Читать книгу We Are Not Okay - Natália Gomes - Страница 16

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?