Carmen Calloway knew that from the minute she was born, every step she took would always be watched.

She spent her life looking through a glass window. Sure, the glass was hand blown by Italian artisans, gilded in gold, but still. Carmen was keenly aware of the prying eyes that never strayed too far from her peripheral. Always watching her to slip, always watching for a mistake.

Small price to pay as a true born-in It Girl.

Growing up, Carmen took ballet classes. As she entered her teenage years and went on pointe, what started as a hobby grew into something more toxic. She would see her thirteen-year-old classmates smoking after class to suppress their appetite; heard unfortunate noises coming from toilet cubicles.

It wasn't a major secret. Thinness seemed like the highest ideal a dancer could attain.

The constant attention she received from the status of her last name didn't help the pressure it put on her to perform. As she got older and attracted more stares, her need for control over her image grew.

The only person who could ever understand her struggles was Orson. Even though he was her stepbrother, he was all she had ever known. A fixture in her days spent at Calloway Manor, tennis and riding lessons, the all-familiar smirk he'd toss her during long arduous morning teas with their grandmother and stuffy aunts and uncles. Summers in the French Riveria attending lavish parties, sipping rose wine and bathing in the turquoise waters of the mediterranean sea. Winters on the Alps dressed in a white rabbit fur and sheepskin apres-ski boots, drinking Godiva hot chocolate and tearing through the soft snow. They enjoyed things in excess: shopping, eating, and drinking. 

Their social ladder is stifling and cut-throat, populated by people either on their way up or on their way down. As Calloways, they had always floated at the very top.

But float is a misnomer- more like held on with claw marks dug in from her french-tipped nails.

Carmen did everything in her power to maintain her status. It was a sensitive thing in the world of the beautiful-and-disgustingly rich people party circuit. It only existed when an audience recognized it and it was the one thing that couldn't be bought outright without, of course, a loss of status.

While Carmen was purely aware of her elevation as a Calloway, she was also keenly aware that she had a lot to prove. Her mother was some high fashion model turned nobody gold digger from Armenia Elijah Calloway had deigned to be worthy to be his wife. She knew the blue-blooded old-money types would wrinkle their nose at her mother's bloodline, which was why she fought for the condemnation of her fate.

She groveled and pushed and shoved and elbowed and clawed. She worked for respect, she worked for prominence, she worked for anything that Georgina Carlton was offered on the most silver of platters. But more importantly, she worked for control. 

Power made Carmen froth, something that she could not earn by simply maintaining a happy-go-lucky mindset, or having her face plastered on the front page of the hottest new issue of a magazine. The crown perched atop her head stayed more for assurance than anything, creating the illusion that she wielded any sort of dominion. Her tiara provided some sense of stability.

Orson understood her. Her need for approval, her controlling diatribes of keeping her crown, her making sure the girls she had around her stayed in line. And she understood him. Carmen knew Orson like the back of her throat.

Because they were the same person, just on different sides of a coin.

Reeking of royal blood and succession, Orson had the same calcified heart and stomach as her, all bone and hard stares. Except he might be even worse. Orson was cold eyes and even colder looks; the ever-present blue-flame trapped inside the same golden cage as hers.

But my god, was it a beautiful cage.

They danced behind bars like it was nothing. Under the watchful eye of the crowd, she pranced and cajoled in her best dresses, drank the best top shelf champagne and attended the most exclusive events. She stared, smiled, smirked, and blew kisses from every angle. She curtsied and cackled, spun with her arms outstretched in fancy dresses, diamonds dangling around her neck. Still, even in the throes of lavish partying, there was a sense of emptiness, of a vapid existence that's slowly losing its sheen.

Carmen was not troubled the way her peers are: weekends spent in penthouses snorting up lines of white powder, illicit affairs with each other and their fathers business partners, drinking to excess, fake IDs, failing classes - the list goes on. No, Carmen is too tightly controlled to ever be swayed by their impulsive and reckless foolish tendencies. She is not like the troubled Georgina's of the world; she's troubled because she's too controlled, too tightly wound, coiled up like a ball about to implode.

 At ten years old, Carmen was a lanky, slender tanned-skin girl with a heart still pink and pumping. Yes, girl was the key word here. The term "girl" came into popular usage in England in the late 19th century to describe working-class unmarried women who occupied an emerging social space between childhood and adulthood. Not quite a child, the girl was childlike in that she had yet to become a wife or mother, and she was thought to engage in "frivolous" pursuits like urban leisure. In this rarefied world, there was an unspoken but widely understood logic: girls were valuable; women were not.

