SARAH HAWKINS

tws ; death , depression , alcoholism , gambling , teenage marriage , teenage pregnancy , traumatic birth , abandonment , pregnancy loss !

Sarah Lyra Kensington was born the second child to a devoted family. Ryland Kensington was a hardworking baker who owned a small stand on the space port, and Maisie was proud to be able to stay at home with her children, often found either bustling in the kitchen with her children helping to prepare meals or nestled in the reading nook specially made for her by her husband. Her older brother, Declan James, and she were very close, closer than Sarah was with either of her parents. Things looked good for the Kensington family until one day when Declan didn’t come home. There soon came a knock at the door, and a solemn-looking police officer delivered the terrible news: Declan was stabbed to death by a band of rogue space pirates while out on patrol. Her parents were grief-stricken, of course, but Sarah herself fell into a deep depression, as she’d lost the one person she confided in, her protector… her best friend.

After Declan’s death, the now-broken Kensington family moved a couple planets over to Montressor from Crescentia, their home planet. They bought what is now the Benbow Inn, though it wasn’t an inn at the time, just a dilapidated and ruined home. Sarah refused to come out of her bedroom for three weeks after moving in, which worried her parents. Ryland soon began drinking and gambling to cope, causing the family’s finances to sink quickly. It wasn’t until Sarah turned fifteen that things started to look up for the Kensingtons. Maisie had gotten a job as a schoolteacher at the local K-12 school, which surprisingly paid well, and climbed the ranks to vice principal in those few short years.

At sixteen years old, Sarah was at a nearby tavern with some school friends when she and Leland Gerard Hawkins laid eyes on each other, and it was love at first sight for the both of them. She and her friends gushed over him until he came over and introduced himself proper, clearly talking more to Sarah than her girlfriends. It was like sparks flew instantly, and he took her out that very night, beginning their relationship. They were the definition of ‘lovebirds’ the first two years of dating, and one night, they made love for the first time in Leland’s living room. A couple of weeks later, just shy of her nineteenth birthday, the young woman found out that she was pregnant. Right after she told her partner, he proposed to her, and a couple of weeks later, they were married.

It was soon apparent, however, that Leland wasn’t as thrilled about the pregnancy as Sarah grew to become. He became cold and distant as the months went by, with her going to doctor’s appointments and wellness checkups alone more often than not. Her life wasn’t going as she’d dreamed of, and she began to wonder if she and her husband should get a divorce and she could raise their baby alone. However, with her parents not having seen her in a few years and probably not willing to take her back into their home after so long, especially not with a baby on the way; she had to stay strong for herself and for her unborn child. Throughout the pregnancy, Sarah confided the most in her old friend Delbert Doppler, who was like her rock during the tumultuous time.

The birth of her son was highly traumatic, as Sarah had lost a lot of blood during the delivery and needed an emergency transfusion at the hospital. Fortunately, her baby was alright, coming out screaming and hollering. Leland, of course, was on his latest voyage to a nearby planet and wouldn’t be home for a few more months, so the newly young mother had to bring her son, James "Jim" Pleiades Hawkins (named after her late brother to honor his memory), home with Delbert by her side. She developed postpartum anxiety and depression over having to care for a newborn by herself, but her close friend made it very clear that she wasn’t completely alone, with him staying at the inn for a few weeks to help her adjust to life as a new mother.

When Jim turned two years old, she received a call from her mother, who she hadn’t spoken to in a couple years, stating that her father had suffered a devastating stroke and passed away. In his will, he had left the inn and approximately $2,000,000 that he had saved over the years to Sarah. The small family promptly moved into the home, and with half the money, they rebuilt the old Kensington home into what is now the Benbow Inn. Maisie passed away with Sarah at her side, with her last moments being spent expressing joy over her new grandson and lamenting about how much she’d missed her while she was with Leland.

Sarah soon took notice as Jim grew that all he really seemed to want in his young life was for his father to notice and pay attention to him. The young boy would build model ships like the ones that her husband boarded for his months-long voyages, but Leland wouldn’t even give him anything more than a short glance and a pat on the head before walking away from him. The look on her boy’s face absolutely shattered the young mother’s heart, and she confronted her husband on more than one occasion, the conversations getting more and more heated as time went on.

Finally, one night, shortly after Jim turned twelve, the couple had gotten into their last big argument, in which her husband finally let her know that he wasn’t ready for a family and never would be. Sarah then screamed back at him to leave, then, if that was what he truly wanted to do. The next morning, Leland had come home to pack up everything of his and take the next ship out of Montressor for good. Sarah couldn't even look at him, so he left without either of them saying goodbye to each other.  Him taking off hit Sarah hard, but she noticed that Jim seemed to not be taking it well at all, 

A few months after her husband left, one morning, the still-heartbroken young woman woke up to a sight that stayed burned in her memory: 

Some years passed, and Sarah was still keeping the inn running, seeing as they needed to make money without her husband and the money she'd inherited had quickly run dry. She was also dealing with Jim being a reckless and irresponsible teenager, going out on his solar surfer all day and not getting good grades in school. 

IMPORTANT PORTRAYAL NOTES

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