Makayla Alexis Wright
Nickname(s):
Kay, Kayla
Age:
22
Date of Birth:
July 26th
Sexuality:
Bisexual
Personality:
Makayla is a girl with a lot of layers, and a thick armor around her true self. She's guarded and thinks it's best to remain that way, because she doesn't want to get close to many people. Not a lot of people understand the pain that she went through as a child, or how it's made trusting people so difficult for her. She has enough on her plate as it is now, with Holly, with how her chance at a future was tossed to the wind when she accepted custody of Holly, and how her mental sanity is on a downward spiral that never seems to end. The last thing that she needs are complicated relationships with anyone else in her life, be it close friends or romantic relationships, so she tends to keep to herself. Stay in her lane, if you will. She minds her own business, does her own thing, and tries to stay out of people's way, and hopes everyone will grant her with that same courtesy. Because of this, a lot of the time she will seem indifferent towards a lot of things. She won't make you feel very loved and welcomed, but she also won't make it seem like she hates you. She's not truly that plain and simple, but it's easier that way.
To those that she's very close with, and those are few and far between, she's softer. She's protective and caring and has more of a conscience and heart that she wants to give herself credit for. She has a good head on her shoulders, a lot of common sense, and the ability to sacrifice her own comfort and wants to make sure her family is taken care of. It's undeniable that she's a strong girl. Strong definitely isn't a characteristic she would use to describe herself, but to go through what she's went through, and to accept this whole new challenge of taking care of Holly when she didn't need to attests to it. Even on her lowest days, when she swears that she's going to kill herself, she somehow manages to make it through, and a lot of the time, with a fake smile on her face.
Likes:
Chocolate and alcohol are the keys to her heart. Red wine gets you bonus points, but she doesn't have money to buy a pair of ten dollar shoes most days, so a cheap bottle of vodka will do the trick too. Dealing with the ball of energy she calls her sister leaves her with no patience by the end of the day, so 99% of the time, marijuana is the only thing that has kept her from taping Holly's mouth shut by six o'clock. Said little sister is one of her 'likes' as well, though the love isn't always showed. She likes money (who doesn't?!), but likes the stability that comes with it rather than the thrill of being able to splurge.
Dislikes:
She has common dislikes, like certain foods such as taffy, cinnamon flavored gum, bananas, chicken patties and chili. She was never a fan of the snow. She hates long bus rides and misplacing her metro card for the subways. She grew up around roaches and pests, but spiders still creep her out, and thanks to allergies,dislikes cats and dogs. Aside from the normal dislikes, there are a lot of times where she dislikes being responsible for Holly. The girl is her world and she loves her, but she doesn't think it's fair that at twenty-two-years-old, she's stuck taking care of her. She would never say it out loud, but Holly can be a burden and there are times when Kay is sure that if she didn't have to care for Holly, she might have been able to leave New York and gotten her life together somewhere else. It's so hard for her to focus on herself when she's taking care of a girl who has the attention span of a child, but at the same time, it's impossible for her to not love Holly like a sister and that dislike will never be enough for her to abandon her.
Hometown:
South Bronx
Job:
Prostitution
History:
Makayla was born into a dysfunctional family, but it wasn't something that was abnormal in her community. She was born in the south Bronx to a crack addict mother, and a drug manufacturing and dealing father. He was an addict as well, but she preferred the addict in her mother, who was just neglectful, over the addict side of her father, who was abusive. Luckily, for most of her childhood, her grandmother looked after. She lived just a few floors up in their apartment building and at least allowed Makayla to make it through her toddler years in one piece, without accidentally consuming a piece of rock cocaine that fell off a coffee table or being the target of one of her father's whizzing beer bottles at three in the morning.
When she was eight years old, her mother was arrested for soliciting prostitution, and she never came home. She was released from jail, Makayla knows that much, but she just never saw the woman again. She doesn't know if her father threatened to kill her if she ever came back, or if the woman finally realized that her baby daddy was going to kill her if she stayed with him. All Makayla knows is that she was no real mother to abandon her. Maybe that's why it's been so hard for her to abandon Holly. She knows the pain, and she can't put that on someone else.
Holly is her stepsister, even though they aren't legally even related. Holly's mother was one of the women that Makayla's father spent a lot of time with after her mother disappeared. Holly was five years old when she first moved into the house, and at first, Kay hated her, but liked her all the same. She was annoying as hell, always touching things and making noise, but it shifted the attention of the abuse from her, onto the new girl. Now, Holly could be reasonably blamed for a broken television remote or running out of soap in the bathroom. Even when it wasn't her fault, like it had never been Makayla's, her father would blame her, and beat the girl. To this day, Makayla still feels bad about never stepping in to stop the physical abuse, and then the sexual abuse when that started, but she couldn't. If she did, it would have been her receiving the beatings, and she just knew that she couldn't do that. It wasn't her job to take a beating for a kid she owed nothing to... That's what she tried to tell herself, at least.
She just tried to focus on herself. She went to school, did pretty well given the circumstances, and during her senior year, got into a state college where she could have moved out and dormed there, and potentially started a whole new life, away from all of this mayhem. She couldn't do it though. Even though it would have been financially manageable with loans and financial aid, she just couldn't bring herself to accept the offer. However, she knew that this life wasn't for her, and spent one year at her community college while working part time at CVS before her father and Holly's mother were incarcerated. Though it wasn't even two years ago, she can barely remember the day. It all seemed fuzzy. Police tape covering the apartment door, people in hazmat suits walking in and out, her father's face being shoved into the dirt outside as his hands were cuffed behind his back. Running a drug lab in an apartment building kitchen is nothing to laugh about, and Makayla feels like justice was served for her father... but not for her. She'll still never get her childhood back, and the end result of the arrests was that she somehow accepted custody of Holly, had to drop out of college to try to work full time to support them, and then ended up losing the apartment when she couldn't afford the rent. So, they ended up on the streets. Sort of. They moved into Manhattan where Makayla did her best to make friends with people who would let them sleep on their couches, but she couldn't find any work in the city that allowed her to stay with Holly after school too. That's when she turned to prostitution, and it's what she's been doing ever since. About a year ago, she connected with the building manager of her current home, and after some "favors" on her end, he agreed to let her stay in the building for a reduced rent rate until she could get on her feet.