We Are Not Okay

by Natália Gomes

  ‘We won’t. We could walk around, see a movie—’

  ‘Like a real date?’ The words linger in my mouth and I hungrily grab at them, wanting to pull them close and devour them. A date. With my boyfriend. In public. For once, I’d feel normal, not different. For once, I could act like a typical seventeen-year-old teenager. I could act like one of those girls with time to waste, those I both envy and hate too.

  ‘Imagine.’ He smiles, gripping my hand.

  ‘I already can. But it’s so risky.’

  ‘No, I really don’t think so. I think it’s genius.’ A wide boyish grin stretches across his face, and I can’t help but return it with one of my own.

  ‘And when would we enact this genius plan of yours? It’s riskier at the weekend.’

  ‘So, a weekday?’

  ‘How? We’re at school!’

  ‘You have a free period after lunch on Wednesdays.’

  ‘And you have class.’

  ‘So I’ll miss it for once.’

  I roll my eyes. Skipping class would never be an option for me, unless I was really sick. And I mean, really sick.

  ‘We’ll get the bus when the lunch bell rings at 11.35 and be back for the usual time UCAS Prep finishes. We’d have five hours together.’

  ‘What if someone sees us getting on the bus?’

  ‘They won’t. And to be safe, we’ll queue up separately and even sit apart.’ He shimmies closer to me. ‘Whatever it takes. Ulana. It’d be so nice to spend time with you off school grounds.’

  His hand grips mine, tighter. I float my head back and see another RAF plane overhead. In the sky, no destination, no purpose. ‘OK,’ I say finally. ‘Next Wednesday.’

  ‘Next Wednesday,’ he echoes.

  ‘It’s a—’

  ‘—date,’ he laughs. ‘See, finishing each other’s sentences.’

  I nudge him playfully, then tuck my legs up underneath me.

  ‘No,’ he moans rolling back on the ground. ‘Is it time already? Please say no.’

  ‘Don’t worry, this time next week we’ll have five hours. We can suffer through our usual hour today.’ I stretch my hand out and pull him up to standing. He holds his arms out wide and I collapse into them until I can feel his heartbeat against my right cheek.

  TRINA

  Journal Entry 2: 14.09.2018

  I’m not sure when it was that Lucy and I started hating each other. We’ve always been polar opposites. Style, sense of humour (I have one!), social circles, academic interests (I have none!), financial situation (I’m also lacking in that area), family…

  Everything from how we style our hair to what we eat for breakfast to what we think is a priority in our lives couldn’t be further apart from the other’s. But I can’t really blame our long-standing feud on our differences. No, I think what we share is just a mutual dislike for one other, to the core. The deeeeeeeep core.

  Which is funny because we were in most of the same classes at the beginning when we started Birchwood High School. Yes, she attended more classes than me overall, but there were times – a lot of times – we sat next to each other in class. I remember one particular English class that I’d forgotten my copy of Little Women and she shifted her chair closer to mine and let me read off her book. I didn’t even have to ask her, she just did it. And when my mind wandered, which was often, she pointed to the sentence that we were meant to be following along with, pressing into the ink with her manicured rose-hued fingernail that was gently shaped into an oval. We were different back then too but we didn’t hate each other. We weren’t friends, we didn’t eat lunch or even walk to the cafeteria together after the lunch bell rang, but if we saw each other in the hallway or in the girls’ toilets, we either smiled and nodded, or said ‘Hi’ like we meant it. We did mean it, I think. She was different back then. She was friendly, she was nice to people. And she smiled a lot more.

  Now she’s an empty shell – plastic on the outside, hollow on the inside. Like one of those dolls that fit inside other dolls, you know the little one goes into the medium one which fits into the larger one and so on? That’s perhaps not the best analogy or maybe doesn’t even make sense, but I can’t think of another one right now. If I do, I’ll write it down later. Then I’ll remember it for the next time I try to analyse Lucy’s inner workings, which may take five seconds or five years. I don’t know why she’s so mean to everyone now. It’s like she gets off on making people miserable, highlighting their flaws or their mistakes. It’s like she looks for people’s secrets and exposes them purely for some evil enjoyment. Nothing stays hidden around Lucy McNeil. All you can hope for at Birchwood is a smooth-sailing school year of living under her radar. If not, good luck. Because – You. Will. Need. It.

