#cusatask201

THE LUX FILES BIO:

Fact: Cristiano resented the shit out of Lux. She was pretty, popular, & palatable. She didn’t try to get her classmates to sign petitions or picket on the beach. She wasn’t raised by a witch adjacent single mother. But even still...she wasn’t perfect. People flocked to her anyway. Somehow she was the centerpiece for their dysfunctional little friend group. He spent a lot of his adolescence attempting to be friendly to Lux, but ultimately they never truly clicked. They had mutual friends at the end of the day...so somehow their destinies remained intertwined. 

Intertwined for the worst, in Cris’s eyes. Alongside Frankie, Cristiano discovered Lux’s body...and a note containing all of their friends’ worst secrets. So yeah...the girl Cris barely exchanged words with ended up being the one to change his life forever. Things got worse when Candy Girl revealed that she also knew all of these secrets, even if Frankie and Cris tried their darndest to squash the evidence. Since the Candy Girl’s threats, Cristiano has had to play incredibly dumb to all his friends, even though he has so many questions.

CRIS’S SECRET:

After a lifetime of helping his mother keep track of bills, cutting coupons out of the newspaper, and selling art when he could...Cristiano was tired. So when Harvard Hargrove approached him with a business venture…he couldn’t say no. The man was offering him enough money to keep his mother’s business afloat and then some. The trade off: no more big protests out of the Van Allen household. As long as Cristiano could keep his mother pacified, he could expect a fat check every two weeks. Sure...it completely fucked with his self-image and literally everything his mother taught him about capitalism and the man...but he couldn’t conceptualize a world without Twigs. He couldn’t continue to watch his mother pour so much of herself into a business that was struggling to stay afloat. So he has been taking the money and lying like a dog. His cover used to be working at Cherie’s...but since that place went up in literal smoke...he has to find another way to halt suspicion. Good thing he has an in with the Russells. 

CRIS’S CONNECTIONS:

The Filmmaker: Zev and Cris go waaaaaay back. Back when Cris could be louder and weirder without fear of Zev’s stepdad, he saw that same spunk in the kid. Cristiano isn’t much of a mentor, but he likes to think that their consistent collaborations and brainstormings of weird artsy shit helped both of them grow into the creators they are today. Even if Zev is more gentle and subtle and Cris is loud and proud, Cris thinks of Zev as one of his closest Gang connections. He’s fiercely protective of him to this day. 

The Confidant: Cris and Frankie are bonded by shared trauma (and shared secrets). They already got along great before finding Lux’s body and their friends’ secrets...but now they have a shared understanding no one else in the gang could conceptualize. They meet every now and then to therapize each other...since they’re both holding so much baggage (that doesn’t even belong to them!). Lately Cris has been feeling incredibly guilty about lying to all their friends about what they know. Cris and Frankie haven’t really settled on their next move...but they know revealing that they might be the reason Candy Girl held them all hostage in Cherry might not go over so well.

The Romantic: - Growing up Mackenzie and Cristiano were as thick as thieves. Two artists committed to putting their hearts into their craft. It’s the whole mutual inspiration thing. Something changed after Lux died, though. Mackenzie started performing less and less. Slowly but surely, they had less and less to relate to. They’ve always been friendly, but that spark that kept their bond afloat has fizzled a little bit. Cristiano has tried recently to get them back on track, including a surprise birthday gift in February. But with so much going on...he figures it makes sense that the duo hasn’t truly focused on fixing things. Maybe this summer will be their chance?

The Fallen Angel: - Cris’s love for Alice didn’t really catalyze until college. She was cool. But something about seeing her fall from grace when Lux accused her of something she obviously couldn’t have done bonded them a bit closer. Cris was used to being one of the oddballs of the gang...it was kinda natural for him to stick up for Alice when things started to shift for her.  He’s also kinda enamored with her 180 transformation and constantly drives art inspiration from it. 

BONUS CONNECTION:

THE LUX FILES BIO:

Lux was to Noah the same as the rest of their friend group was to him. A muse. A life to draw on that wasn’t his own. She was an escape. Someone he could write about that was far more interesting than he considered himself to be. Their actual relationship however was tumultuous at best. Lux didn’t care for Noah, in fact he was fairly certain she found him creepy. So certain he’d been told a time or two by others who went to their school. And he couldn’t blame her for thinking it. Noah, who always considered himself to be good with words on paper never excelled at it in person. He’d never found the guts to tell Lux the truth. That all he wanted was to be her friend. To be apart of her life. To feel like he was actually apart of the group and not just Casey’s kid brother. 

