Free My Secret Life by Leanne Waters

and push this debutante feeling to its full potential.
    ‘Here,’ Adam says, taking my hand, ‘let’s go somewhere more private.’ When we finally kiss, it’s as if Stephen and the person I was with him, never existed. Beneath the uncertainty with which I walked in this evening, I must have been merely waiting for something to open a bolted door. Now open, I feel confident, attractive and what’s more, I feel sure of the person under my own skin. I don’t want to hide anymore and I can only hope this feeling lasts for ever.

    ***
    At a time when everything about me seemed to go missing, it was difficult for me to remember moments when I stood alone and fully formed in my own head. Before that night, I hid extremely well under the covering shield of a boyfriend. With the realisation that this protection was gone, I knew then that I had to find some other means of guarding myself. As it turned out, the next thing or person I would hide beneath would be my bulimia.
    I had lost a tremendous amount of weight, the figure I struggle to remember exactly. It was enough, however, for others to commence with their anticipated comments, some positive and some of less so. Being around people I hardly knew and had little regard for became the highlight of my declining social life. My closest friends, the people I had known and trusted for years and who knew me better than I cared to believe, became unbearable company. Their shrewd eyes were inescapable and insufferable. Our history together and all they knew of me became overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe around them anymore. In the dead heat of their knowledge, it was stifling and completely suffocating. For the time being, I was done with them and all they had to offer. Instead, I felt at ease amongst strangers. I was comforted by how little they cared for me, as it guaranteed my own freedom among them; I didn’t have to work as hard hiding the truth because with these people, the fabrication was enough and easily maintained. When I ventured as far as my local pub with friends, it wasn’t long before I would abandon them and find a less challenging clique.
    In this way, I eventually became defined by pretence, or at least I did in public. Self-definition was something I always strived for. I suppose I needed it. As a child, if I didn’t define myself under particular headings then I would have been nothing at all, or so it seemed. Whereas I once classed myself as an academic and a master of intellectual advancement, I now wore the mask of the perfect socialite. In public, my facade was affecting and almost flawless. How I spoke, behaved and carried myself became everything I was. It sounds like a rather hollow existence and if that was everything I embodied then of course it would have been. But my life, under my logic of the time, was extremely fulfilling. I told myself I had everything a person should have and more.
    The impeccable illusion experienced by others was only a facet of the person displaying it. Unlike the moronic primates I found in new companions, I possessed something more substantial. I felt superior to their insignificant cares because I just knew that they did not have the mental or even emotional capacity to understand me or even fully understand themselves. They lived a one-track life that was directed aimlessly under one mentality. I, on the other hand, functioned under a dual-ability to live as both the person she wanted me to be and the person they all wanted me to be. Therefore, I was safe in my belief that their superficiality could surely never contend with my own complexity. She convinced me of this and as such, made my one-woman show a triumphant success for a time.
    Her presence in my life and in my personal development made everything possible. Of course, I had no way of knowing who or what she was back then but I was moderately insightful enough to know that there was something different about me, even if I couldn’t put my finger on it. On a