  Lucy Freaking McNeil.

  Pretty, smart, popular, well-liked, with a perfect boyfriend (now a perfect ex-boyfriend…), perfect family unit. I envied her. I’d always wanted the perfect family. Both a mum and a dad. My mum is amazing. She’s a strong woman and she does what she can to support us, I understand that. There’s nothing more I can ask her to do. She’s trying to do it all. And she is. But I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like had Dad not left. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember him to be honest. I think he stuck around for the first year or two of my life but took off after that. Mum thinks he was working as a promoter in Ibiza for a while, but we don’t really hear too much about him now. That was just hearsay from old mutual friends they once shared. But Mum doesn’t even hear from them now. I remember I used to call one of them Uncle Rob. He’d bring over Liquorice Allsorts for me, and the odd bunch of yellow daffodils for Mum that I’m pretty sure he stole from the neighbour’s garden. I think he was quite keen on Mum for a while. But I don’t remember him much after that. I guess he got bored and left us too. Everyone leaves eventually, right? Nothing’s really permanent.

  I don’t know too much about him, just a few details from things Mum has said, or things I’ve found. Once around my twelfth birthday I suddenly felt an urge to go up to the attic to see if I could find anything about my dad. I missed him more than usual that year. I always miss him on my birthdays, at Christmas, at Easter when Mum and I roll chocolate eggs down the hill at Kings Park and point out all the five-bedroom houses on Park Place that we’d live in if we won the lottery.

  But I missed him more that year. I think because I started my period right before my twelfth birthday and suddenly I felt like I was a woman and that Dad had now officially missed my entire childhood. And I started to panic that he’d miss my adulthood as well, that he’d miss more of my growing up, especially at a time when I needed him the most. I was changing, and everything around me was too. I wasn’t a child anymore, but I wasn’t an adult quite yet either. A bit like now, I guess. I still don’t know what to do with my life, and no one can give me those answers but my mum and dad, right? They can at least steer me in the right direction, maybe? I needed my dad more than ever that birthday. And he’s gone. Still.

  So I dragged the ladder up against the hatch, and climbed up. The door was stiff, probably hadn’t been opened for a while, and when it opened inwards it swung back and hit the floor. Mum wasn’t home yet from work, so I didn’t worry about waking her up. When I climbed up, I had to push through a cobweb and watch a spindly amber-hued spider scurry away, forced to rehome.

  The boxes were in no clear order with the most recent at the front, the older years packed tightly at the back. No, nothing like that. Not here at 57 Huntley Road. Some of the boxes weren’t even sealed properly, or upright. My pyjama bottoms were covered in dust and attic dirt before I’d even sat down. I started going through the boxes, one at a time. Slowly at first, then faster. Every time I finished one, more appeared, multiplying faster than bacteria in a warm environment. I learned that in home economics during a food safety lesson two years ago. I liked home economics, although it sounds weird when I think about it – the economics of the home.

  Box after box, and nothing.
Until I hit the last six boxes and there it was. A large padded envelope filled with photos, letters, even a mix CD. His entire life – with us anyway – fit into one A4 envelope. I wonder if his new life – without us – would still fit, or if it would need more boxes than this entire attic. Did his life flourish without us? Were we dragging him down?

  There weren’t many photos and in a couple, his face had been scraped out by a sharp utensil, likely by Mum in the weeks after he’d left. I’d do the same. But at least I saw his face in some. It wasn’t always clear – his head was turned away in some, others he was laughing and his face was all scrunched up. But I could tell that he’d had a beard back then, that he liked grey and navy clothes, that his hair was cut short, and that I had his smile.

  I still have the mix CD. I haven’t played it yet. I’ve hidden it in my bra drawer for five years now and still haven’t brought myself to listen to it. I know it’ll just be music. Songs that he liked, bands he listened to in the car. But I’m scared. What if there are some songs that I like? Bands that I also listen to? I want to be like him but I’m also terrified that I am like him. What if I’m like him in other ways too? What if not only do we have the same smile, the same taste in music, but the same fear of the future, of change? What if I start a family someday and then decide to abandon it, like him? What if I’m the one that changes, or worse, the one that can’t change?

