Mahnoor Lorelei Bianchini's pov
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I've always been an early riser, but I used to lazy around for more than an hour in my bed doing nothing, just because laying down felt really good, but I changed that. I began to actively wake up as soon as my sleep ended, which is usually around 5 am, and I also began to go to sleep at midnight at maximum not to fuck up with my sleep as sleeping well is essential to have a good body and skin and everything actually. I also started to sleep with calming sounds surrounding me, such as the sound of rain and storms, or just violin and piano instrumentals.
Then I would take care of my buccal higiene, do my skincare, treat my hair with an special rosemary water and my special mix of essential oils, and then I would take a bath, without wetting my hair, taking care of my skin. I never used to depilate myself because again, I was lazy for those things, even though I never liked body hair, so I did a magical depilation that took care of that for good, making my skin as smooth as a baby's. At last, I took care of my nails, eyebrows, and lashes, naturally.
At midday, I would take a second bath and wash my hair, taking extra care of it, washing the oil, massaging my scalp, then shampooing twice, and after a while conditioning it for ten minutes then washing it again, let it dry a bit in a microfiber towel and later finishing drying it with a hair dryer I bought in New York.
At night, I would put my hair in my red satin bonnet, which I began to sleep with to protect my hair, and take a calming warm bath on my bathtub, scrubbing my skin and smoothing it with oil or lotion. After my nightly bath I would take the satin bonnet for a minute, do the special rosemary water treatment again, then put the bonnet back and dos my nightly skincare, lastly pass a body cream on my skin and put one of my silk babydoll pajamas, some cashmere ankle-high socks on, and only then I would lay down to either do something or to go to sleep.
It was so effective, that by the end of the 95 days of summer vacation, my hair that was initially buzzed, had grown enough to be at the height of my jawline. I wasn't that surprised because my hair was always one to grow annoyingly quick, so I was constantly buzzing it, but then it wasn't annoying anymore. It made me so happy that the day before going back to Zeus, when I looked in the mirror and saw the transformation, and not one sign of acne in the horizon, I danced and jumped around, laughing to myself.
Not just skin wise or my hair, but the results of the physical training I began to do every morning after my self-care before breakfast and at night before my self-care routine before dinner, that made my muscles firmer and more toned. As I had also paid a visit to our family's nutritionist, the strong diet she put me on also began to make a big difference. I also began to train boxing, taekwondo, and kung fu, for the sake of it, and I early contacted the academy to add me in those classes from the next semester and on.
I had also gotten new uniforms, pieces I've never worn before, such as shorts, skirts, dresses, leggings, tight pants and shirts, cropped hoodies, and everything that I refused to wear before because I didn't want to show anyone my body. But not anymore, I wanted to show everyone how much of a loser my ex was, and to make my ex-best friend even more jealous of me than she was already, to make both furious with themselves. With him for breaking up, and with her for not being able to use any of my new possessions.
And more than anything, to show everybody in that damned hell, that breaking up with him was the best decision for myself, that he didn't deserve me, and that I never needed him, or even deeply loved him.
Oh, yes, the first thing I did when I go back home was do the eyes treatment with our physician, so, goodbye corrective eyeglasses. Though he told me to use it when I wanted to read alone, alone, so I wouldn't have any headache, so, hello reading eyeglasses. Which is fine with me, since I did get used to using them.
But my biggest investment was in myself. Before I was a bit afraid of being alone, until I realized that I could only count on myself, I didn't need friends to feel full, and that all I needed was me, myself, and I. I became an individualist, and the loner of the class, when they were gathering with one another in that little groups, I was reading, training, taking care of myself, enjoying my own company, like I knew nobody else would ever do. I didn't lose my love for studying, I actually became even better at it, enjoying my achievements on my own, and becoming the perfect antisocial.
I found myself craving to spend time with myself instead of anyone else, to skip meals in the communal room and take my food to eat in my dorm instead, watching a documentary, or a movie, or a drama, or just a stupid ass fairy tale, because why not? Or, the best of all, listening to an audiobook of one of my questionable morally-grey books, which became my secret, since I didn't allow anybody inside my dorm.
Everyone noticed the change in me, of course, and I think the one who noticed it the most, was my enemy, my rival, my nemesis, Nikko Cornelius Hetherington, because of course that bastard would try to catalog every move I made, just to study why I changed, thinking it was some kind of trick I was pulling. He questioned me about it many times when we had our duels in combat class and martial arts, but I just mocked him and chose the sarcasm route instead. Drawing a line that screamed "you are NOT welcomed in my personal life, stop butting in, take care of your own".
And it took them more than a year to realize that Nikko's suspicions were wrong and I was not pretending, as I had actually changed for better.
Take that, Hetherington spawn.