d6. laina.

You're not good at acting because you want to be a star. You're good at acting because you've had to pretend all your life to be someone you're not.

Okay so you're a little dramatic about being adopted. You're a little dramatic about everything in your life. Anything can be an epic story if you use the right tone and sprinkle in a little flair. Who cares if the exact details are a little murky, the idea of a small babe in a basket floating down the only river in the District something you conjured up on the spot. It made you interesting, and made you stand out, and you liked the idea of being special. At least you knew where that persona had originated. It was something crafted by you, fiction spun into fact after you'd told the story enough times. For the first time in your life, you had control on who you were. Who you really were.

So caught up in the lies, the control spiraled until you couldn't tell what was real and what was something you had invented in your head. Playing pretend was your reality, and reality was your fiction. Elaina Keyford was a name someone else had given you in the absence of what you were or were not born with. You vowed to let it be the last thing someone else chose for you.

But of course that didn't exactly work out as intended. The chaos followed as you grappled with who you wanted to be, who you told people you were, who your parents expected you to be, and who you were as a baby plucked from a crib of orphans. It's understandable feeling a bit confused about who you were born to be versus who you ended up being. It's strange knowing you were once abandoned, and then chosen, two sides of the same coin. As a child you felt like you had to fit in. Put extra energy into pleasing everyone around you. Be a carbon copy of your siblings, to be everything your parents wanted you to be, to prove you could be a Keyford before your parents decided they'd made a mistake.

So you became what they desired: bubbly. Quick-witted. Bright and doe-eyed. And when the curtains drew you were cruel, and even crueler still to yourself. On the stage they ask you to act, to put on the mask and cry on cue. What they don't know is you're not putting on a mask - you're taking it off.

You've always been good at taking direction, no thanks to your parents and the children in class always expecting one version or another of you. It's why acting came so naturally to you. Being someone else was the norm. But being yourself, that was a catharsis no other art form could allow.

Everyone laughs at the fact you spend so long staring into a mirror. Vain, they whisper. Full of herself. Yes, you are beautiful. You don't need a mirror to tell you that. The gazes from boys and girls - lust, jealousy, longing - are tell-tale enough. And yes, you enjoy the attention. But you're not looking at what the girl in the mirror looks like - you're looking at who she is, trying to figure her out.

She just smiles back at you, no help at all.

The Salvatore school saw what you allowed them to see. You packed your bags before you received your letter. Acceptance was expected. People call you bold, over-confident, a narcissist. But you have to give out what you put in - so you love yourself, or at least pretend to, and others follow in your footsteps. Mask off, letter in hand, you bid farewell to your parents in a teary goodbye and wiped them away the second the school entrance doors closed shut. Mask on, you get to work.

They flock. You brood in your nest of popularity, clinging to those who exude the same confidence as you do. Beautiful children, all excelling in their chosen talent. You fit in so perfectly and that's the reason you cry at night - because you do. You do fit in. Yet you don't know why. Is it because you forced it, or it came naturally to you? Mask on, mask off, you become so lost in the act that you've stumbled into the red velvet curtains and near strangled yourself with tasseled gold rope.

You still crack a smile. You still laugh, and sneer, and bite your lip when nobody's watching. You still snatch the camera from Parker Gautier's hands and take the photo. So what? Everyone was laughing, and you had a camera in your hands, and they all egged you on. "Go on, Lai," they grinned, goofy smiles and elbows digging into your elbows. "Take a picture! Quick!"

You wanted to impress them. You wanted them to be your friends more than you wanted to be hers. So you snapped the picture, and everyone cheered, and when the bulb flashes you feel a twinge of regret - but only for half a second. The girl you could of been. The girl you should have been. But by the time your finger lifts from the trigger you're already drinking in their praise, their giggles, the high-gives.

Mask on, you feel sorry for Scarlet Hyde. Mask off, you smile as she squirms. On, off, terrible, beautiful, wonderful, awful. You're not quite sure who you are anymore, but you know you can play both parts perfectly.

Were it your own hands that pressed the trigger button or were the hands that mortified Scarlet Hyde just a part of a role you played? You supposed it didn't matter now. She was gone. Probably dead. And the worst part of it all is that you're not sure if you should give a shit or not. So you stay mute, avoiding the topic altogether, throw every ounce yourself into the annual drama performance until your knees bruise on the polished stage floor and you cry out all of your tears.

All the world's a stage. When the lights go out and the theater clears, you're still left with a thousand faces staring back at you in a mirror - just none of them your own.

When you close your eyes, sometimes - just sometimes - you see Scarlet Hyde staring back.