  I missed him a lot that day.

  I still miss him, even now after all these years.

  It’s weird to miss someone you don’t remember, right?

  How can you miss someone whose voice you’ve never heard, whose face you’ve never touched? How can you miss someone that you know nothing about? Does he like football? Does he still have a beard or does he prefer to shave every morning? Does he have an allergy to peanuts or shellfish or anything like that? What’s his favourite colour? What does he do all day with his time? Is he married again? Hopefully not, because I think legally he’s still married to Mum and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime to get married twice.

  Did he have more children? Do I have a half-brother or half-sister somewhere out there?

  Does he think about me? At one point, did he ever want to have a relationship with me?

  We could have written each other, sent postcards, talked on the phone, FaceTimed. Maybe if he was rich he could have flown me to Ibiza and I’d tell everyone at school that my dad works in the clubs in Ibiza and can get me in for free.

  But I don’t live in that fantasy. In reality, I have no idea where my dad is and no idea what he even looks like now.

  No, I don’t have the perfect life. Far from it.

  SOPHIA

  I stare at the reflection in the full-length mirror on my wardrobe wondering what exactly Steve would change about me if he could. I know if I asked him, he would say nothing. He would say I’m perfect as is. But I don’t believe that. No one’s perfect, certainly not me. I would change a hundred things about myself. But I would love to know what he would change. I just wish he’d be honest if I asked him. Would it be my nose? My finger grazes the bridge, feeling a slight bump. I would change my nose. Shave off the bone. Smooth it out. No curve. No bump. Would it be my chin? My dad always says the slight dimple in the centre was ‘cute’. But I don’t want to be ‘cute’. I’m sick of ‘cute’.

  I wish my eyes were bigger. Boys like big wide eyes on girls, lined with fluffy thick eyelashes slick with black mascara, rimmed with soft dark eyeliner. But there’s nothing I can do about that. I can line them with as much mascara, eye pencil, shimmery shadow as possible, but there’s no surgery to make eyes bigger. Or at least I don’t think there is?

  I turn to the side and take in my profile next. OK, my tummy is finally getting flatter. I’ve been cutting out starches, so no bread, pasta and rice. And definitely no to any sweets and crisps. I already feel so much better with myself. Even Ulana commented that I was looking thinner.

  A ripped patchwork of magazine cutouts line the rectangular mirror. The ones I most aspire to look like are taped up at my eye level so I notice them more. The bottom is reserved for more fashion-based inspiration, or hair and make-up ideas.

  I’d never thought about my body much at all before I met him. Everything was so much easier back then. I wouldn’t do anything to change my relationship with him, to ever risk it, but I miss the innocence of that time, that confidence I had in myself because I didn’t know about expectations and pressure. I didn’t know there was one body we all had to have. No room for difference. We live in a factory where we’re all built to look the same, be the same weight. And if the mould skips us, then it’s our job to create it.

  The perfect female body.

  No excuses. We can all attain it. Anything else is just laziness. And I’m not lazy.

  My eyes wander over to the shopping bags on the bed. Thin strips of lace and ribbon folded neatly in tight tissue paper secured with pink heart seals that I would have to split to open them. It was so nerve-wracking going into Boux Avenue after school today. I was terrified one of my mum’s friends would be walking by, or worse, that someone from school would see me. Everyone would know why I was in there. I have a boyfriend, I’m seventeen, and I’m in a lingerie shop. Hmm, who wouldn’t be able to guess the explosion of thoughts thrashing around in my mind right now?

  I didn’t know what size to get and I was too embarrassed to ask the shop assistant to measure me so I got a few different sizes and I’ll just have to face going back in there to exchange them.

  I try on the black Brazilian panty first, slipping my ankles through the very small leg gaps. Then I slide it up my legs and stand in front of the mirror. I longingly gaze at the soft cotton briefs on the bedroom floor that my mum bought me and sigh deeply. I guess those days of comfort are gone.

