BRYNNA BEAUREGARD | DISTRICT THREE | FIN

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Beauty.

It has a lot of definitions, and it's meaning varies with each person asked. Some believed beauty was only skin deep. They believed that someone with hair that reminded them of summer, even in the coldest winter nights, someone with eyes likes emeralds was beautiful. Maybe they were right. I had been called beautiful a number of times, and usually my admirers were referring only to my looks. To my golden skin tone, and to my frail shoulders. But only a few times had someone noticed who I was on the inside. Wasn't that how things were, though? People admired the cover of the book, thinking it was, yes, beautiful, or deemed it disgusting, and never gave it a second thought. They never cared enough to flip through the pages and learn.

The family that took me in- the Beauregards, they had more than enough money than they knew what to do with, and so I tended to have nice things. My clothes were always nice, and my make-up was always new. So I guess, on the surface, I was beautiful. I tried my best to keep myself noticed, and in a positive way, and I guess I was really good at it. You can't blame me for wanting people to look at me, every girl wants to feel like a princess, no matter how badly they try and deny it. And the reason why they wanted to feel that way? Princesses were, you guessed it, beautiful.

When I was at home, I always seemed to stay in my room, reading with the small, tan colored excuse for a dog named Diego resting quietly by my side as my hand softly ran itself over his thick, nappy fur. It seemed he needed as much grooming as I did, perhaps even more. He and I seemed to understand each other, maybe because he was the closest thing I had to a sibling. I guess being beautiful wasn't enough to keep me from feeling lonely.

Teenage girls are all the same, really. I guess I was like every other girl my age in ways, because I dreamed of a better tomorrow, and I was obsessed with the idea of love. I wanted to be one of those girls everyone glared at with envy because she had found that perfect boy, and her life had finally became a fairy tale. I wanted to be one of those girls younger children looked up to, the one people wanted to be like. I strived to be one of those girls. Honestly, I think I was a pretty damn good example of how a lady should act. I kept my temper contained, I didn't parade myself around wearing next to zero clothing, and I certainly wasn't going to do any kind of illegal substance because that meant harming my body.

My parents- they have really used their money to their advantage. Much like the tutoring I sometimes do with the duller children in my school, they have paid for...lessons, if you will, for me since I was about ten. I'm not really allowed to talk about it, but let's just say that if you were to try and attack me and I had a pack of knives, you wouldn't even make it to me without having one lodged firmly into your skull. My parents weren't going to have me killed if my name was called at the reaping. I guess that was one of the things that made me seem less like a role model, my secrets. But, if my parents were right, those secrets could have been what saved my life if they were kept just secrets.

Just as a lot of people liked me, a lot also hated me. I was the first to admit I was two faced, and I had a slight tendency to act better than those less fortunate than me. (I was.) I didn't mean it in a rude way, but different social classes needed to stay in their own groups, or at least I felt that way. It was the way I was taught, so I assume there are a lot of people in the world that agree with my opinion.

Even though I could probably be considered fake, my feelings were always genuine, no matter what they were. If I felt happy, I was happy, sad I was sad. If I was excited for something, usually a day I got to spend in my rose garden, I told no lies about it. I loved plants. They were such better company to keep than humans, because they never seemed to judge me. I had two or three books that talked only of plant life and botany, and they were hidden on the small, off white shelf all of the books my mother read to me when I was a child were sitting. I must have read each of them cover to cover at least five times, and I had actually become quite knowledgeable in the area.

I honestly don't remember a lot before I was adopted. They say I was found playing on the porch of the orphanage that saved my life. I was so deprived prior to being there, that they weren't even sure how old I was. My shoulders and ribs both bulged out from the ragged clothes I wore, and my arms weren't much bigger than the thin rails that bordered the institution's porch. My hair like the sun had long lost it's shine, and my eyes seemed hollow with fear.
I probably should have been dead.

I guess my parents must have finally realized they weren't fit to raise me, I'm not really sure. It didn't matter, though. I was adopted within the month, and I'm not sure if the vague memory I had of the place was real or just another one of my dreams. I seemed to recall a large group of children, all kinds of ages, sitting around at a large wooden table and laughing as they scarfed food down their throats. I also remember a little lady with cropped hair the color of ashes and a simple grey dress that fell just under her ankles, which were covered with black one inch heels. Could my mind really make all of that up? Maybe it could have. Maybe I was craving something to remember, some kind of memory prior to my life as Brynna Beauregard.

Really, being left on that porch was the best thing that ever happened to me. My new family loved me. Both were aristocrats, and both loved me like I was their's. I was their's. My old family, they either didn't want me or couldn't have me. These two were ready for a child, and they had both more than earned the right to have one. They had a nice house, and a room decorated and waiting for me when I got there. They always had food for me, and seemed to devote their lives to making sure mine was okay. My father worked every day during the week while I was at school, and he sometimes got home a bit later then Mom and I would have preferred, but keeping us afloat meant working hard.

My mother taught me everything I knew about being a lady. "Stand up straight!" She would spit. "Eyes and teeth, love." She wanted me to be a woman with class, and I wanted nothing more than to be one. It seemed like the least I could do after she and her husband saved me from a life of misery and sadness. At times, she would even have me balance books on my head and walk around in her heels just for the laugh. "Wonderful job, princess." She would say as my hands sailed in the air over my head, trying their hardest to keep me balanced. Princess. It was a name my parents had called me since the day I stepped through the black barred fence of their manor. I sometimes wondered if it was branded on my forehead, or if "Princess" was my real name. The only time my mother called me Brynna was when she was worried, and my father when he was angry.

Growing up wasn't really something I ever looked forward to. My parents made being a child so easy, and being an adult meant losing all of it, but ladies never complained. A real lady accepted things with a smile on her face, even if there was sadness and grief in her heart.

other

codeword: odair
lyrics: "paradise" by coldplay
palette: "secret forest"
face claim: blake lively