Mahnoor Lorelei Bianchini's pov
※※※
Later on I learned that Odessa, Avaluna, Katherine, Thaddeus, and Miles already knew that they were cheating on me for that long. I also learned that Orpheus had been initially dared by Odessa to go out with me, and make me bend and date him, and that's why he went out with me, why he kissed me, and why he asked to date me like that. All because Odessa had been dared to lose her virginity with him, by Avaluna and Miles, but she only felt attracted for everything that belonged to me.
So, to make it all work, she made me make him mine, made him belong to me, then she stole him, and actually lost her virginity with him on our 1st anniversary, when he left my dorm at night after we had watched three romantic comedy movies together on Netflix. She seduced him, which wasn't difficult since he was into her, she was his type, not me.
I was lazy with how I looked, my hair was buzzed because I felt more freeing and I kept buzzing it constantly since I was 9, my wardrobe was resumed in hoodies, sweatpants, grandma pajamas, and oversized uniforms, my skin was bad and with acne because my diet was horrible, I didn't exercised any further than I was obliged to for classes, I had braces because I had broken my teeth as a child, and I used glasses because I refused to do an eye surgery. I was addicted on studying, but laid back and messy as fuck. All because my parents decided not to press me and let me live my childhood.
Add my lactose intolerance and my addiction to lactose products, and you can imagine my condition. My stomach was a mess.
Odessa no, she was all put together, the girliest girl I had met, addicted to pink, tight clothes, high heels, make up, beauty procedures, short dresses, and smelling like sunflowers. Her straight waist-length golden blonde hair has always been perfect, she took care of herself, and was extra vain. From her 12 years old and on, she would wake up earlier just to straighten her hair better and do her make up for class, in fact, I've rarely seen her without make up in my life. Also a lot taller than me.
She's a delicate flower, not the brightest though.
So, yes, we were opposites, in all ways possible, but I used to think that it was what made us such good friends. I was wrong, clearly.
I didn't kill any of them, not because I didn't want to, but because they were not worthy. Her betrayal hurt worse than his, and so did Katherine and Avaluna's. After Hetherington caught me crying when I left Orpheus' dorm, I've refused to let another drop fall, or to ever cry near anybody, that's how humiliated I felt.
And what better revenge than making both of them regret ever doing that to me? What better revenge than making them watch me feeling amazing and untouchable, making them watch me blooming into the prettiest in the entire fucking academy? Making them see me well and realize they weren't that important to me or worthy of even having an ounce of my attention?
Not even killing them would give me the satisfaction.
So, when I got back home after that circus, since it was thankfully close to summer, and after I avoided my parents and my brother from killing them both for doing this to me, I changed. Without anyone's help, I went after ways to make myself better, to make me live a better life, to take care of myself. Said and done.
When my maternal nonna Shivani wasn't at home, I went through her chambers and found her natural recipes for the hair, skin, nails, and for things that would help with taking care of the body. Then, as I was not stupid to take the book away, as she would, one hundred percent, notice, I took pictures of it all and put it back on the place she hid them. Though I think she may know now, given how I changed.
There's no magic to change the body or make you more beautiful, there's the charm that fools the eyes of others and make them see you physically as you desire, but it doesn't really change how you look. But there are things to be done to change.
I donated all that I had in my wardrobe, every single piece aside, even my uniforms, then I took the jet and went to seven different places to get everything knew: Milan, Paris, New York, London, Zurich, Tokyo, and Seoul. Un-naturals reach adulthood at 16, so I went alone, in my own jet which my parents presented me with when I turned 15. Having a black, a gold, and a platinum unlimited cards also helped, I didn't ask them for anything, I'm not the type to ask for anything at all honestly, so, when I got back, everyone just watched in shock seeing me come back after two weeks with all of that.
Not just because I had bought an entire new wardrobe, but because I bought around two thousand books - non-educative books, or well, educative in an entire different manner, and taking into consideration that I was never a reader for fun and solely for academic reasons, it was shocking to them, especially to mamma and my two nonnas -, countless make-up products from South Korea, and an unphantomable amount of beauty products from a brand I found out about on Pinterest called Philosophy, and some others just for the sake of it.
Then came the reform in my chambers, as my parents allowed me to take over the spare chamber at my wing, which was, fully done with magic in a day, making my chambers huger, and doubling the size of my closet. The actual bedroom of the addition I used for a private library, the extra office I used as a make-up/beauty/nails studio, and I added a huge floor to ceiling mirror in the the left side wall of my bedroom.
As I had been buzzing my hair constantly, nobody in the academy really knew what color it was, they only knew me like that, but my hair is a deep shade of mahogany, I would said it's between red and brown, close to cinnamon, and though I used to think it was straight, when I allowed it to grow and began to take care of it, I realized it was actually wavy, like mamma's. Un-natural nature aside, I'm of Italian and Indian heritage, it can be deceiving because my skin is light as I took it from papa, as well as his hair color, but I mostly look a lot like mamma beyond the hair texture.
That's why I went after my maternal nonna's books, because Indian knowledge in beauty stuff just hits different, it's natural and it works. I wanted to be natural, not to cake my face with make-up to look good like certain people do. So, I began to take care of my skin twice a day.
I made of it a sacred ritual for myself.