OC: Alexia Boyd

Full name: Alexia Boyd

Nickname(s): Alex, Al, Lexie (hates this one)

Species: Human

Age: 23

Birthday: April 6th

Orientation: lesbian

Nationality: US-American

Place of Birth: Telluride (Colorado), USA

Currently Lives: Denver (Colorado), USA

Languages Spoken: English

Native Language: English

Relationship Status: messy

Hair Color: dark brown

Eye Color: mossy green to brown

Face Claim / Playby: Steffy Argelich

Appearance: Tall, leans lanky/toned. Fairly muscular arms from working out, a sharp, defined face framed by short wavy hair. Can come off as uncaring, bearing a pretty stoic façade.

Personality: Alex possesses a casual charm that quickly reels people in. She can make anyone and anything feel important and seen, navigates small-talk with ease, will listen to your life story over a drink on the house. She very cleverly diverts attention from herself, hiding a very guarded, defensive personality under superficial charisma. Alex loves a flirt, a casual hookup, too, anything that remains at a distance from her inner self. When pushed, Alex can lash out, and she’s not afraid of a fight.

Likes: long nights, flirts, pushing herself to the edge, substances, drinking, chatting, working out, playing guitar, songwriting, solitude, dogs, changing her appearance, people-watching, good food

Dislikes: being asked questions, dull people, snobs, cops, being sober, sweet foods (except fruit), introspection, very spiritual/alternative people, dancing, social media

Smoker: Yes

Drinker: Yes

Medication: None

Hobbies: playing guitar, working out

Occupation: Bartender

Parents: Laura (✝) and Zachary Boyd

Siblings: June Boyd (missing, assumed dead)

Backstory:
Some consider Telluride a magical place, when it’s blanketed in thick, glittering snow, when winter lazes over the mountaintops and lays the lake to rest under crystals of ice. Others consider it the bane of their existence.
Only a few thousand souls grace this place, and nearly all of them depend on the magic, the spell. Winter sports tourism constitutes the foundation of Telluride, and most livelihoods are made in either skiing or hospitality. It’s an unstable, thankless life, shut off from the rest of the world, secluded to the mountains, praying for eternal winter. When the sun ascends and summer falls, most of Telluride is gripped by a sort of collective depression. Wishing for the summer to be over, so that income can be made again, left behind and forgotten by life until the snow tumbles and the tourists waltz in again.

Alexia and her sister helped out in the family business as soon as they could. After school, slithering over icy roads to the family hotel, cleaning, carrying in goods, taking care of whatever possible. It had never been easy, but it could be done.
But even in the mountains, the world stalked them, followed them closely. The 2008 financial crisis was the first slash that struck the Boyds. Alexia was seven, June was nine, and although they were too young to understand, they felt the weight that crushed their family, slowly, relentlessly. Laura and Zachary were only saved by the kindness of family, after Laura’s sister Lucy agreed to close down her own shop and merge households to save the family’s fate.

It wasn’t over.
Not Lucy, not her husband Falk, neither Laura nor Zachary nor Alexia herself could prevent the second slash.
While stocking up on groceries for the coming winter season, somewhere between loading groceries into the car and helping Falk with his wheelchair, June disappeared.
Simply disappeared.
Out of sight. Off the parking lot. Never to be seen again.

Alexia was eight, June was eleven. But this, she could understand.

When she now saw her sister’s face in the morning, it was on the side of a milk carton. Until even that stopped, and the mountains no longer echoed her name, no search party calling out, nobody answering. Until they stopped printing her in the papers, until they stopped pleading to the cameras, chanting her name, again, again, begging for the world to give her back.

Until one August morning, June was assumed dead.

The grief smothered them. It killed Laura next.
After her disappearance, the Boyds had been struggling to keep up the hotel business, and barely managed. But the winter season had to be pushed through, there was no other way. They had to keep going, they had no option. Zachary escaped through substance abuse, drinking himself into a sobbing, restless sleep. Laura shut down. As long as the winter snow kissed the Telluride hills, she worked herself to death. When the summer came, and June was gone, Laura found peace in a silver bullet. She was buried under the leaves of fall.

The hotel narrowly survived, bought out by a larger national chain. Lucy and Falk remained as co-owners, Zachary was let go.
As soon as she could, Alexia left Telluride.

When the winter snow falls, she still thinks of it. The magic that they sold, the torture that they kept.
Alexia now lives under the name Alex, residing in Denver, Colorado. She works as a bartender, always barely getting by. June’s memory lives on in the songs she sometimes writes, and her spirit holds her strong. If it wasn’t for the undying, bitter hope that someday, someday, June might return, Alex would’ve already succumbed to the addictions that keep her sane, keep the demons at bay.

You’ll find Alex at the bar, tattoo-covered arms shaking the meanest Moscow Mule you’ll ever drink. And she’ll love to hear your life’s story, always asking just the right questions. You’ll leave with a warm feeling, soothed and peaceful, feeling so appreciated, without any idea who you just talked to. Because as much as she loves a story, Alex keeps her own tightly sealed. Preferring hookups and situationships over genuine commitment, keeping her mind away from the snow-clad mountains with whatever will do. Waiting for the summer to pass, dreading winter all the same.