Carmen lacked exuberance as a child. Even at ten years old, she was tight-lipped and stiff. Carefully dissecting and measuring every step she made- even by then. Her mother would chastised her if she dare chortled loudly, like a deep belly laugh. It was unladylike and uncouth. Girls of her status giggled lightly with pursed lips and a raised chin. Or smiled ever so slightly, head tilted and an elegant eyebrow cocked.

Girls like her didn't watch silly little Disney channel shows like Hannah Montana or Spongebob. They were educated with tutors on Simone Beauvoir and Charles Dickenson. However, on occasion her mother and father wasn't around, the nanny would sneak her episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place on a spare iPad from time to time.

Carmen didn't like to indulge on things like caring or hunger. Those things are a long road to a lack of self-control: one taste and she wouldn't be able to resist fattening herself up—one taste and she would have to watch it swirl down the drain.

Dumb tv-shows her mother would never let her watch however?

Harmless fun Carmen allowed herself once in a while.

It brought out the rebel in her.

Carmen believed every moment of her plotting and planning had brought her the success and adoration she so badly craved. When she ruled the hallways of Kensington Prep and the New York social scene with an iron fist and her ladies in waiting, she thought that was it. She had made it- and no one could take it away from her.

She was Carmen Fucking Calloway and she was the It Girl.

The Queen Bee, the wondergirl with the silver crown on her head.

So how did it came to be that tiara came falling off her head?

How did Carmen Calloway, a girl of blueblood proportions, find her college years wasting away behind a straitjacket?

Funny you ask, Carmen sneered in her head as she stared at padded walls around her, it's because of one fucking bitch named Amory Scout. If that is even her real name.

-

The first time Carmen saw Amory Scout, a warning bell went off in her head. A bad feeling unfurled in her stomach- which was rare for Carmen since she hardly ever ate anything- but the first sight of Amory's Sophia Loren–esque curves made Carmen's stomach drop a little. At first, Carmen was trying to decipher if the feeling was bad- because it was like the moment right before you reach the highest part of the roller coaster, when you know that at any second you'd be at the very top of the park, looking down over everything, pausing there for a fraction of a second, about to have the ride of your life. It was such a fleeting feeling, just a dip in her stomach right before everything goes flying apart in a blast of wind, and screaming, right before you let go completely.

She couldn't put a finger on it at the time but if she knew what she knew now, she knew it was her gut telling her to stay away from that psycho bitch as far as possible.

At first, Carmen chalked up the feeling to a sense of intimidation.

A flurry of silken blonde tresses and all-encompassing regal air was Amory Scout; even from afar and without much knowledge, Amory radiated a Californian breeziness to her that made the boys eat up her charismatic fluency and honeyed sweetness. She reminded Carmen of Georgina Carlton- perfect without trying and beautiful without much effort.

Carmen had been subjected to a life of keeping her glossed lips shut with feigned contentment. She maintained her class as a mantra boomed in her head, scolding her to be grateful that she even had a place in the tiniest turret, while girls like Georgina and Amory sat primly in the tallest tower, overlooking the peasants down at her feet, awestruck and blissed by her mere existence.

Amory had irritated Carmen the same way Georgina Carlton did- just like Georgina, Amory's presence cast a celestial glow upon anyone who crossed her path, a sliver of sunlight seeping through a crack of the cloudiest skies. And Carmen had no choice but to be sunburned. Ceaselessly eclipsed by the je ne sais quoi ability of It-Girls who never had to try as hard as she did.

Because they were born with it.

But there was something about Amory that drew Carmen even more to her than Georgina ever did- a deep, dirty thrumming darkness throbbing underneath that pretty glistening sheen. There was something a little bit off in the way she twirled and smiled, like the gleam in her sea green eyes was more than just a twinkle.

It was the mark for whenever Amory hit her target.

Carmen knew her gut was always right. From the beginning she had whispered to Parker, when she saw Luciana and Amory first getting to know each other in the hallowed halls of Kensington, "There's something sus about that new girl," she had breathed into Parker's ear.

Parker had rolled her eyes. "You need to stop losing your shit over every stray puppy Luciana brings in."

Carmen hated being proven right but she laughed in the dark of the padded room, her arms straining against the belt of her bed. "I told you so," she said as if Parker was there to cop it from her.

There was no one around. There hadn't been anyone for a while now.

-

Every time Orson visited her, Amory tagged along.

Carmen knew why- the bitch wasn't stupid enough to let Orson come see her alone; she kept her sharp, alerted eyes trained on them every time Orson made conversation with her, head bent over to hide their mouths whispering. It didn't matter how quiet they were, the way her facility had designed the visitor's room allowed sound to travel to every corner of the room. Amory always heard every word.

