Rayne

**Rayne** is a character who made her debut in More Than Meets The Eye: Habits. She is a Year 6 student from Class 6B and a para-counselor of Sacred Hearts Primary School's counselling club.

## Biography

### Early Life

Rayne grew up in an unfortunate family where her father did not have a fixed job and had to work multiple part time jobs to support the family while her mother worked as a waitress in a restaurant to earn income for the family. Her father was described as an incredibly short-tempered man who would blame Rayne and her mother when things did not go his way, even to the point of physically abusing both mother and daughter sometimes. Her mother once attempted to escape with her but they were eventually found by her father.

One rainy day Rayne's father originally received a part time job offer as a clown in a circus but the person in charge of the circus decided to change the candidate of the clown last minute, thus resulting in a heated argument between her father and the person in charge through a telephone conversation. After hanging up the phone, her father was so angry that he proceeded to whip her using a cane and a frightened Rayne struggled to run away from him. That further escalated her father's anger and he grabbed her in an attempt to prevent her from running away. During the skirmish between Rayne and her father, she accidentally injured him with the color pencil that she was grabbing and her hands were stained with her father's blood. Even though her father could not move due to his injuries, he yelled "I want to kill you! I definitely will kill you!!!" to her.

The aftermath of the incident resulted in her father being imprisoned due to accusations of child abuse and he was diagnosed to be mentally ill by the doctors. Being unable to bear with all the suffering that she suffered, Rayne's mother gave up on her and escaped overseas to start over a new life and as a result of the abuse Rayne suffered at the hands of her father, she developed euphemism and she would get nervous all the time, unwilling to communicate with others and even to the point of refusing to get out of her room for only a half step.

Sometime after her father was incarcerated and her mother's departure, Rayne was adopted by her aunt who came back overseas and under her aunt's care, she managed to get rid of most of the haunting memories that happened to her and she used her experience to comfort people who are as unlucky as her.

### More Than Meets The Eye: Habits

Rayne made her debut in Book 48. She first made her appearance by stopping Andrew, who was about to bring Anna to the disciplinary office to face punishment as a result of biting her nails too extensively and she reassured Anna before proceeding to bring her to the school's greenhouse, which was later revealed to be the counselling room of the school. Miss Pam, who is the school's counselor welcomed her warmly after seeing her bringing guests to the greenhouse and she asked Rayne the reason why Andrew was in the greenhouse, which the para-counselor responded that he insisted to bring Anna to the disciplinary office to face disciplinary action from Mrs. Lawson, resulting in him following them to the greenhouse. As Andrew insisted that Anna's nail biting is a bad habit and must be punished by Mrs. Lawson, Rayne was angered by his words before being stopped by Miss Pam. Rayne prepared some tea for Andrew and herself when the counselling session between Anna and Miss Pam was ongoing and she told him their job is to discover the inner feelings of others and encourage them to overcome their problems.

Rayne watched the counselling session behind some bushes in the greenhouse alongside Andrew and she explained that counselling is an act of knowing about one's problems and encouraging them to overcome it and that it is a job which requires a lot of patience and it is not equivalent to the harsh disciplinary methods that are used in the school, which angered Andrew with her words but they were cut off by Miss Pam who gestured for them to be quiet. Rayne continued to watch sadly when Anna broke down into tears while telling Miss Pam the problems that she was facing and she grabbed Andrew's arm as the latter scolded Anna for her bad habits. Andrew was smacked on his head by Rayne for acting hastily and her anger was further escalated when the hygiene monitor told her that he could not stand people who cry a lot, which led her to grab him by his collar angrily before being stopped by Miss Pam again. As the three sat beside a table having some tea, Rayne asked Miss Pam on whether she should be concerned of Anna as she noticed the girl leaving the greenhouse nervously and she reprimanded Andrew that he was the reason of Anna's nervousness. She later got into an argument with Andrew about his ways of reprimanding Anna to encourage her with Miss Pam stopping the argument gently and asking them to be friends as their meeting today was destinied, which led to Rayne and Andrew shaking hands with each other rather unwillingly before the former went to wash her hands.

