The Cooper Chronicles- A Dysmorphia Novella

Model Material

Cooper Silverstone had always in a way weaponised her beauty.

It had been instilled in her from a young age that her looks were her ticket to almost anything. It was what people valued most about her and soon became her overarching personality trait, being pretty. She had been doing beauty pageants from the age of six, the competition hadn't really stood a chance with a girl so confident, arching her shoulders back and reciting poetry with the appearance of a tear in her eye that never quite dropped past those sooty eyelashes. She was an only child, her parents were rich and put all of their efforts into making their daughter into a star, because they thought it was what she was destined to be, it would have been a waste for those perfect genes to simply fade away in the small town of Phillipson, a place where people stopped over to fill their cars with gas before moving onto the next destination, not really of much interest at all.

With a simple flutter of her eyelashes and a sigh from the onlooking adults Cooper managed to make quite the name for herself, in fact to an onlooker, it really did seem like she had it all. Parents who worshipped the very ground she walked on, a promising modelling career if not something even greater and all the ease of a comfortable life. But sitting on her bedroom floor hearing the barely muted shouting from the room next door, Cooper didn't really feel lucky at all.

She surveyed the doll next to her, it had been a present from her Uncle Thomas that year, an almost perfect replica of her down to the blonde ringlets, she was ten now and expected to sit cross legged with the doll in her lap, smiling for the camera. She shuddered every time she looked at it, there was something about the glazed eyes and pink rosebud lips that made her want to unscrew the head and chuck it across the room. She didn't know much about other peoples parents, Cooper didn't have much actual friends, but she knew that most Mums didn't stay in bed until the afternoon, emerging either in a fit of rage with red eyes or with a delirious kind of smile and suggestions of repainting the entire house pink before Cooper's Father came home. And most Father's didn't cause all of the maids to leave through one way or the other, she hadn't quite figured it out yet, but knew she missed Rosita, she had managed to make the house seem a bit more normal.

Cooper leant back on the floor and looked up at her ceiling, playing her favourite game, the one where she had a friend, or maybe even a sister. Someone who didn't want her to pout at the camera and straighten her shoulders would've been nice, she could almost imagine a hand reaching out and grabbing hers, almost. She sighed, it would be another night of keeping quiet while her parents fought and either one of them drove away in one of the expensive cars parked up outside. Sometimes she entertained herself trying to guess which one of them it would be. Time seemed to not exist in these lonely nights in her room, so she jumped when there was a knock on her door.

It was her Father, he was a tall man with a good-looking face that commanded attention and if truth be told, she was always a little scared of him although he hadn't really done anything to deserve it, she was scared of what he made her Mother become.

"Hey Cooper sweetheart"

"Hey Daddy"

He looked around her room like he was surprised, he didn't really come in there.

"Just wanted to let you know I'm going on a trip, I won't be back for a little while and things might start to change around here. It's nothing to be scared of but you do need to know that the boarding school we thought you were going to... St. Mildrith's well that might not be the case anymore and this house, we've always said it's quite a big house, if you were a bit older you might understand but I'll still be your Dad, that doesn't change."

She could sense the seriousness of this moment, often they underestimated Cooper's intelligence. She felt a bit guilty that instead of feeling sad that he was saying that he was leaving, she was almost glad that there wouldn't be any fights in her house for a while. What confused her was the mention of school. Cooper had been looking forward to St.Mildrith's, she'd seen the glossy brochure and all the activities that went on there, and most importantly the girls who had all looked like they were having so much fun, laughing together.