Character Name: Roxelana âRoxieâ Peterson
Birthday: November 26th, 1993
Gender/Pronouns: Female & She/Her
Occupation: Property Developer
Birth Place: Istanbul, Turkey
How long theyâve been in Crestmont: Five Years
(Trigger Warnings: death & car murder)
born roxelana osman in istanbul, roxie was the only child to aylin and hasad osman. roxie doesnât know a lot about her life in turkey - growing up, all that she knew was that her parents had passed away when she was two years old, and was adopted by the peterson family in boston shortly after their death. she was raised under the name osman, as the fifth and final piece of their family unit.
the peterson family were good to roxelana - they took her in as her own, and she thrived within their family unit. a middle class family, roxie never really wanted for anything. she never even asked questions about her parents until she was that much older, perfectly content with the life that she had been given. kathleen and jonathan peterson were, in her eyes, her parents. she worked hard - a bright young girl, who had a world of opportunities in front of her.
her upbringing was, for all intents and purposes, normal. her high school years didnât bring any more drama than they would do to any other teenage girl, the usual issues that came with girls being girls. roxie worked hard for her grades, hard on her college applications, and with the full support of the peterson family, she packed her bags and went on to study at cornell. but not before she made the decision to legally change her name from osman to peterson, in recognition of the family who had raised her all those years, her family.
the cornell years were the best that roxie could have asked for. she was free to be herself without the watchful eyes of her parents or her brothers, and truly came into her own. she indulged in her sense of style, joined a sorority, and found her niche. her niche came with interior design, spending more hours than she would have care to admitted to in doing up her bedroom year after year, utilising the (lack of) space that came with them.
when she turned twenty one, her world shifted. the questions that she hadnât been asking about her parents bubbled to the surface when a letter from what had been her parents estate had come for her. enclosed in the envelope were documents containing the details of exactly what she had inherited. according to the letter, her birth parents had been incredibly wealthy, with a large trust fund set up for roxelana from the moment she was born. with her parents passing under suspicious circumstances, the estate had been held until roxie had reached the age of twenty one, when it was then set to be released to her. against the petersonâs advice, she opted to put it to one side - to deal with it upon completing her degree.
that aside, she carved out a degree in communications and business administration, knowing exactly what she wanted to do once she was able to toss that mortarboard into the air - she wanted to work in property. becoming a real estate agent didnât fit the bill for her - she didnât want to just sell them, she wanted to design them, make them liveable, give people the homes of their dreams one piece of furniture at a time.
once sheâd graduated, she knew that she had to face the music behind her biological family. she contacted the executor of their estate, and the family secrets started to come to the surface after twenty years of not knowing. what she had discovered was this - her parents had been entangled in something less than savoury, her mother primarily. in a bid to keep the family safe, her biological parents hatched a plan to leave istanbul, potentially turkey on the whole, and start a new life. unfortunately the unpalatable individuals she was involved with found out about this plan, and a bounty was put on their heads. her parents were killed, and roxie was sent to the united states to keep her safe where the petersonâs stepped in.
she grilled her family about this information - and was assured that none of the family knew the circumstances behind her adoption. to them, she was had been a toddler in need of a home and they had been more than happy to provide it. the estate she had inherited was huge, large amounts of money to set her up for life. she wouldnât have to worry about a thing.
her first plans involved paying off the mortgage of the peterson family home, an action to keep the family who raised her safe and sheltered for as long as they would be living in boston. she didnât have a lot of plans for the rest of the money. it was only when in conversation with her older brother, michael, did he come up with the idea of using it for her own dreams, to turn the money into something good for her.
she bought the first apartment in bay oaks she laid her eyes on after moving to south carolina for a completely fresh start. she had the money, why not use it to splurge a little? putting her interior design skills to work, she fashioned the second bedroom into a home office, lavish decor throughout the entire place. it was the first piece sheâd add to her portfolio of her brand new company.
itâs been five years since then - roxie has built up a reputable property developer business with a number of staff, putting to good use her skills in making each room a little prettier than it was when she started. any profit from property sales are donated to a number of charities in the city, causes that sit close to her heart. she doesnât talk about her birth family often, talking only of the petersons when anybody asks about her family. sheâs also never delved any deeper into her birth familyâs truths, nor does she plan to. yet.
+ thoughtful, witty, charming
- guarded, irrational, persistent