Holly Jade Maddon
Preferred Name:
Holly
Age:
16
Birthday:
May 2nd
Sexuality:
Heterosexual
Hometown:
Orlando, FL {Age 0-5}
Memphis, TN {Age 5-12}
New York, NY {Age 12-16}
Her most notable characteristic is definitely how energetic she is. As long as she is awake, she makes her presence known through her constant chatter and curious questions. She struggles to keep her attention centered on one thing and is known to jump from task to task, and even stop mid-sentence in a conversation if something new catches her attention. She would never go out of her way to insult or be mean to someone, but lacks a speech filter and tends to say things that she overheard and weren't intended to be repeated, or ask invasive personal questions. She's naive, absentminded, inattentive and forgetful, but she rarely does any of this intentionally, and it's mostly related to her ADHD. It certainly gets annoying, especially when there are nine other people stuck in the same room as her, but she usually fails to see any signs of people getting tired of her. She's a cheerful and optimistic person, who, for the most part, is always happy.
One of her major faults is how dependent she is on other people. If it weren't for her sister, she most likely would already be dead by now. She is not intelligent book wise and the same goes for her street smarts. Not only does she struggle to read people, but like a child, she tends to trust everyone and expect them to be just as genuine as she is. Her naivety and overall delayed development is probably linked to her learning disabilities and drug damage done while she was in the womb, but the years of abuse probably play a role in it too. They caused her to become easily nervous, jumpy and emotionally unstable.
Likes:
Candy, dogs, sunny days, nail polish, hot showers, socializing, gifts, attention, watching movies, her sister
Dislikes:
Arguments, school, being called stupid, rain, milk, coffee, isolation, silence, darkness, bugs, spicy food
Fears:
She has many "normal" fears, with spiders, clowns and rodents topping the list, but her biggest fear is probably school. She did so poorly throughout her academic career and it not only resulted in humiliation in the classroom, but physical abuse at home, so it's tied to painful memories for her.
Dreams:
Holly's dreams vary drastically depending on the moment, but they all share the similarity of being virtually unattainable. Between wanting a dog, a pool, meeting Zac Efron... they're just not going to happen. What would be most beneficial for her at this point would to get her high school diploma or GED and manage to get some sort of normal job and living situation.
Holly's mother, Amy, was probably the worst candidate for motherhood. She had had a poor childhood herself, and ran away from home when she was sixteen, to live with a boyfriend who was ten years her senior, in Florida. He dumped her a few months after the move, but she had no money to return home, and her family didn't want her back either. She ended up turning to prostitution to make a living, and through her interactions there, picked up on cocaine and methamphetamine addictions. Amy was eighteen when she scored an attractive businessman for the night, but he left her with far more than a nice payout. He left her pregnant, and though she probably could have saved up for an abortion if she wanted to, she didn't. Instead, she continued to work and funnel all of her earnings into drugs, secretly hoping that it'd kill the baby before she had it. Things didn't go her way, and at twenty-five weeks, she gave birth to a premature baby girl, Holly Jade Maddon.
Amy was in a relationship at the time of Holly's birth, and it was under his influence, that Amy agreed to keep Holly. She didn't want a kid, and neither did he, but they knew that their welfare benefits would increase substantially with a child, especially one that was born so prematurely. That was the only reason why the pair kept the child around, really. For the most part, she spent most of her toddler years being neglected. Her mother's boyfriend's teenage sister would usually babysit her, but in a trailer littered with used syringes, crack vibes, and an aroma of marijuana that made even her hair reek of the drug, it was clear that Holly's welfare was not at the top of anyone's priorities.
