Post by alba castilla on Oct 14, 2010 20:29:56 GMT -8
alba gabrielle castilla
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name: megan
age: nineteen
gender: femme
writing experience: a couple of years
how’d you find us?: already here
a favorite book: the invisible man
other character(s): eliot && rose
name: alba gabrielle castilla soto
age: seventeen
citizen? upper or lower schooling?: lower
previous residence: ignacio, belize
eye color: hazel
hair color: dark brown
height: 5'7
distinguishing features: almond shaped eyes, scar on right elbow, small cleft in her chin
four good personality traits
four bad personality traits
three quirks
important people
history
The short bursts of ringing resounded obscenely in the quiet space of the library jolting her concentration from the glossy magazine resting on the open pages of her heavy textbook. More than a few accusatory glares shot at her from lowered books and raised heads. Ignoring both the looks and the rule that forbid cell phone use in the library, she flipped the phone open, putting it to her ear as she flipped through the last few pages of her magazine. “Yes…” The bored tones of her friends should’ve answered but instead she heard the mature and anxious voice of her mother, a woman whose main form of communication was often through an assistant or a quick text. Seconds, months, eons flew by as she listened to her mother’s ramblings. Dread spread through her, turning her ribs into a vise that left her breathless. Mechanically, she spoke up interrupting her mother’s words, making no apologies. “I have to go.” The thought of going to her class was millions of miles from her mind as she stepped into the hallway. Unaware of the world around her, she walked until she had reached a lone bench on the school grounds where she sat trying to process her mother’s words. It could’ve been a mistake. It wasn’t the first time her mother made mistakes- missing birthdays, buying her things based on the likes of a different child, never quite remembering important events and dates. But her mother wouldn’t make a mistake about something such as this. No mother could. Her fingers wavered as she took her phone from her pocketing, hesitating before she dialed the familiar set of numbers. It rung several times until her father’s voicemail answered. Suddenly she felt as if she were eight years old again when her world had seemed so surreal, unsteady, agonizing, and full of broken promises.--------------------------------If it had been for any other occasion, Alba could’ve enjoyed seeing the immense mass of faces that consisted of her relatives but instead she spent most of her time avoiding the concerned faces for fear of the endless questions about her well-being, her parents, and her sister. She couldn’t face the expectant expressions that waited for her to recount all the wonderful memories she had of Remedios when for years they had been strangers. She could barely distinguish whether she mourned for never maintaining a relationship with her sister or her sister’s death. But it hadn’t always been this way. Once her parents had loved each other and her family was whole. Before their divorce, her parents resembled a loving couple but by the time she was six arguments and thinly veneered hostility was the norm. It wasn’t so terrible though. When the arguments escalated and seemed to fill every inch of their home, she always had her sister to turn to, who always found ways to make the reality of their parents’ relationship less harsh. Countless hours were spent at the beach outside their home where her parents’ arguments were masked by the sounds of the ocean.
By age eight, neither one of her parents could swallow the thought of being with each other. Their divorce had been final for some time when they announced to their children that they were no longer together. Despite Alba’s vehement objection to the divorce from everything to terrible temper tantrums to refusing to eat, time could not rewind to the time when her parents loved each other. Unlike their marriage, their divorce was handled rather diplomatically. “One child for you and one for me,” they agreed. When vacations came, then the children would have the chance to be with each other. To both parents, it seemed like a good set-up. So Remedios left with their mother for Paris, France while Alba and her father stayed in Belize. It wasn’t as if they were splitting up their children entirely, her parents reasoned. They could and would always have each other, her father assured her one tearful evening. And they did, at least for awhile until Alba was eleven when suddenly it was decided without warning that her sister wouldn’t come to visit that summer. Whenever she asked why, her father’s only reply was “Remedios is too sick to come and visit but you’ll have next summer together and every one after.”
The next summer arrived but it wasn’t like all the others summers she spent with her sister. Remedios wasn’t quite the same. Alba had always known her sister for being the quiet and focused girl who always seemed to have the right words for anything but in a year she had become withdrawn, anxious, and a constant look of grief would appear on her face at the moments when she thought no one could see. She had even developed the peculiar habit of peeling the skin off her lips until they bleed and biting her nails to the quick. She couldn’t explain the changes but the only explanation given was that Remedios simply felt stressed since joining the Paris Opera Ballet yet it wasn’t as if she could simply quit. Dance was her passion and anyone who saw her dance realized there was nothing else she was better suited for. Since that summer, the relationship between Alba and her sister was gradually pushed to the background as other facets of life gained importance. Before long, even their visits lessened.
It hadn’t been her decision to attend l’Academie Ouvard. Alba was content to stay in Belize where she could still hold onto the parts of her life not tainted by the separation of her parents. But seeing the lack of communication between his two children, her father hoped living in Paris would bring them back to how they once were. Furious, Alba impatiently listened to her father explain why it was better to have her in France waiting for her chance to retort that they would have never been in their current position if he had never divorced her mother. Even with her argument in hand, he still sent her. There was hardly a point in doing so. Living in France didn’t change the almost nonexistent relationship she shared with her sister. Remedios was so deeply involved in excelling as a dancer that nothing else seemed to matter. Nothing else interfered. From time to time, Alba would see Remedios but nothing really changed, and pretty soon Alba had the distractions of school and her friends to muddle that pain of losing her sister once again until it receded into a phantom ache.
Alba tried to resume the normalcy of life after her sister’s death until she came to realize that nothing could truly be the same. Soon everything seemed to become inconsequential in her eyes. Her friends, her concerns, her boy problems all became so childish and petty to her afterward. Soon, she found herself not caring for the conversations that went on around her, the parties her friends threw, even schoolwork became a drudgery she no longer cared to acknowledge. Guilt and regret had become a cancerous tumor for her life, overshadowing every moment without respite.
One evening, while having dinner with her mother, her mother unhappily confided in her that she somehow felt responsible for Remedios’ death. “She tried to kill herself once that one summer when you didn’t come.” Minutes passed by until Alba could respond through clenched teeth, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her mother looked at her for one long moment before she answered. “Your father thought it would be better to shield you from it. And we thought she was getting better after a while… I don’t even know if her death was an accident or not!” she admitted tearfully as she finished the rest of her wine with one swallow. It was several months after that that Alba could speak either one of her parents again after she learned what they kept from her. School was another matter. After her dinner with her mother, the thought of returning to school where she would have to fake some semblance of sanity seemed so strenuous to her that the only plausible decision was not returning to school. For the remainder of the school year and that summer, her only concern then was riding her horses at her grandmother’s home in Spain . At the start of the new semester, Alba begrudginly returned to l’Academie at her father’s behest, no wiser and no better than when she left, still searching for the peace that evades her.
if you could be anywhere, where would you be? “Somewhere warmer, with a gorgeous beach and a hot surfing instructor. Somewhere like Fiji. Or home, whichever.”
character’s play-by: nataniele ribiero
allemagne
bretonne
adèle bouchard