introducing : kadri levni
〔 melis sezen, 25, cis woman, she her ) kadri levni was seen listening to “ hard times for lovers ” by judy collins. kadri is a secretary and known to be insightful & hypocritical ( harper !!! )
𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚜
full name ~ kadri melike levni
birthday ~ SEPTEMBER / 9 / 1997
job status ~ employed as a secretary
relationship status ~ (currently) single
orientation ~ bisexual
>𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚒𝚘 (tws : premature birth, bullying)
kadri was the second daughter of two professors, and when she was born, she spent her first couple weeks of life under hospital care for being premature. while she got out of the woods with few complications, it still scared her parents enough that any sickness she ever suffered would send them into an anxious tailspin.
she was a serious kid, quick to spend long focused hours on her books and slow to play any games. it was easy for her, with her short stature and wide eyes, to hide behind some of the more daring people in her life. her older brother zeki, for example, was the perfect shield from attention. the only times that she wasn’t painfully shy was with family and close friends, especially the windsors. their families were always together, and she was close enough in age to quinn to quickly become best friends.
kadri was always similar to both of her parents, who would take her to campus whenever after school care wasn’t available. she could easily entertain herself with the books and academic surroundings, something that she wished she could share with her brother. from a young age, she became a kind of translator between the two sides of her family. all parties were well meaning, but it seemed that she was the only one who understood her parents’ logic and her brother’s emotions.
all this shyness and bookishness made her a treat for teachers, but she was less popular with her peers. all throughout elementary school, she was a target. she was easy to rile up and offend, and kids looking to practice their cruelty found an easy target in her. she spent much of her early school years in abject misery over this, until sixth grade came, and a self-help book (one that was almost certainly meant for adults) that she picked up in the library gave her a piece of advice that she followed like the gospel: anyone can change, as long as they are given the space and motivation. to practice this, she picked out her biggest bully, a girl who had spent years throwing things and calling her names.
her method was strange, but it worked. on being called “the worst dresser in our grade”, kadri fixed her big moon eyes on the girl and said “fix me, then”. soon, she was getting dressing advice, and more importantly, she was following it. she even did research, deciding to use it for bonding. against all odds, it worked, and kadri decided that what she had read was correct. she never forgot it, nor did she forget the friendship that followed.
when it came to middle and high school, kadri was three things: quiet, well-dressed, and helpful. it made teachers love her, and peers indifferent to her. she never really branched out, or tried something bigger than school-and-friends, but she considered herself more well-adjusted than the average teen.
kadri went to the university where her parents taught, but she learned more than the curriculum there. her college roommate saw kadri’s painful shyness as a challenge, and pushed her to go to parties and club meetings. kadri opted to be the party wallflower, which landed her right next to a nerdy guy who had also been dragged to that exact party. she fell hard and she fell fast, deciding after three dates with him that they were meant to be. she started sleeping over at his dorm so often that her own bed became storage, and they lasted for six intense months.
after six months, however, he dumped her. it was painful, even if it came as a relief to all of her friends. she sat through his whole explanation with tears pouring down her face, and she only remembered key words and phrases, which played on repeat in her head. too much passion, he said. too much commitment too soon, too much work. too much, too much, too much. it was excruciating, and kadri spent the next four years mourning the loss of her first love. she even tried dating in her senior year, only to find that she still couldn’t do it. she was like a swan, she thought, she mated for life. and her mate thought she was too much, so that was it.
kadri graduated with honors, a degree in english, and an acceptance to grad school. she planned on following the same track as her parents, which made them glow with pride, and her glow with relief. it was nice having her path decided so cleanly, so she continued marching along. the schoolwork was a relief to her, and instead, it was the social part of her world that caused her stress.
the summer between undergrad and grad school landed kadri with her first ever job, working as a cashier at a craft store. she spent long, blissful hours reading books at the counter and engaging in small talk with customers. it was lowkey and incredibly pleasant, and it also introduced her to knitting, which quickly became one of her stress-hobbies.
as grad school began, she decided that it was time she date again. her friends set her up on blind dates, always at the same bar. to kadri’s surprise, she loved the dates, but never because of the person she was there with. instead, she began to fall for the bartender, who knew her order by heart, greeted her with a smile, and always provided her with tantalizing, compelling details of their life that hinted towards a full picture that was beautiful and radiant. kadri sunk into the fantasy of it all, and even used it for muse when she was feeling stuck. she wrote her thesis on love poetry, and mentally dedicated it to her bartender/muse/crush. none of those dates resulted in a second, and she never made a move on that bartender.
all through her grad work, kadri found that she had a knack with older people. peers could be loud and confusing, but she made connections with older professors and administration with a natural ease. she became an unlikely darling of the grad program, and upon graduating with an expertise in poetry, she had a clear path to working at the university.
she was 24 when she started her secretarial work, during her last year of schooling, and at first, she had a boss from hell: a loud, brash, somewhat sexist man who ran the university finances office and scoffed at her credentials. kadri lasted for a valiant 5 months, before being saved by the one, the only zane santos.
the first time that kadri saw zane santos, she thought she was handsome. then, she learned that he was a smart, kind, caring man who was a good boss, and she promptly fell into the most schoolgirl crush she had ever experienced. she had to physically restrain herself from writing “kadri santos” in her notebooks (it just had such a ring to it), and when she found out that he was gay, she almost broke into tears.
even as her friends reminded her that there were many, many fish in the sea, and that it was about time that she had a life outside of her work, she couldn’t shake the feeling. how would she meet someone so… cool? so noble? nobody could compare, especially when she would be reminded nearly every day of what she couldn’t have. it seemed as good of a reason as any not to date, so kadri resolutely stuck to the things she was good at.
now, at 25, kadri is at a new stage in her life. she’s young, and less-experienced but more well-read than most of her peers. she’s traversed many worlds through novels, but the “real world” still feels foreign and unknown. even if she doesn’t know it yet, something is going to come into her universe and shake everything up.
