by Grace Dugdale

This short story won first prize in the Society’s Geography Writing Competition, 19 years and under category.

Marley loves the 31st of December. It's her favourite because that night when she goes to bed, she’ll be reborn. By morning she’ll be a clean slate, a blank canvas. Everything that happened before will just be before, and everything that happens next will be fresh and fabulous, and everything she’s ever wanted.

Marley also loves starting a new year because it means she can spend lots of money on a vacation, completely guilt-free. Why? Because it’s necessary. An essential investment towards becoming her new self; because, to Marley, the ideal version of herself is out experiencing the world, bikini-clad, sprawled out on the sand, not having to care about anyone but herself.

Marley steps out of her blissfully air-conditioned Ford Ranger and into the heat. Feeling as though she’s defrosting in a scenic, sandy microwave, she makes her way through the car park that's chock-a-block with 4WDs. She finds herself at the start of a trail. Avoiding the clusters of string grass and vines weaving across the ground, she walks through the bush, listening as it hums and chirps. The path opens to a wooden staircase that overlooks the lake. Marley pauses to catch her breath, even a short distance does that to her now.

The lake resembles one half of a cracked-open blue geode. The powder-white sand extends a few metres from shore before the clear water disappears into a dark nothingness. Marley notices the families, your picture-perfect ‘front page of BCF’ bunch. Red-faced mums blow up arm floaties and detangle goggles from wet matted hair. Dads pitch shade tents and piggyback their sticky-faced kids who drip melt Paddle Pops down their backs. As she makes her way to the water, she can't help but feel watched, judged. She would kill for a cocktail right now.

Marley used to love to drink, and dance, and drink while dancing even. She missed feeling like eyes could be on her for the right reasons, because she was sexy, and she knew it. But it was more than that. She missed the feeling of living just for her and her alone.

Marley reaches the water and wades to where it turns black and cold. Looking back at the beach, she watches the mums still struggling to slather sunblock on their wriggly, wailing children. It makes her feel sick inside. Marley looks down at her big, round belly, covered with pink markings like the bark of the scribbly gum trees she’d driven past just today. Embracing herself, she’s submerged into the darkness. For a moment she imagines that she is being cleansed. She pretends that when she emerges, she’ll be back to herself from before and everything that happens next will be fun and fabulous, and everything she's ever wanted.