The Hidden Diary of Ophelia Ridley

1

25 May 1988

Dear Diary,

It's been a while.

I know I haven't written in about a year or so, but I've promised myself I will write regularly, this the summer before my eighteenth birthday.

I've just been flipping through you, diary, and some of the entries make me laugh at how young and naive I was. I was only eight when this journal was given to me by my mother, in a (failed) attempt to make me more ladylike.

I remember that birthday vividly, mainly because Daniel broke his arm jumping off of the stables roof and he ran crying to his mum.

I loved to pick on him. We used to be good friends.

My eighth birthday was also the day I recieved you. You were my only present that year and I was upset that you weren't the new football I had been hinting at.

I think mum knew I wasn't pleased because she pursed her lips, the way she does, and said that it was high time I started "acting like a lady" and "knock off" with my "tomboy antics."

I tried writing in you for a few weeks, nothing exciting, mostly what I had eaten or done that day, but it was really spoiled for me when I caught mum in my loft reading you.

I don't know what she was looking for, though. The most exciting thing in there was a list of countries I could remember off the top of my head. I don't know how I could have forgotten about Russia.

After that I was so upset with her, I only wrote on certain occasions and I pulled up a loose floorboard to hide you in.

The last time I wrote in you was last Easter after dad got drunk and chucked all of the colored eggs into the lake. Before that, the entry was from boxing day when I was ten.

But it will be different this time, me writing in you.

Because, you see, this will be my last summer at Norwood.

I've decided that when I am eighteen, I will leave. I'm not sure where I will go, but I can't stand it here.

Mum is always on me about being proper, Dad practically ignores me, and Daniel...well Daniel is complicated.

I try not to talk to him. I try not to look at him. But he's always around and it's frustrating the way he looks at me now.

I need out of this dead end town.

So these few months will be full of planning and writing and, just like always, mundane suffering.

I'm going to leave.

You're the only one I can trust.

Are you ready, diary?

I sure am.

~Ophelia ♡