Noah hadn’t gone looking for Lux the night he found her beaten and bruised. He was simply trying to get away from his house. Running from another fight with one of his moms crap shoot boyfriends, when he stumbled upon her. She looked terrible. Her usual confidence that he admired in her so much seemed diminished. The truth was he didn’t even really know where he’d take her but he offered anyways. An olive branch and the first real time he’d ever made an effort to reach out. Which was only met with disdain. She called him a creep and told him to piss off. Perhaps if he hadn’t been coming from where he was coming from, the rejection wouldn’t have stung quite as badly. But for the second time that evening he felt his anger starting to bubble over the surface. 

He called her facade. Called her out on all the things he’d ever noticed. Believed that he really was the only one who paid close enough attention to know that she wasn’t all she made herself out to be. And that was it. Words spilled across the cement that he couldn’t take back. His only hope of ever feeling like he could ever fit in with the rest of the gang shattering as Lux took off. He headed home that night wondering if perhaps whatever awaited him was something he deserved. As if anything could have been worse than how alone he’d already felt. 

It’s been over a year since that night. Over a year and he still hasn’t said anything. A secret he swore to keep to himself even through the turmoil of the Candy Girl. A secret that still sits heavy on his chest. One of the many Noah finds himself drowning in. He thinks perhaps it’s where some of the anger stems from. It’s perhaps one of the only things about Lux Noah has never put to paper, and he thinks that in the story he’s written of their lives, that it’s the only part he never will. 

NOAH’S SECRET: 

$10,000. That had been the asking price to keep him out of jail and to keep grand theft auto off his record. An amount that has loomed over Noah Russell’s head for the last 4 years. He’s made some headway but not much by writing college essay’s for the students at CCU and taking the SAT’s for others as needed. The money isn’t much but it’s all he can afford to give considering all the money he makes at The Pit has to go to rent and the fire lost him his only other source of income. There isn’t a day that goes by that Noah doesn’t think about it. In the colder months, his body still aches from the injuries he sustained from the crash. Often times at night the crash still haunts his dreams. The screaming, and the smell of gasoline, the blood. When he closes his eyes it’s still clear as day. 

It’s a secret he keeps as close to his chest as the fact that he ran into Lux the night she died. He hasn’t had the courage to reach out and tell his brothers or ask them for help. Afraid that if Ronnie pulls out that kind of money that it may lose them The Pit or the apartment. Doesn’t want to be the reason they have to go crawling back to the hellfire they called a home.

Another reason he’s banking on this first novel he writes to be a great one. He’s been actively working to finish his first manuscript in hopes of trying to get himself published. He knows that the money he makes from it could both clear him, and help in giving back to his brothers to repay them for the way they’ve always taken care of him. 

NOAH’S CONNECTIONS:

The Filmmaker: A writer and a filmmaker? It made sense that Zev and Noah would cross paths in high school. That between the two of them they’d come together with their combined love of creating and whip out short films in Zev’s backyard. Unfortunately over the past year their friendship stalled. Noah found himself writing less and far more obsessed with solving the mystery of the Candy Girl, and the majority of the friendships that he had been working so hard to build had fallen to the wayside. For the two of them at least they still had work, and a few brief moments where the two of them were able to re-affirm their loyalty to one another. Now that it’s all over, and their combined work place has burnt down, Noah is seeking that old connection with his friend. He’d never admit it, but the proceeds that could come from making projects with Zev could be huge in helping to pay off his debt. Along with the fact that they’re both about to be in relationships and he wants to be the best possible wingman he can be. Anything to get their creative mojo back in an effort to resume some resemblance of the normalcy they lost. 

The Baby: It was never supposed to turn into a full fledged investigation. His original reason for coming to her house was to check and make sure she was okay and to get her side of what happened that day at Carousel Cove. But something happened that day in her bedroom. What was barely a friendship blossomed into a partnership. A team of teen detectives who worked tirelessly to try and solve the mystery of the Candy Girl. They got close but she was always two steps a head of them. Now with the mystery finally solved, they can delve back into a bit of normalcy. But what’s left between them is far from the normal. Somewhere along the way, Noah discovered feelings for Rory that he’d never felt before. It’s much too soon to call it love, but the word is at the tip of his tongue. He’s ready to explore what a relationship with her looks like when they put their murder board behind them. 

The Wannabe: You never forget your first love. For Noah Russell that still rings true. His heart may have found its way with someone else, but Noah maintains his fierce protectiveness over Kitty Maddox. She’s still a lead in many of the stories he writes, she’s just not the love interest that she once was. He knows she’s mad at him. That maybe a part of her is hurting over his lack of attention. He can’t help that. But Noah has hope that one day the brief friendship they had. The moments where they could be real with each other will shine through and she’ll drop some of the bitterness she feels about his new relationship with Rory.