Dessa Rhodes District 12

Dessa is 5'1'' with a fair complexion. She has a thin body frame mostly because she doesn't get the proper nutrition she needs. She has a small scar above her left eyebrow from a stray cat that launched itself from a tree onto her head after being scared by a group of crows.
She has brownish-green eyes, which usually portray an underlying sadness or seriousness. Her lips are small and reddish pink, they rarely form a smile. Her hair is plain and dark brown, it reaches a few inches past her shoulders. It is slightly wavy but easily maintained. She likes to wear her hair down unless she's doing chores around the house and ties it back.
Dessa has osteoarthritis in her wrists and hands,so they hurt often and it prevents her from being able to do any physical labor.

Dessa never really had time to act her age and because of it she acts more like she's thirty than fifteen. She takes everything seriously and doesn't know how to joke around. She constantly feels like a failure and a burden for her parents because she can't work. She stays home all day and does household chores while her parents are working in the coal mines. She is shy and doesn't really know how to act around other people because she isolates herself from everyone.
She feels like she isn't worthy of having a life because of her failure to be a good daughter. She used to like to read and go to school but now she can't do either because it hurts too much to hold a book for a long time.
But Dessa has always liked flowers and when she doesn't have anything to do she goes out to a field of wildflowers by her house and smells the flowers and talks to them. To her they are the only friends she has. She doesn't like winter because it's too cold and the flowers can't grow, she gets really lonely without them. When her father realized this he made a little greenhouse for her in front of the only window in their house and started growing some for her.
When someone is nice to Dessa or compliments her she turns beet red and you can see her eyes come to life, her mouth almost forming a smile. She's really modest about her accomplishments because of her low-self esteem. Dessa has also been afraid of cats ever since that stray one attacked her. She holds the needs of others over her own.

When Dessa was five when she was attacked by the stray cat, it made a gash above her eyebrow that needed stitches but never got them so now she has a scar. She is an only child. Her parents had a son when she was seven but it died during infancy. Her mother was greatly affected by it. For a while her mother couldn't leave the house and would often break out in hysteria crying out the babies name. She only started going back to work a few years later because Dessa's father couldn't support them all on his own.
Dessa stopped going to school when she was eleven because she was constantly picked on and made fun of because she couldn't carry her things. She has been having acute pain in her hands and wrists ever since then. When her parents realized she would never be able to work in the coal mine because of her ailment their relationship became strained. Her parents always said that they loved her no matter what. But Dessa always felt like they were disappointed in her because she wasn't strong enough to do what seven generations before her had done, and that was work in the coal mines.
Everyone in her family had worked in the mines. It would have been a big deal if someone hadn't. But all of her relatives are dead from something mining related so there isn't a family outrage over Dessa's shortcomings. Her and her parents are the last of the family.
But a few days ago Dessa recieved terrible news. There had been a cave in at the mine and her parents hadn't made it out. Now she has no family and doesn't know how she's going to provide for herself. She's getting ready for their funeral right now.