— MARK IN THE STARS

mary is your typical textbook georgian peach... which is almost funny, because she was, indeed, born and raised in peach county, georgia. she is the baby of the family, with two elder brothers who are ten and thirteen years older than her. the wilkinses had always been a tightly-knit family, and mary had spent a lot of the time not only with her parents & her brothers, but also her grandparents — on her father's side. she never knew or met her maternal grandfathers... or the rest of her mother's family, come to think of it.

she was raised in a strict christian household and, for the longest time, it was the only life mary really knew about. she struggled making friends growing up, but it didn't really bother her as much, as she was fairly introverted and would much rather stay at home reading while the other kids played. she got along well with plenty of older teens and adults at the local bible study evenings, and, at the time, that was enough.

when mary was eleven years old, she experienced her first anxiety attack when a couple of kids from her school lured her into the local corn field and scared the living daylight out of her. ever since that event, she has a phobia of being alone: whether it's in her own house, at work, at school, or somewhere outdoors.

mary left home to pursue higher education in the big apple, with a promise to her family that she will be returning as soon as her education is finished. however, the closer she is from graduating, the more she wants to stay... which is scaring her more than she would like to admit. after all, she had never broken a promise made before, especially to her family.

while in university, she had discovered a lot of things that she has been sheltered from her entire life and is finally surrounding herself with likeminded people and friends. some of those discoveries were happier than others. her orientation falling in the category of self-discovery that genuinely scares her, because, knowing her family, they would not approve of having a gay daughter.

she is deeply closeted about her orientation, pushing it into the furthest corner of her mind and, every day, is desperately trying to "pray the gay away", because the alternative frightens her and causes the anxiety to spike more than she would like to. how dare she disappoint the people that raised her and sacrificed so much to give her the best life she could have?

today she is juggling between two majors in the nyu (theology & elementary education) and her part-time job as a barista in a cat café called kitty and brew. for the last month she has been living in a studio apartment that she shares with her boyfriend. the two had met at the university and mary moved in from an on-campus housing to his apartment after six months of dating.