We Are Not Okay. Natália Gomes

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      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?

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