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Cover Up
Catherine Andronis
Isobelle Carmody Award
For Creative Writing
Winner
Alex was by far the most popular girl at her school. She had it all;
beauty, brains and the ability to dance and not look like an awkward
chicken. All the girls treated her like a God and all the boys were
deeply in love with her. You’d think that she would be happy, but she
was anything but.
Alex lived a life that wasn’t hers. She was a fake and lost hours of
sleep afraid someone would find her out. Alex wasn’t who anyone
thought she was.
‘
Her mother had bought her a dull rose coloured winter coat a few
months ago that she loved at the time. Her mother had spent a
handsome sum of money on the coat to ensure that Alex would wear
it all winter. At the time Alex knew she would wear that coat until it
was splotched with stains and falling apart, but as she grew, Alex
came to hate everything about the coat. It hugged her figure so that
you could clearly see her hips and curves. It made Alex feel like a girl,
which she no longer wanted to be. Though she hated the coat, she
kept wearing it as she loved her mother and would never want to
disappoint her. This was why she was scared to tell her mother she
was actually a boy. Her mother would never accept her, so Alex kept
quiet and continued to live a lie.
‘
It was her last few weeks of high school and Alex felt like she was
drowning in the sea of lies she’d created for herself. She had grown
into this personality that wasn’t hers. Alex wanted so desperately to
be a boy, but she had become this incredibly popular, beautiful girl.
Would she be treated the same once she became a boy? Surely not.
Her friends would think of her as a freak. If Alex were to become a
boy she’d miss the comfortable life she had built for herself. But, the
Alex her friends knew her as was simply a character she had created.
Alex was the girl with the supposedly beautiful life harbouring a
deep, dark secret.
Alex became increasingly unhappy each time she put on the
abhorrent pink, winter coat. For it meant another day pretending
to be who she wasn’t. It was only a matter of time before she broke,
before she snapped in two and let out her secret. And that she did.
It was on April sixth that Alex finally broke. She was home by
herself. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror repulsed her, so
much so that she started smashing bottles of floral scented perfume;