✧ NAME: Madeleine Renaldi ✧ AGE: 20 ✧ GENDER: Female ✧ LOCATION: CBD ✧ TIME IN NOLA: 5 years ✧ OCCUPATION: Clerk at Octavia’s Books
TW: Eating Disorder, Mentions of Death
Madeleine knew that she wasn’t exactly planned by her parents—how many people can honestly say, “Oh yes, of course we wanted our children to be 6 years apart!”? And she always knew that she would never quite compare to her older sister. Meredith came first, she was the one who was doted upon constantly. She was the one whose whims her parents took seriously, who they encouraged. Which wasn’t to say that she wasn’t encouraged. No, her parents loved her. But, she knew that they never quite cared for her in the same way that they cared for Meredith. She was their golden child.
And Mads was simply… boring in their eyes.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. She wanted to be interesting, artistic, and beautiful like her sister. She wanted to be brave enough to go to Paris, to pursue something as amazing and creative as art. But, Madeleine always paled in comparison to her sister. She wasn’t an artist, she wasn’t one for phases or intense interests. No, she was content to stay in her room and read her books. And that was what she did for most of her childhood—she read. She devoured every book and story she could get her hands on and when she ran out of books in the house, she went to the library.
And as much as her parents were happy for her and were pleased that they had such a well-behaved daughter who was content to stay at home during the weekends rather than go out and party, they worried for her. After all, shouldn’t girls her age have friends? Talk to more people than the school librarian? So, at 12 years old, her parents strong armed her into going to dance classes. And her love of movement and dance began. Perhaps she wasn’t artistic in the same way as her sister, but dance was an artform in and of itself. And it was one that she was good at.
But, when Mads came home from school one day to see her mother lying on the couch, everything changed. Because when she moved to wake her mother up, her mother was gone. Dead, from a freak head injury. That was when everything was turned upside down. Her father spiraled, her sister became distant, and Mads was left alone, desperately trying to navigate the twists and turns of high school without any support. Dance was her only safe space, but even that wasn’t safe at times. Not when the other girls could be so cruel—pointing out her thighs, the books she always carried in the halls, the fact that her father had turned into a dead beat. All she wanted was to stop being tormented at school so she did what any teenager would do. She put away her books, put a smile on her face, and she conformed.
The last two years of high school were hell for Mads. Her life revolved around being perceived as this perfect girl. She barely ate—how could she if she wanted to maintain the perfect dancer’s figure? She barely slept—she had so many tests and papers to complete for her AP classes. By the end of her senior year, she had reached her breaking point. She finally opened up to her father about what had been going on in her life, about her eating disorder, her anxiety, her constant worry that nothing she ever did was going to be good enough. But, instead of cleaning up his act and acting like a father again, he sent her to rehab and ran off with his girlfriend. He didn’t want anything to do with Mads, to be reminded of the failure that she’d turned into.
And for a year, rehab was her life. It was all she did. She learned not to hate herself when she looked in the mirror. She relearned what it meant to actually enjoy food. And when she got out of rehab, Mads finally felt like maybe her life was on track. She applied to her mother’s alma mater and got in, set up plans to live in the dorms and just be a normal college student, a normal person. But, her plans were dashed when her father lashed out in a drunken rage and wound up in jail. Her father’s girlfriend was of no help—she was to blame for the whole incident. So, Mads had no choice but to call up her sister and beg her to come and fix the situation.
For the last year, Mads has been working towards completing her degrees in dance and English at Tulane University. She knows she started college on a rough footing and she knows that she can’t rely on her father for much of anything. Which is why, when she was walking home from university and she saw that the bookstore was looking for a clerk, she dropped off an application the very next day. She’s living at home with her father more out of financial necessity than real desire and spends every minute she can out of the house, so she can avoid his drunken rambling.
Mads is a quiet, gentle soul. She has lived most of her life trying to be something that other people want her to be and she’s just now acting as her own person. She is compassionate and interested in learning, but isn’t the most sociable. She tends to blend into the background and is often shy when first approached. But, once you start talking to her about something she’s passionate about, there’s no stopping her. Driven and dedicated, she works hard to be the best that she can be. However, she is definitely very distant from people. Mads has walls and it’s not easy to take them down.
MADELEINE’S FACECLAIM IS LIANA LIBERATO AND IS PORTRAYED BY CAL.