d3 . astrid ellory

One time when she was thirteen she came up with an idea when she was high, so next time she decided to do it whilst she was drunk. What would you know, another ingenious design and two signatures later she's no longer the daughter of Mike and Marjorie Smith, but with her new family. The Ellory's were a vast improvement to the drug-riddled house she'd grown up in.

It didn't really bother her. They had had just let go without a second glance, too busy looking for their next high. They hadn't even fought to keep her, they'd almost looked relieved that they could use the small bit of space she'd taken up for other things. She'd tried her best to not look back as she'd been led away, but something in her heart had wanted her to acknowledge it, tuck the image away as a reminder. It was easier to blame her shortcomings on the broken memories of her childhood, but the reality was that she chose to use it as a way to escape.

Like armour, she'd wrap herself around fragile notions, using it to convince herself that the next bottle of alcohol was because her dad had hit her, the next one was because her mum had spat on her. The tenth bottle was for her grumbling stomach and the tears she had shed. There was always another excuse, some other reason to drink and drink until she wasn't the only person in her life who had forgotten her name.

They'd forgotten that her name was Astrid by the time she was five, too wasted, and too high on the fumes that stained the walls and promised a beating. You could see where she'd picked up the bad habit. Her parents had rattled off a thousand other names, she could have chosen any of them. She had clung to the name Astrid, held onto the belief that when she had been born it had meant something to them.

Astrid liked to party, she enjoyed spending her nights tangled in limbs, before reaching the peak of her high. There wasn't much more to the pre-game then trying to expel the darkness that writhed within her. It was fun, standing on top of tables, daring the world to fight you as you chugged three bottles at once. Everyone and anyone wanted to know your name, and suddenly the word Astrid had more and more meaning as the crowd below you chanted it. It was a rope, tightening and loosening with the waves of the ocean and a boat tugging against it. A heave and a ho as life was given, hope was built and she felt like a person who belonged.

Then she was buried in paper, scribbling down hard-to-translate loops with a broken pen. The bottled stopped coming after that, as the world twisted and turned. She wasn't really sure when she drew. If it was within the entanglement of a poisoned cage, or when the ropes clawed at her skin and she was trying to fight free. But it's when she felt the most like herself, like the person she had once been before she had fought for little more than a name.

Sometimes she imagined that before her identity revolved around a name she was someone more impressive. It was the person she tried to be when she was drunk or high, the voice that yelled into the night and challenged the world to take her on. It was the confidence in her tone as she dangled a treat in front of a man, or the gentleness in a husky voice as she held her friend's hand and listened to their problems. Sometimes she wondered why she only felt it when she saw the bottom of her third bottle.

There's protection in pretending to be dumb, broken, and battered to appeal to everyone around her. The life of the party, clawing onto the notion that she can make them all happy.

Time and time again she'd spent days and hours in the workshop trying to piece together the thoughts of a drunk mind, but sober words were nothing in comparison to the intellectual abilities she had when she was drunk or high. Her adoptive parents told her that she was just as capable when she wasn't off her face. You're a smart girl, they'd tell Astrid. It was why they'd given her a home, but it had been a long time since she had last performed. A part of her wondered if they were just waiting until they could get rid of her, or how long it'd take before they forgot her name. She was too far stuck in the belief that her sober capabilities were nothing.

She's trying to escape and for a few moments at the bottom of the sixteenth bottle of the night, before she blacks out, she sees herself.

That there, beyond the partying and the drugs and the self-loathing. that was who she wanted to be, the hands that grabbed the pen, and knew what they were doing. The one that laughed with confidence and slurred her words, but held herself together as she explained her ideas to anyone around her. The one that beamed with joy when she was told she had come up with an incredible idea.

That girl was Astrid. The sober fool before her who shook after a day without drinking and struggled to string two words together was the reality of life. She wasn't brave enough to face it yet, so she'd pick up another bottle.