We Are Not Okay. Natália Gomes

expression. Lucy McNeil watches him pass then flicks her hair in that Lucy way, before turning back to her friends, her posse. Those who I’ll never sit with, never talk to at a party, never text with. But that’s OK. Because I have Steve and that’s all that matters to me now.

      Ulana takes a big gulp of her water bottle and watches him walk away, eyeing his every step. She quickly puts the bottle down, turning into me again. ‘Just make sure you’re not getting pressured into anything, OK? It’s your body. Your choice. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you can’t say no.’

      I fiddle with the stem of my apple core, pushing it back and forth until it eventually snaps and breaks free from the fruit. ‘I know,’ I shrug, tossing it into the empty tray. I momentarily shake the idea from my mind, then commence a conversation on tonight’s biology assignment.

      But by the time I get home from school, I’m still thinking about it.

      IT.

      And before I’ve even changed out of my uniform for the evening, I’m upstairs, on my bed, at my laptop. Fingers quickly tapping at the black keys, and suddenly perfectly thin models with big bouncy hair and pouty lips stare back at me, all swathed in lace, chiffon and silk. My temples start to throb as dilemmas between ‘Brazilians’ and ‘cheekies’ and ‘babydolls’ and ‘chemises’ fill and overload my brain. Padded or push-up? Plunge or demi? And what’s a ‘merrywidow’? It sounds like a character from a Marvel movie.

      The bedroom swings open and my mum stands in the doorway, cleaning her hands with a mint-green tea towel. ‘I didn’t even hear you come in. Why didn’t you say hi?’

      ‘I thought you were at Aunt Bridget’s this afternoon?’ My swallow burns my throat.

      ‘I was but I wanted to get a start on dinner. Your dad’s finishing work early today. Quiet day at the office, I guess. I’m making a roast tonight. That OK?’

      ‘But it’s not Sunday?’ We like to stick to traditions in our family, although the images in front of me are far from traditional. Is that a thong-filled Christmas tree bauble?

      ‘Your father and I are going to the golf club this Sunday with his work friends.’

      There was a time when Mum and Dad used to go there with Lucy’s parents. It’s funny that our parents were friends but we never were. Not even something like that brought us together. We were completely different people. Always will be. I bet she’d know what a ‘merrywidow’ is. She probably has one in black. Or maybe in red.

      ‘Not going with the McNeils?’

      ‘Oh no. We haven’t seen them in a while. I think it’s been about a year.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘I did reach out a few times to invite them, but Julia never got back to me. I don’t even see her in town much anymore.’

      ‘Oh, weird.’ My fingers slowly reach for the laptop screen and I start to lower it half an inch at a time.

      She stands at the door, still rubbing her hands. How can they not be dry by now?

      ‘What are you up to, honey?’

      A crisp silence hangs heavy in the hair. My palms start to get clammy. I feel like I might throw up on my MacBook at any second. ‘Hmm?’

      ‘Honey?’ she asks again, her eyes burning through to the back of my skull.

      I can’t lie. I never could. I tried once or twice, but it was like she knew, like she could smell the deceit and dishonesty on my skin like cheap perfume.

      ‘Um…a biology project,’ I croak out, my voice a little too high at the end.

      ‘What on?’

      Oh. She wants details.

       Think of something.

       Think of something.

      ‘Human anatomy,’ I finally say, nodding my head.

      ‘Oh, well I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I never did know much about the human body.’ Then she turns and leaves, closing the bedroom door tight behind her.

LUCY

      I remember the day my dad left.

      Branches creaking, slight bounce in the back door that hadn’t been closed properly, it was a windy day. It howled and moaned, and dragged through our town like a rake in weeds, surfacing the weak roots in the soil. That was us that day. A weak root.

      I hadn’t always thought that. I’d thought we were a strong unit. That the three of us were a family, unbreakable to the core. We’d been happy. We watched films in the evenings during the week when I wasn’t allowed to go out with my friends or Rhys. The weekends were mostly our own. Mum and Dad went to the golf club with the Greers, while I went to the cinema with Rhys or occasionally drank cheap white wine from a cardboard box and gossiped with Lily, Cara and Mollie about the hideous outfits people wore to high-school parties. Short skirts, tied-up tops, low-cut necklines, bright-coloured tights, sequins that sparkled a little too much, fake leather skirts that were more fake than leather. But during the week, where homework, early bedtimes and nutritionally dense dinners took precedence, my time was our time. Family time. We always ate at the dinner table – TV off, phones on silent. We talked about our day, our weekend plans, things that were bugging us. I talked and they listened. Now I talk and no one hears me. Mum’s in a place that I can’t reach, and never will, and Dad’s ‘busy’. He says that a lot now. ‘Sorry, Luce. I’ve just been busy at work…Sorry, Luce, I can’t this weekend. We’re just so busy with the baby…’ Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Everyone is just so sorry, but nothing changes. Not even my memory of that night changes. I replay it sometimes. It makes me stronger.

      I think.

      My parents had been up all night – talking, arguing, crying. I don’t know. I wasn’t there in their bedroom. But I heard them. They never made me a part of the discussion or even considered me when making a decision. My dad had been late from work the evening before and his dinner had sat cold on the kitchen table for almost two hours before he walked in, navy coat strewn over his arm. They’d bickered about why he was always late from work, and my mum walked out of the living room. The bedroom door slammed upstairs and my dad had plopped down on the sofa beside me. I’d been texting Rhys so my phone had been in my hand. I remember that because after my dad said what he did, I’d dropped the phone and it’d hit my foot.

      He’d wrapped his arm around me, his fingers lightly resting on my upper arm. His voice was different, gravelly like he had a cold. He asked me how my day at school had been, and I told him about our social studies assignment and how I’d practised for the dance society’s next performance at the arts centre on the high street, which of course I’d got the lead for. But when I asked him how his day had been, his face turned pale and he looked like he was going to cry. He didn’t respond to my question, instead he coughed gently and turned his gaze to the yellow shaggy rug that I often lay my belly on while I finished my homework for the evening. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t do a lot of things that I used to.

      He didn’t look at me once while he said nine simple words. ‘Everything is about to change. Please don’t be scared.’

      Change.

      I didn’t want anything to change. Why did it need to? We were doing just fine how we were. But it was no longer about us. There was suddenly someone new in this family. Another voice, one that hid from us in the shadows and slowly poisoned my dad’s thoughts. One day there were three of us. Then the next, there were four. And soon, just two remained. The two left behind. The unwanted two.

      That’s why I hate Trina so much. Not because of what she wears, how she acts, what she says. But because all of a sudden she was just there. She became my Amber. And when Rhys ended it with me, saying we’d ‘grown apart’, all I thought about was how my