Another day Andrew went to the greenhouse to tell Rayne and Miss Pam that Anna had managed to overcome her problems partially and Rayne appeared behind him when he was staring into the greenhouse to look for them. She invited him for lunch in the greenhouse and she expressed her surprise in how sumptuous Andrew's lunchbox was. They proceeded to eat lunch together in the greenhouse before Andrew snatched away Rayne's peanut butter sandwich and filled it with various food ingredients from his lunchbox before giving it back to her. Rayne was shocked towards the fact that Andrew gave her a lot of food from his lunchbox and she complimented that although he initially gave off an impression of being sharp and unkind, but he is a kind person despite his sharp-tongued demeanor, which made him blush at her words. Rayne took a bite of the sandwich with food ingredients given to her by Andrew while staining her hand with some sauce and she went to wash her hands before continuously doing the same action multiple times, annoying Andrew in the process. She explained to him the reason why she washed her hands frequently was because she could not stand the feeling of her hands being dirty or else she would feel uneasy with Andrew agreeing her statement of it was better in washing hands frequently as compared to disliking washing hands at all.

The following day Rayne bumped into Andrew who was bringing a boy who had a fear of going to school to the counselling room and after asking the boy several questions, she angrily reprimanded the boy for lying because of using his fear of school as an excuse for being late to school before being intervened by Miss Pam, which asked them to give Rayne some time to cool down and she also asked Andrew to bring the boy to the staff room as Rayne embraced her. After school ended Rayne was asked to pluck the weeds in the greenhouse by Miss Pam and noticing Andrew came to help her, she apologized for her actions was due to her having an unhappy past and she proceeded to tell her abusive backstory to Andrew, while burying her head between her legs sadly during the story. Andrew then offered his help to Rayne and she laughed at his reaction before telling him that she managed to overcome her traumatic past, leading Andrew to smile at her while showing his relief that she is fine before noticing it was about to rain and she had to go and wash her hands again.

Noticing Andrew getting into a conflict with Anthony on the next day, Rayne appeared behind a wall and asked Andrew the reason why he did not tell the truth to his older brother and he told her that he did not want to expose their privacy to him because they trusted him that he would keep their problems confidential, making Rayne thanking her while smiling and blushing before Andrew suddenly giving a bucket of paint to her and spilling her clothes accidentally with paint. Rayne reassured Andrew that she was about to go home and left the scene with a concerned Andrew worrying that she may be angry at him. The next day Andrew stalked Rayne and noticed her washing her hands after chatting with a schoolmate and he further discovered that she opened the tap again and washed her hands several times before being interrupted by Candy JEM. They hid in the bushes as Anthony showed up and helpe Rayne to dispose some garbage in the dump and she explained to Anthony that the rumors regarding Andrew were fake and the reason why he took those students away was to help them instead of punishing them, but he decided not to tell Anthony the truth as he did not want those students to be traumatized. Anthony expressed his understanding of his brother towards Rayne and he told her that Andrew had changed ever since he met her, which surprised Rayne and she complimented that both Anthony and Andrew are kind despite their cold and strict demeanor. Rayne laughed again when a crying Andrew embraced Anthony and she introduced herself to Candy JEM, inviting them to come to the greenhouse should they encounter any problems before returning to her class without washing her hands when Joni brought up the fact that she did not wash her hands after disposing garbage.

