𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡.

application.

( priscilla quintana, cis woman, she/her) ✧ ⸻ was that MERCY OVALLES walking through the doors of the arconia this morning? i heard they just moved in to 401 from MINDEN, LOUISIANA. the 27  year old works as a BARTENDER seems like they’d be KIND SPIRITED but also a little bit FLIGHTY. whenever i see MERCY, i always think of JOURNALS FILLED WITH MEMORIES THAT SHE NEVER SHARES, LEAVING BEFORE LEFT, BUILT FROM GREIF AND THE ACHE FOR SOMETHING NEW

biography. triggers, alcoholism, instance of violence, death, car accident.

From a young age, Mercy’s always known that her life wasn’t normal. That her family dynamic wasn’t. There was never a loving two parent household. Never had a father who’d do anything for his little girl, or a mother she could run to whenever she needed her. No, rather than running to her mother, Mercy Ovalles only had her older brother, Robert, to lean on. There was never a father in the picture– didn’t even know who he was– and their mother? Well, she was never really a mother at all… but, it was the way life was. It was the cards Mercy was dealt and when this is the only side of life she’s had since birth, you don’t have anything to miss. This was what she knew, all she had, and– truthfully- they made the best out of it. Her and her brother. As long as they had each other, that’s all she ever needed. Mercy was able to pretend everything in her life was fine.. until that one day that turned it completely upside down. She was only sixteen when it happened. Her brother, for the first time in their life, invited her to come out with them. To get out of the house, do something fun that involves more than hanging around watching terrible television shows… at least that was the front, the reasoning he gave their mother. But that was the night Robert came clean with Mercy: He was getting a job in California and he wanted her to come with him. Because if there’s anyone in this world who deserves a chance at normalcy, it was her. Even if they started a little later than anyone else. It took no convincing on his part because Mercy immediately knew she didn’t want to be somewhere her brother wasn’t. But, of course, life was cruel in ways she never understood. The night that had been filled with so much joy, and promises, ultimately became one of the worst nights of her life. His smile was the last thing to be imprinted in Mercy’s mind on that Friday because it was the last time she’d ever get to see him smile again. To make a long, sad story short – he, Mercy and his friends got into a car accident that night. They had all been drinking, their car hit another and everyone involved died on impact aside from Mercy — the sole survivor of a horrendous car accident. The Ovalles household was never the same after that. You’d think that something as tragic as the loss of one’s old son, nearly losing a daughter, would force someone to get their act right. To see how much life is slipping from their fingers.. or to see how quickly things could change with a blink of an eye. A face you’ve seen all your life suddenly.. gone. You’d think that’s how the story would go, but unfortunately for Mercy, it wasn’t. Rather than her mother’s drinking getting better, it merely got worse. The loss of Robert eating away at her and the bottles became the shoulders for her to lean on. The ones she always leaned on. And Mercy? It was as if she were nothing more than a distant memory to her mother.

Mercy seemed to find herself in more trouble than anyone would ever count. Hanging with the wrong crowds, sneaking out, smoking, drinking. She was a mess and it got to the point where her closest friend could no longer recognize her. Mercy didn’t know it at the time, but it was a cry for help. She was losing her mind, acting out with the hopes that her mother would actually see her, see the pain she, too, was going through. She became the talk of the town, parents not wanting their own children to hang around her and do you think her mother noticed? Obviously not, or she just pretended like she didn’t. Mercy was no longer the same person she’d been before. She had no rock, no one to remind her everything was going to be okay. She had no one. The thought of that alone was enough to send her on a spiral.

By the time she was eighteen years old, Mercy grew sick and tired of being within the punching bag for her mother’s drunken and hurtful words. Somehow, some way, her mother had suddenly turned the table on Mercy. Going from being nothing but a distant memory to the child that took her only son away. The son that kept the house afloat, maintaining it, handling everything the parent should’ve. He wasn’t around anymore and somehow, the blame managed to fall in Mercy’s direction.. but, it wasn’t her fault. No matter how many times her mother tried to point fingers at Mercy and blame her for the destruction that became the Ovalles household. One night, she snapped. Mercy said some pretty awful things that night, so awful that it earned her a slap in the face from her mother; the final straw. Her only daughter left home that night, packed up all of her things and booked it—having enough money saved up to be able to do just that. She didn’t know where she was going, what she was going to do when she figured it out, she was just done. Mercy was leaving and never coming back. Her brother was right — she deserved more than she was dealt and she was finally going to see it for herself. She ghosted the town, the people and proceeded to live her life as if her hometown never existed.

Mercy has found comfort in being alone. Constantly bouncing from place to place, getting used to the idea of frequently being the new girl and eventually always leaving before she had the chance to build more than surface level relationships. New York City is no different. A new scenery, new faces and the chance to fall in love with another place before the urge to leave sweeps her up again.

current connections.

tba.

wanted connections.