Holly probably would have been removed from her mother's care by the time she entered grade school and the government was forced to monitor her well being, but it came before then. When Holly was four, her mother's boyfriend had an affair and got another woman pregnant. Amy stayed with him through all of this, but well that child was born and the mother demanded child support, the boyfriend insisted that Amy demand that of Holly's father as well. The money was the only motivation that they had to track down the man, and they got really close to getting their cash. However, when it was disputed whether her father was actually her father or not, they were ordered to get a blood test to confirm that she was his offspring. When she was taken in to do it, a CPS investigation was launched due to the malnourished and clearly neglected, and possibly abused state that she was presented in. Her mother and boyfriend were arrested for child endangerment and neglect when a warrant was served on the house and its conditions exposed. Holly was set to be put into foster care permanently, but the DNA rest revealed that her father was really her father, and per her grandmother's insistence, they took her in.
She was six when she made it to Memphis and started her new life at her grandmother's home. It was really nice at first, especially compared where she came from. She had her own bedroom, with a real bed, and clothes that were always clean and fit her correctly. Plus, there was a pool in the backyard and a kitchen that was constantly filled with fresh food. A child who came from an upbringing like hers couldn't ask for much more, and for the first year, she was allowed a happy and normal childhood. However, about a year into her new life, it was apparent that none of the extra tutors and support classes that her grandmother enrolled her in were helping her in school. She was being held back in kindergarten, of all things, and at age six, couldn't write her own name or even recite the alphabet correctly most of the time. She wasn't disobedient in terms of being a bad child, but she couldn't follow directions because she couldn't focus enough to pay attention to them. She was too active, and yet to disengaged from the things she was supposed to do. This, in addition to the diagnosis of her having a severe case of ADHD, dyslexia, and various subject-specific learning disabilities, didn't sit well with her grandmother, who wasn't going to stand to have a granddaughter who was born out of wedlock, and was also incredibly delayed academically and emotionally. She thought that maybe some good old fashioned discipline would somehow shake the attention deficit from the child, and so for a while, whenever Holly did poorly in school, it would result in physical disciplinary action at home. Of course, this did virtually nothing to fix the problem, and if anything, it got worse as she got older, and learned through her grandmother, father, and her peers, that she was incompetent. At the age of eight, when an uncle moved back in temporarily, Holly became the victim of not only "well-intended" physical abuse, but sexual abuse as well. It wasn't a regular thing, but just because it wasn't a nightly occurrence didn't mean that it didn't damage her.
When she was seven, her half-sister moved in. At first, Holly didn't have much of a relationship with her. Her grandmother didn't encourage the two to spend time together, and in fact, Lateefah was actually sent to live in the pool house when she moved in. However, Holly was desperate for a companion and it was just in her nature to engage anyone who was around her. At some point, one of her many attempts to befriend Tee must have worked, because she actually began to allow her to hang around her. Having Lateefah made life easier for Holly in more ways than one, but she became more than just some half-sister to her, she became like a protector. She was the one who stepped in enough to put the sexual abuse to a halt, and was there to lift her confidence and spirits, after a horrible week at school.
Unlike Holly, Lateefah inherited their father's intelligence, and when she was seventeen, she left for college. Understandably, Holly was devastated and felt like she had been abandoned. The only person who she really felt like she could turn to was gone, and she didn't know how to handle it. She was still facing the backlash from doing so poorly in school, being at barely a first grade level at age nine, and with Lateefah gone, it made her susceptible again to being "babysat" by her abusive uncle. It took three years of dealing with that for Holly to reach her breaking point, and for a girl who's normally so optimistic and energetic, her even having a breaking point says a lot. Whenever her uncle would abuse her, he would leave her with a "gift" which was basically her promising to keep their "little secret" to themselves. It was money, usually a ten or a twenty, depending on how much she struggled, and because Holly always associated that money with bad emotions, she kept it all hidden in the back of her closet. When she decided she wanted to run away, that was what she used when she got off of the school bus at the wrong stop, the one that was in the center of town. That was where she found a bus station, and was able to get a ticket to New York. She only called to tell Lateefah the good news when she was actually in New York, using the payphone at the bus station.
Job:
Holly doesn't work. She relies on her sister for money.
Height:
4'11
Weight:
87 lbs
Hair Colour:
It's naturally a shade of dark brown, but it's been dyed red since she left home.
Face Claim:
Ariana Grande