A few days later Rayne noticed Andrew and Candy JEM stalking her behind some bushes again and she greeted them before Andrew asked Candy JEM to go with him to the staff room hurriedly, leaving a puzzled Rayne behind. During recess on the following day, Andrew asked Rayne to decrease the frequency of washing her hands and he told her that he had discovered her habit of washing hands too frequently was due to psychological reasons while she denied that she had managed to overcome her traumatic past. Andrew insisted that her habit was due to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and it was not a way of solving her habit, making Rayne admit that even though she knew it was not a solution to her habit, but she could not help but doing the same action over and over again as those memories that haunt her would come up her mind everytime she closed her eyes. Andrew offered his hand to her and asked whether they are friends and Rayne grabbed his hand, staining her hand with ketchup in the process while Andrew ordered her to not wash or wipe her hands or else they would not be friends anymore. Rayne understood that Andrew was intending to cure her OCD by controlling her habit in an attempt to let her anxiety fade away gradually but she remembered that she had tried this method at home but gave up and she was worried whether she could manage to endure until 6pm on that day.

Rayne walked alone in a busy shop area, thinking to herself that she should not have chosen that path in returning home. Some boys knocked into her on their way to a fast food restaurant and she fell down on the street with the boys apologizing to her for knocking her down and she complained she felt dizzy and nauseous while a crowd gathered in front of her and was concerned of her condition. As Rayne noticed a clown offering to help her up, she immediately thought of her abusive past with her father and the sight of her hands being stained with blood, thus making her scream before fainting on the street. Since that day Rayne was deeply traumatized and she chose to lock herself in her room and refusing to eat, even when Andrew and Anthony came to visit her she laid on her bed while wrapping herself with her blanket crying as Andrew encouraged her to pull herself together. Andrew then continued to visit her everyday and knowing that she had been eating regularly, he was relieved and he proceeded to place his notes at her doorstep. Rayne picked up the notebook after Andrew left and she flipped through it, noticing a caricature of her crying and Andrew offering his friendship to her. On the actual day of the school's final year exam, Andrew was worried on whether Rayne would come to school for the exam before being interrupted by her, who was standing behind him all the time, leading Andrew to cry out of relief while Rayne was concerned for him.

### The Best is Yet to Come: Respect

Rayne was first seen listening to Richard's speech during the graduation ceremony of Sacred Hearts. She later showed up behind Andrew who was on his way in finding and delivering a flower bouquet to Mr. Silas where her sudden appearance behind him shocked the hygiene monitor. She asked him the reason why he screamed loudly and she invited him for afternoon tea with her, which he violently refused but he eventually went to the greenhouse with her. During the afternoon tea session with Andrew and Miss Pam, Rayne told Andrew that she had agreed to come back to Sacred Hearts every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday to help Miss Pam with her counselling sessions and as Andrew voiced out his feelings of not being able to become a good counselor, Rayne showed him her hands and told him that she had not washed her hands starting from afternoon and she thanked him for being the one who helped her to overcome her traumatic experience. Rayne asked cheekily whether her words touched Andrew as he fell into silence but was startled when Andrew reprimanded her for not washing her hands. Rayne later told Andrew that she did not see his flower bouquet when the latter asked hastily on whether she hid the flower bouquet and she denied that she hid his flower bouquet.

## Appearance

Rayne is a young girl in her late tweens with shoulder length dull green hair and blue eyes which are framed by a pair of rectangular lense glasses. Just like the other characters, she consistently change her clothing throughout the series.

In a flashback when she was younger, she was shown to have shorter hair which was around neck length.

## Relationships

### Family

#### Parents

Rayne's parents were mentioned when she was telling her story to Andrew. Rayne seemingly had an unhealthy and abusive relationship with her father as he tend to blame her and her mother and physically abusing them for disobeying his orders. Rayne was also deeply terrified of her father as he abused her when she was young and the impact of the abuse still haunted her until the present day.

Whereas for Rayne's mother, although interactions between them were lacked, it was evident that she greatly cared for her daughter as evidenced when she attempted to escape from her abusive husband along with Rayne as she could not bear her daughter growing up in a violent household.

#### Pam

Pam is Rayne's aunt from her mother's side of the family. Ever since the imprisonment of Rayne's father and the departure of her mother, Pam adopted Rayne after coming back overseas and Rayne sees Pam as her second motherly figure.

## Trivia

* Her name, *Rayne*, means 'counsel' or 'song', which corresponds to her helpful nature of willing to counsel students who are facing problems.