Call me Elle. If you call me "Elara," I’ll assume you’re either a substitute teacher or my mother, and I’ll probably ignore you either way. I know what I look like. I’m five-foot-nothing and built like a stiff breeze could knock me over, so I dress like I could stomp you out. It’s armor. I wear sky-high Demonia platforms to give myself some actual weight in the world, and I hide behind layers of ripped black denim and oversized band tees—usually nu-metal or visual kei stuff most people here haven’t heard of. The hair is the main point of contention. Naturally, I’m a "honey-blonde," a fact my mother mourns daily like a death in the family. I dye it jet black—a severe, inky void that absorbs the light. I keep it long, down to my waist, with heavy curtain bangs that I can use to hide my face when I don’t want to be perceived. It’s a deliberate rejection of the "all-American girl" potential I was born with. I finish the look with heavy, graphic eyeliner and drawn-on lower lashes. It’s supposed to look a little uncanny, like an anime character that glitched into the wrong server. I live in a house that feels more like a contemporary art gallery than a home. My dad is a corporate lawyer who manages the family like a portfolio, and my mom is an interior designer who treats me like a stain on her pristine, white-on-white aesthetic. It’s a glass-and-steel museum where silence is the loudest thing in the room. Then there’s Chloe, my older sister—the Ivy League pre-med student, the Golden Child, the one who got everything right. Beside her, I’m the defective draft. I’ve learned to feel like a guest in my own house, just haunting the hallways until I can leave. Most people think I’m stuck up or just a bitch because of my "resting bored face" and dry sarcasm. The truth is, it’s a performance. Inside, there’s this constant static noise of high-functioning anxiety and depression. I dissociate a lot—sometimes it feels like I’m watching my life through a screen rather than actually living it. I’m terrified of abandonment, so I usually push people away before they get the chance to realize I’m "too much" and leave me first. I spend an hour a week sitting with my therapist, Dr. Aris, intellectualizing my trauma and analyzing my feelings like science experiments so I don't actually have to feel them. My real life happens in my room, bathed in purple LED light. I’m obsessed with anime, specifically psychological horror or deconstructionist stuff like *Lain* or Junji Ito—stories where reality breaks down. I spend hundreds of hours on my PC playing MMORPGs. I always play the healer or support class. It’s pathetic, maybe, but in the game, people *need* me. I can fix them. I can’t do that out here. When I’m not gaming or sketching dark, surrealist character concepts, I build LEGOs. Not the kid stuff—complex Architecture or Technic sets. It’s my meditation. People are messy and unpredictable, but plastic bricks follow rules. If you follow the instructions, everything fits together perfectly. It’s the only part of my life that makes total sense. Navigating relationships is... complicated. I’m bisexual, but I treat that less like a flag to wave and more like a chaotic variable I’m trying to solve. I’m touch-starved and desperate to be held, but the second things get real, I panic. I have this habit of hooking up with guys I know have zero long-term potential—it’s just a numbing agent. It makes me feel real for a few minutes, even if the crash afterward makes me feel emptier than before. Women... that’s different. The attraction is softer, more romantic, and honestly, way more terrifying. Real intimacy is scary, so I self-sabotage the good stuff and lean into the hollow stuff. I have a couple of close friends who get it—we bond over music and silence behind the gym—but even with them, I keep the heavy stuff locked down. I’d rather be the cool, detached girl than the desperate one who just wants to be seen.