Heather Lewis

15

Female

POV character

Rectangular

None, really- she's got a very forgettable face, which proves to be an asset when she wants to blend into the crowd. She does have a striped sweater she wears nearly every day, though- it's soft and somehow comforting to her.

Warm brown

Dark brown

Just below shoulder length, very poofy and frizzy; usually wears it long and pushed back with a headband, but will sometimes pull it back into a tight ponytail.

Brown

African-American

120 lbs

5'2

• Often caves to social pressure


• Tries to lie to herself in order to justify her poor choices


• Insecure


• Naive

• Stealing/Shoplifting


• Lock Picking


• Is a whiz with a pen- can forge a signature like it's nothing.


• Long-distance running; giving the slip to eagle-eyed shopkeepers has given her plenty of practice.

• Shopping & Shoplifting


• Doodling- she especially likes drawing pictures of flowers.

• Reliable


• Organized; her room might be cluttered from top to bottom with stolen objects, but at least they're all in an orderly arrangement.


• Insecure


• Anxious


• Tends to overthink things


• Loyal to the point of being clingy


• Dislikes Confrontation

• Kleptomania and Hoarding Disorder


• Social Anxiety- is terrified of saying the wrong thing and driving away potential friends, resulting in her rarely ever making friends.


• Experiences bouts of Autophobia; the fear of being alone.

• Instinctively averts her gaze/crosses her arms when someone tries to catch her eye (HATES eye contact).


• Whenever she begins to feel anxious, her voice begins to shake and her hands get clammy. Will often begin to feel sick to her stomach.

• Doesn't want to feel alone and will do anything to feel like she's part of something (even if she knows what she'd doing is wrong)

Recovering delinquent

Pink and blue

Sourdough pretzels- she likes salty things.

Sophomore in an accelerated math class

Grew up in San Francisco with her parents and grandmother. Both of her parents frequently traveled for their jobs, so she was raised mainly by her grandmother ("raised" in the loosest sense of the word. When her grandmother wasn't napping, she was either out with her friends or marathoning 'The Price Is Right'- the most interaction she bothered to have with her granddaughter was when she told Heather to change the channel). And as Heather was never very good at the whole 'being social' thing, she spent most of her childhood in relative isolation.

Around age thirteen, the loneliness started to get to her.

Heather started experiencing extreme bouts of anxiety; she couldn't stand coming home to that big, empty house every day (she was allergic to most animals, so pets were out of the question). Heather began spending most of her time at the mall and other crowded areas, but soon found that only made the loneliness worse.

So she began to comfort herself with things. Anything. Everything. Clothes, books, toys, whatever- they were something to come home to, to fill up that big empty house. Only problem was that things cost money, and while her family was well-off, neither of her parents really appreciated her maxing out their credit cards on a monthly basis. Heather was cut off from her allowance and banned from going on any more impulsive shopping sprees.

But that didn't take away her compulsive desire for things. Without a means to pay for them, Heather started getting desperate; she couldn't help it, she needed that thing, she needed it right now, and she no longer cared how she got it. Stealing gave her an adrenaline rush and a sense of relief once she had the stolen object in her possession- it wasn't long before shoplifting became second nature to her.

Heather was good at blending into the background, which helped her avoid getting caught most of the time. However, when she was fourteen, a cell phone she had shoplifted was tracked and the police were called- along with her parents. The phone was returned and because it was her first offense (that she had been busted for, that is) the courts went easy on her (as in, they didn't lock her up), but she was still on legal probation- oh yeah, and "grounded for the rest of her life," according to her grandmother.

Unable to leave the house except for school, Heather shifted her focus away from stores and to her high school. She swiped entire backpacks and taught herself how to pick locks on lockers- but seeing as she was one of the handful of students attending that had a misdemeanor on their record, Heather was one of the first to be suspected of the reported thefts, and was caught pretty soon and later suspended. When she got back to school, the urge to steal returned and this time, she was expelled.

This experience repeated for the next public school Heather was sent to, and again, she was expelled. At that point, her parents decided to take drastic measures. When Heather turned fifteen, she was informed that they were sending her to the Rainbow Peak Academy for Troubled Girls in northern Montana. Heather was outraged, furious with her parents for trying to send her away, for not bothering to understand that objects and possessions were the only thing that made her happy anymore.

Heather now attends Rainbow Peak and is getting the help she needs, but her anger towards her family for sending her thousands of miles away to a strange place where she felt so completely alone was so bitterly intense that she thought she was going to explode--

And then she met Jane.

August 3rd