  Next is the red chemise. But there are so many ribbons and straps, my limbs get tangled up. Arms flailing overhead, I try to pull the lace fabric over my head to start again, but the elasticated ribbon is looped around under my arm and over my neck and it’s too tight. I feel like it’s slicing into my skin.

  I thrash about for a few seconds until I hear the front door bang.

  My body is frozen in front of the mirror, right arm twisted up and back, left wrist caught in a ribbon. I just need to move my arm this way and—

  ‘Sophia?’ calls my mum from the bottom of the stairs.

  No. Please no.

  She’s going to come up. She’s going to find me like this. Then she’ll know. And she’ll try and stop me. She’ll tell me I’m too young, too impressionable, that I should wait until I’m least forty years old and married to a respectable man. Probably a banker. Or an accountant.

  ‘Sophia?’

  It’s worse if I don’t answer her because then she might rush up the stairs and find me sooner.

  ‘Hi Mum!’ Too cheery. She’ll pick up on that. I clear my throat and deepen my voice. ‘I’m just changing from school. PE was really sweaty. I’ll be downstairs soon.’

  But she doesn’t go away. I hear her footsteps on the stairs. Coming closer. One step at a time. And she’s rabbiting on about a sale on coleslaw at Sainsbury’s.

  I rush over to the bed and with my free elbow drag the Boux Avenue purchases off onto the floor. Then I frantically kick them under the bed. The door starts to open so I run and slam my body against the wall behind the door. I stick my foot out and catch the door.

  ‘Mum! I told you I was dressing. I’m completely naked!’

  ‘Oh sorry, honey. I just wasn’t sure if you could hear me—’

  ‘Coleslaw. Sale. Yes, I heard you.’

  This ribbon is cutting off my circulation. My body is tingling with pins and needles. I may have to cut myself out of this one and just suffer the thirty-pound cost.

  ‘Do you want tea?’

  Yes, give her a task to do. Downstairs. In the kitchen. At the other end of the house. Away from here.

  ‘Yes, I would love tea! I’m so desperate for a cup of tea, M
um.’

  She turns and starts down the stairs.

  Thank. God.

  I kick the door shut behind her and stagger over to the mirror. Twisting my elbow up, I yank it out from under the elasticated strap, likely dragging some skin with me, and then start on the ribbon that’s slowly but certainly suffocating me.

  When I’m finished, I stare at the red lacy near-death experience on my bedroom rug. Nodding confidently, I fold it up as neatly as possible and slide it back into the shopping bag, tag a little crushed but thankfully still attached. I’m all done with that one. No thanks.

  I have time for one last try-on so I choose the one-piece body suit. Blue, like the colour of an early mid-morning sky. It slides on like a swimsuit, much easier than the lace contraption, and hugs close to my hips. While I stand in front of the mirror, deciding whether it’s hugging a little close, my phone beeps from the bed. I know it’s Steve because I set up his ringtone and text alerts to play ‘Love’ by Lana del Ray when it beeps.

  I rush over and plop down on the bed. Huddling the phone close to my chest, to my heart, I open his text and immediately feel a big smile stretch tight across my face.

  What are you up to?

  Fingers trembling slightly, I curse auto-correct as my text comes out jumbled.

  Noting much. Juice trying on sun clothes from Box Avenue :)

  Stupid auto-correct! Now I sound like I’m drunk.

  Sorry. Auto-correct! I’m just trying on something from Boux Avenue…

  After what feels like a solid two minutes, he finally writes back.

  Really?

  Yep!

  For me?

  Maybe.

  Can I see?

  My mum is downstairs, so no! :)

  Send me a photo?

  I tip my head back so it lands softly on the pillow under me. A photo? A weird feeling settles into the bottom of stomach. I feel strange sending a photo of me like this out there into what…the ‘Cloud’? Or is it called the ‘iCloud’? Is that where it goes? And then what? I hear about hackers all the time who steal intimate photos of celebrities then post them on the internet. But I’m not a celebrity. And this is Steve. He’ll make sure it’s kept safe.