Jordan was born in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland on October 21, 1987 (a Libra). She is the second and youngest child of Melinda and Constantine De Silva. Described by her mother as a "miracle child," she was conceived shortly after Melinda had miscarried twins and was born two weeks late. Some may say this extremely early life experience is what contributes to her unexplained sense of guilt and tendency to procrastinate.
In her early childhood, Jordan was a bright, happy youngin', always ready with a smile for anyone or anything. She loved to learn, never having to try too hard in school as she was always interested in what was being taught. Her family occupied the upper-middle class and lived comfortably. She was never very popular, but she gained a tight group of close friends. Other than a few spats attributable to sibling rivalry with her older brother, Alexander, things were fairly uneventful. It wasn't until puberty when things began to go downhill.
Unfortunately, like so many adolescents, Jordan inherited mental illness in the form of major clinical depression. Symptoms appeared early on in puberty. She withdrew from school and family, isolating herself in her misery. At 13, she nearly committed suicide by slashing her wrists with a pocket knife; she was stopped when Alexander walked in on her putting blade to flesh in their shared bathroom one afternoon. Her parents refused to hospitalize her, instead opting to home school her as she underwent intense outpatient cognitive-behavioral and chemical therapy ("head shrinkage and meds," as Jordan calls it). At age 14, she finally rejoined her classmates with a (fairly) clean bill of mental health.
Unfortunately, thanks to her own earlier isolation and her homeschooling, the kids were cruel in high school. Jordan was excluded from most groups, and was not able to make any close friends. She mostly kept to herself, fearing rejection if she attempted to establish any relationships with her peers. She became known as the "weird girl," known for being mostly quiet, but incredibly talkative and inevitably inappropriate if someone did decide to engage her in conversation. The constant teasing that accompanied being different most certainly didn't help her depression, but she coped by throwing herself into her school work and managed to graduate 3rd in her class. Her hard work got her accepted into NYU on a partial scholarship (the remainder being paid by buckets of student loans), joining her older brother, who is finishing up his sophomore year and majoring in political science.
A couple years ago, after a strange solar eclipse, Jordan began to notice some changes with her body that went beyond what was discussed in health class. She would notice her fingertips becoming what she could only describe as "smudgy", even when she hadn't held a pencil all day. Worse, she began having extreme trouble breathing and would often have terrible coughing fits. When her mother took her in to see a doctor, all parties were shocked to discover that she was showing all of the symptoms of coal workers' pneumoconiosis — black lung disease. Upon returning home and breaking the news of the diagnosis to her father, Constantine decided that now was the time for some father-daughter bonding.
During a long car ride, Jordan's father explained how he had hoped it couldn't have happened again in the family. After further questioning from Jordan, he revealed that his father (Jordan's paternal grandfather) had been a coal worker in the mines of West Virginia. Strangely enough, he was the only worker who never developed black lung and had actually lived a long and healthy life. Her grandfather, as it was revealed to her father when he was a boy, had the ability to somehow change the carbon-laden soot in his lungs into relatively harmless carbon dioxide — in other words, the man simply breathed it out. Jordan's father figured that his daughter's issues arose from a similar ability, only that she was unconsciously doing the opposite and taking the carbon out of CO2, which then deposited in her lungs in a solid state. After days of concentration, Jordan was finally able to achieve what her grandfather had and was eventually issued a 'miraculous' clean bill of health just a few weeks later. At the end of the trip, Jordan and her father had decided to keep her abilities a secret from the rest of the family.
Today, Jordan in her junior year, working towards a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology. She is a bit more socially well-adjusted, although she still has the tendency to lecture instead of converse and often blurts out inappropriate things when she's nervous. She currently shares an apartment with her older brother, who is now studying to become a lawyer.