Three Sides Of A Secret

My Entry! :)

Sydney Writers Festival

Blood rushed to my head as I pushed out of my chair; the pile of school books on my desk swayed and I groaned. ‘Mac? You OK,’ my mother called from the bathroom.

I blinked hard and took a deep breath. ‘Yeah,’ I said, my voice loud enough to carry. I waited until the rocking sea inside my head stilled before I moved again.

‘You were up late studying.’

The sudden proximity of her voice startled me. I spun round to find her at my bedroom door.

‘Don’t sneak up on me like that,’ I said.

‘You’ve got black rings under your eyes. You must stop...’

‘I wasn’t up late,’ I insisted. ‘Just... weird dreams.’

But how to explain? In every dream a mirror – that I couldn’t find myself reflected in. I put my fingers to my brow to smooth out the deep crease I felt there.

‘What’s that,’ I heard Mum ask.

I peeked from beneath my hands. ‘Pardon?’

‘That’s a beautiful ring.’

My breath caught in my throat; the sea in my head began to toss again as I lowered my hands and turned them palm down. On the middle finger of my left hand was an engraved silver band with a purple stone set in the centre.

‘Mac,’ my mother’s voice was far away but insistent, ‘where did you get the ring?’

 

 Three Sides Of A Secret- By Lucy Lennox

 Oh no. I’d forgotten to take it off.

 “I..I bought it. The other day, when I was out with Alana,” I heard myself say quickly, yet questionably. I held it up and it sparkled brightly from the light. “Do you, uh…like it?”

My mother walked over to me, the ring’s sparkle reflecting in her eyes. She looked as if she remembered it, which of course, she did. My father wouldn’t have given me just any old ring.

For a moment I could see her lost in thought, just staring. Only when she started to reach out to touch it did she seem to come back to me.

“I-its, uh, lovely…gorgeous, Mac,” she stuttered, dragging her eyes to meet mine. “It suits you.” She managed a quick if small smile, and hurried out of the room.

I sighed and pulled my tingling legs from my desk chair, walking heavily over to my bed. A thick expression of regret settled onto my face. It felt terrible lying to her like that. She deserved to know the truth, if anyone. I mean, the secret was about her own ex-husband, the one that had walked out on us without any warning. The one that said he’d be there for her during her teenage pregnancy, only to break that promise a week after I was born. The one that left the note that had only read ‘Sorry. I just can’t.’ and then vanished without a trace. The same gutless, pathetic human being that I’d met no less than two months ago.

The note had been in my locker at school. A scraggly, handwritten letter of which I’d noticed the writing before I even began to read it. I could tell it was him. I’d studied that short sentence for hours at a time once I learnt how to read. I could spot his handwriting from a mile off.