told her that she’s like that daisy. Most stickers were given to her by someone. The writing is sayings and such, that either someone said that she wrote on the guitar or the case, or that she read somewhere, and wanted to put it on her baby. She loves her guitar.

So I started writing about that, and the rest of it followed.

As always, critiques are appreciated.

First story in a long time

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