LACEY KING --
Birthdate: June 2nd, 1994 ( 24 ) Gender and Pronouns: Female, she/her Hometown: New York, New York Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Occupation: College Student and Intern Faceclaim: Lili Reinhart Trigger Warnings: None.
BIOGRAPHY --
Lacey Grace King spent her first years in an elaborate brownstone house in the Upper East Side. She was the second child to Howard Whitehall, a somewhat successful broker, and Alicia King, a preschool teacher. The Whitehalls led a comfortable life until weeks before Lacey’s third birthday when his father was involved in a big scandal of money laundering and was sentenced to several years in jail. The last name now was tainted and her mother could barely handle the humiliation of being married to a criminal. As a result of this, Alicia filed for divorce, changed the last name of her children to King and moved to Brooklyn, never again mentioning her ex-husband. Life in Brooklyn was less ostentatious, but her mother had taken care of making it feel like a home. Growing up, Lacey was eager to belong and often lived in the fantasy she had created in her mind. Dreams were everything she had and that was all she thought about, all that mattered and took her away from all the humdrummery — the fact that her mother was working too hard and didn’t have enough in her own life, that they didn’t have enough money to do anything she wanted, that her mother averted any question regarding her father. Dreams were better, that was where her hope laid down, and she hung on them.
Despite all of this, Lacey never felt deprived, they just had to live on a strict budget. She considered herself lucky for having a proud, honorable woman as a mother, who in spite of her struggles never lost her sense of humor. Alicia King wanted her daughter to be perfect, to have it all, but to know and learn while the search was on, to realize that there were other things not to lose sight of. With the help of her uncle, Lacey and her brother were able to get their schooling from the best institutions in New York. With a lack of a parental figure, her uncle became the man who surely had the most influence in her life throughout her growing-up years. He is the main reason why she took a liking into writing and journalism as he told her to read The New York Times every day to learn what was going on in the world. At that time, Lacey had little room for other thoughts than the ones that lived in her own world.
Lacey evolved into a shy and insecure girl, but a good student —not summa cum laude, but able to get through well without too much effort. However, Lacey always struggled with the social parts of her life as she never felt she belonged to any group. High school was particularly hard for her, in the seek of giving her the best education money could buy, her mother (with the financial help of her uncle) pushed Lacey to get a scholarship into one of those fancy prep schools in Manhattan. Throughout the four years, she was there, she didn’t make a lot of friends. Once part of the Upper East Side elite, her classmates were the reflection of what she could have been, and there’s no need to say she despised it. Graduation at last— the end of school and the start of the pursuit of her destiny, she applied to Northwestern University but was not accepted and instead went to her second choice, NYU, which was a relief to her mother as she wouldn’t move to another state.
Life as a college girl was different, sure, she was still living in New York but she finally felt like she was doing what she was supposed to. In a way to become more independent, Lacey left her home in Brooklyn and moved to one of the residence halls, where to her surprise, she ended up being roommates to Lily Sinclair. To say she was overwhelmed and intimidated would be an understatement, having been a fan of her work, she tried her best to not act like a fangirl like most of the other students. Coming from different backgrounds, Lacey didn’t expect to have many in common with Lily, but time proved her wrong and soon they became inseparable. Her first two years of college were perfect, probably the best of her life. She had a great group of friends, she was studying what she loved and had the chance to visit her family every weekend. What more could have she asked for?
During her junior year, she received an unexpected visit. With no photos of him around the house, she couldn’t recognize the man. Lacey hadn’t spoken or thought about her father for most of her life, the few memories she had of him seemed like a blur as her mother had made sure to erase him from their lives. However, the name brought a whole new set of feelings. Having fulfilled his sentence, Howard Whitehall had moved out of the city to work on getting his life back and once he had, he returned to New York for his family. His return did not the warm welcome he would have expected as everyone decided to cut any ties with him, everyone but Lacey. For the next months, Lacey enjoyed having a relationship with her biological father but just as her mother warned her, it didn’t take long for him to let her down. Disappointed and having no one to talk about as Lily was out of town, she made the mistake of finding comfort with Lily’s boyfriend. He listened to her problems throughout the night and became a great source of support. For most of the night, they talked but one thing led to another and they ended up sleeping together. She should have been smarter, she should have listened to her mother, she should have thought of her best friend, but she didn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, her first time should’ve been romantic and with someone she loved, not with her best friend’s boyfriend.
Not being able to deal with the guilt, he broke up with Lily and Lacey had to pick up the pieces of the mess she had created. At first, she tried to drift away from Lily as she couldn’t handle looking at her face knowing what she had done, how she had betrayed their friendship, but she couldn’t leave her when she needed her. However, a few weeks later she found out she was pregnant, having unprotected sex, another mistake. In order to keep her secret, she didn’t tell the father. So, she decided to become a single mother, telling her family that the baby was a product of a one-night stand with someone she didn’t know too well. Nine months later, Hazel King was born. After the birth of her daughter, Lacey was forced to drop out of college to take care of her daughter. Two years later, she finally decided to return to NYU to finish her degree and has landed a paid internship at The New Yorker.
PERSONALITY --
( + ) dreamer, kind, smart. ( - ) insecure, reserved, timid.
