#dylan hart

[MARGARET QUALLEY, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER] who’s that? oh it’s {DYLAN HART}. i hear they’re {16} and a {JUNIOR} at {WMHS}, have a voice like {LAUREN PRITCHARD} and are part of {CHEERIOS, TROUBLE TONES}. they’re known to be {+OPEN HEARTED, +FREE SPIRITED} and {-IMPRESSIONABLE, -INSECURE}. some people say they remind them of {walking barefoot in the grass, making out under the bleachers, dainty cross necklaces}. only one way to find out! [ria, 26, pst]

Joe Hart watched his wife Mary’s water break on a Friday right around midnight. At 7:09AM, just as the sun broke through the morning sky, Dylan Julia was born. Things were good for a while, but the reality was that Mary had never wanted marriage. Or a child. But such was life. Things happened and plans changed. However, the older Dylan got, the more restless Mary became. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for and she wanted out. On Dylan’s fourth birthday, her mom slipped into her room with a cupcake at bed time, gave her a long hug and a kiss on the forehead, and then Dylan never saw her again.

The absence left a hole in Dylan’s heart, one that Joe tried to fill with all of his love, his family’s love, and of course, God’s love. He enrolled Dylan in a private all-girls Catholic school until she was in the eighth grade and allowed her to explore hobbies outside of school to fill her time. She fell in love first with ballet, and then contemporary dance, and opted to spend all of her free time outside of school and church dancing her sorrows away in the studio.

When Dylan turned fourteen, Joe decided to switch her out of Catholic school and enroll her at McKinley. He recalled his own experience of going to public school after being homeschooled and thought it would do Dylan good—it would better prepare her for the ‘real’ world and give her a more well-rounded education. She was all for it! She’d heard so much about public school. There were cheerleaders and choirs that weren’t limited to christian rock and boys. She wanted to be part of it.

Dylan found her place quickly at McKinley. She was prettier than she knew and with her dance background and flexibility, she became a varsity cheerio by sophomore year. Her dad was adamant about her joining the New Directions, stressing that she would love it, but she ultimately decided to join the Trouble Tones as she felt more comfortable in all-female settings given her prior school background. As she learned to exist outside of her religion, she shed some of it. She still believed in God and in prayer, but found herself questioning all the rules imposed by organized religion. Her relationship to God was hers and hers alone—something she didn’t feel the need to announce and wave around like a flag.