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A truth the other girls in my year already understand. They know that beauty gives them importance, that it will stop them from being nothing. That’s why they watch tutorials on their tablets and work for hours on end learning how to do their hair, their make-up, learning how to make their skin nice and clean and shiny.
I always believed my beauty should come from within me—from my character and my mind and my soul. But I was wrong. My fellow students knew it. My mother knew it. Even Keats, sensitive and erudite as he was, knew it.
That year, I start paying attention to my reflection in the mirror. Not letting my gaze slide off the doll-like thing standing there, but actually paying attention to it, scrutinising it. Every day, I ask myself: is this thing beautiful, or will it pass into nothingness?
So I stop wearing my hair in braids and start curling the ends, tying it into the satin ribbons my mother bought. I clean my skin and begin to develop a skincare routine, and I wear make-up to enhance my features, which are too plain to be beautiful. I watch my body closely and measure my food portions carefully, declining sweets and desserts.
The next summer, when I arrive home, my mother stops at the foot of the stairs to watch me as I descend towards her.
“Oh, Theodora! You look so beautiful!”
Her eyes, the same blue as mine, are wide, her rose-pink mouth rounded. She’s being completely sincere. I know this because it would never occur to her to lie to me just to be nice. And because she’s never before called me beautiful.
That moment cements two things in my mind.
One, that my work is bearing fruit. Depriving myself of desserts and sweets, carefully watching the mirror every night for any sign of imperfection that must be eradicated, spending hours trying on my new make-up to find the perfect balance of looking beautiful without appearing like I’ve tried to make myself beautiful. Wearing the designer clothes and accessories, shaping my hair into waves with the curling iron.
All that time and effort was not wasted.
Two—and most important—that Keats was right.
I was becoming beautiful, and as a result, I was finally becoming worth something in the eyes of my mother.
Not quite worthy of love, yet. But, for the first time, worth something.
AndsoinYear9, everything becomes more difficult.
Being clever and being beautiful aren’t things that just happen. They both require an enormous amount of work.
Eating enough to have energy but not enough to gain weight.
Getting up early enough to wash, do my make-up, do my hair, but also staying up late to keep up with after-school clubs, homework and reading.
Being sociable enough to form friendships and make myself popular, but always being focused enough to impress all my teachers.
My hard work pays off, though. In Year 9, for the first time, I have friends. Not real friends, of course. Real friendships—the types of friendships I read about in books and poems—real friendships are deep, genuine connections. True friendships come with loyalty, companionship, connection.
But those are not Spearcrest friendships.
My Spearcrest friendships are with the prettiest, most popular girls: Seraphina Rosenthal, Camille Alawi, Kayana Kilburn and Giselle Frossard. They are friendships of convenience, much like the friendships I watched my mother curate all my life. We become the girls everyone talks about, girls every other girl in the year wants to sit with.
I’m very aware of the implications of popularity. Just like beauty and intelligence, it’s a double-edged sword. You gain a lot from it, but it’s something that must be maintained.
Now, I have to work hard to be beautiful, work hard to be clever and work hard to be popular.
So I sleep less and work more. There’s always more to be done. New ways of being popular, new books to read, more homework to do, more socialising.
There’s always more to do, and the more I do, the less I seem to become. The more I become this perfect imaginary doll I’m expected to be, the less Theodora there is.
I don’t have hobbies—I have extra-curricular activities and work and tasks.
I don’t have dreams—I just try to stay on top of everything.
I barely have time for the things I love, only the things I must do.
I don’t have anyone I talk to about anything real, even though I’m almost never alone.
I’m clever enough to understand this but not clever enough to know how to fix it.