Or maybe Amort tagged along to see her suffer. To see her arms bound in zip ties and wearing ugly blue overalls that sagged over her bloated body, to see Carmen shuffling around the peeling blue walls, dark corridors, and bars on the windows.

The facility Amory had her in was the most miserable place. It was a mental institutition and a treatment center wrapped into one hell on earth called the Preserve. People called it "death row" because so many kids committed suicide while inside. Others called it "Rapunzel's tower" because people leave their family members in there for years. No Internet, television, or phone calls were allowed. The nurses were like extras from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the doctors on staff had no qualms about tying kids to their beds to keep them calm. Kids shuffled through the halls despondently, some of them muttering, others screaming, most twitching.

After Carmen was found naked wither hands around Amory's throat, doctors were called. Numerous evaluations were performed on her. Carmen was mad with the revelation of Amory's true identity. She's not who she said she is, Carmen had screamed, she's not a real person. She's a murderer. She killed people. And she's threatening me. She wants me gone.

Paranoid schizophrenia, the doctors said in grave tones. That sort of thing could be treatable, but only with a lot of care. Orson had left Amory to make the final decision, though— and, tearfully, she decided that her high school best friend should go. And so a facility was found. Off Carmen went, away from her family, away from everything she knew.

It was until months later, Carmen realised that it was exactly Amory's intention all along. She wanted Carmen to look crazy by driving her crazy so she can keep her locked up in this place forever.

Carmen's face felt her cheeks went warm with embarrassment. She had danced the steps Amory choreographed for her, played right into her hands.

Orson visited her once a week. He would make the trip on a red-eye flight from New York to Connecticut and bring her favourites- macarons and magazines, things that give her a sense of normalcy and reminded her of home. Carmen didn't even regard the calories when she stuffed her face with her favourite Lauduree treats. Pale pink, hard outside, but spongy and light and delicate inside, with a raspberry deliciousness filling.

But those once-a-week trips soon became once-a- month, and then once every couple months, then once every six months. Suddenly, Carmen was sort of . . . forgotten.

It wasn't until Parker came to see her that she figured out why.

"They moved to London," Parker said, helping her fill in the blanks. "When Delia passed away, it was best that they managed the Calloway estate from it's home base."

Carmen snorted, "Let me guess, Amory poisoned her."

Parker smiled wryly. Even though Parker had put on weight and was sporting a carroty bob, it was still one of the features that stayed the same. "She passed from natural means," Parker replied, then in a hushed whisper, "Though I would put it past her."

Carmen put her head in her hands and groaned. "I need to get out of here," she groaned, "I've been here forever."

Tears sprang to Carmen's eyes. She'd been in hospital care since she was seventeen—four whole years. She was now twenty-one. It had been officially four years since she got committed and even though she'd gotten used to the facility the same way a mouse might get used to living in a cage, she'd seen horrible things she never wanted to witness again.

Sometimes, Carmen felt like she deserved it. It was karma. Karma for what happened with Carlotta.

Carlotta Weston, that stupid dumb trailer park slut.

Carmen didn't mean to push her down the stairs but the rage had left her body before she had a chance to stop it. Before she knew it, there was a deafening crack, a spill of blood and an ear-splitting scream.

I did it to protect Orson, Carmen told herself. She would've ruined him.

And Carlotta was planning too- seducing him, then purposely tricking him into getting pregnant. It would've scandalised their impolite polite society. Her father would've given him hell, cut him out of the will for fathering some bastard child with a suburban whore.

But the more Carmen pour her mind into it (after all, she has now all the time in the world to do that), Carmen realised she sounded like Amory Scout.

Justifying a murder, blackmailing her friends to bury a body. All in the name of Orson Calloway.

A darkness thrummed inside of Carmen. She did it because she loved her brother- he was the only one who understood her. He was in the same cage as her and she always felt transparent under his gaze; he could sniff her bullshit from a mile away. He understood every narrowed eyes, every condescending smile and every spin of her pointe shoe. The way she ruled Kensington with such magnetic force, how the girls feared her or wanted to be her. No one ever understood her the way Orson did.

She's not supposed to feel like this about him but she couldn't explain why she did. The jealousy, the ferocious protectiveness over him. How she would kill for him. How she had killed for him.

She loved him like she could never love any man. 

-

whoopsie daisy, so yah finally updated

i just didn't know what i want to accomplish with a carmen chapter but it does actually confirm the theory that carmen is slightly in love with her step brother (or uncle ig) 

it is vvy one sided tho (orson is in to girls that look like his mom)

everyday freud rolls in his grave lolsauce

please comment tyy <3