Nobody bothers to ask about Stella's tattoos. People would rather gawk, their eyes wide in disbelief and their mouths gaping in shock. People found it easy pass rude judgments about her based on outdated stereotypes. She was a thug, an untrustworthy creature, not even human. She couldn't deny the thug judgment, though. It was technically true, Stella supposed. She had done time in Australia before immigrating to the USA all of those years back. It was for an array of crimes that all added up to a longer sentence: petty theft, arson, vandalism, fraud. This was a part of her past that made an unsightly stain on her present. It would ultimately hurt her future. Stella couldn't say she was particularly proud of this part of her life. However, she had to accept
Her time in jail was included on a decorated list of things that Stella kept an open secret. She'd talk about her past, if someone asked, but it was something she'd rather keep quiet. Her family was a touchy subject. Her parents moved around a lot; they were flighty and unreliable and cold towards Stella, who took the brunt of their chaos as an only child who stayed close to them for survival. Her father, Hunter Carlin, was a salesman whose job required instability. Stella's mother Jessica Carlin, nee Newtower, liked establishing herself all over again throughout their travels.
As someone who was fairly laid back, Stella wouldn't have minded the constant moving as an adult. As a child, the lack of consistency caused endless stress. She never had many friends as a child. Like a ghost or a dream, she floated through the world. The ease of impermanence and the emphasis on kindness was what drew her to Buddhism as an aimless university student in Australia, unaware but uninterested of what the future held.
"We're leaving again, Stella" Father had said when Stella was in her late twenties and budding in her independence. Stella wasn't sure why she stuck around with her parents when they were stationed in northeastern Pennsylvania. She could've done anything with her life at that moment, but she didn't do quite enough. Her greatest accomplishment was dating around, and these were people Stella considered unusual, strange, out of the ordinary, people her parents would've never given a second glance. She considered herself pansexual but mostly attracted to women. Her parents never seemed to notice the difference between the androgynous people she brought home, as long as they were able to clean up nice and be respectful. (Her longest lasting relationship was with Melissa Rutherford, a perky and overzealous cellist who performed in a traveling circus; Melissa's quirky eccentricity made her a great girlfriend. They even lived together briefly, which was too much commitment and too domestic for Stella. Stella ended up disappearing in the middle of the night, breaking Melissa's heart along the way.)
"I'm staying here. I want to do more here than be a trespasser," Stella explained. Her parents seemed alright with this decision and they flitted away again.
Lapsing into her old delinquent habits was all too easy in the States. She was drunk with the power of staying in one place, but she forgot that permanence doesn't always come with invisibility.
Litchfield would be her new home for a few years, and Stella had to accept that.