Adam's Apple Pie

Sixteen - What I Want To Be

For the first time in my life, I felt energized, as if waking up from the best sleep I'd ever had. I paced around my flat, like a nervous cat. Except there was not a single nerve in my entire body. My heart was racing, my body trying to burn off all the adrenaline that pumped through my veins – except the more I burned off, the more my body just produced. Every hair on my body was on end, and I just couldn't stop smiling, even though my cheeks were starting to ache.

My knuckles still felt sore, my fingers clicked and clacked as I flexed them up and down. I could still make a fist with them just about, but the pain didn't even register with me anymore. I just couldn't contain myself any longer, my throat expelled a loud, proud chortle. The chortle became a snigger, the snigger turned into full on laughter – like I was laughing at the funniest joke I'd ever heard in my life. And the laughter didn't stop, it carried on until it hurt to breathe and I couldn't let another sound out.

All my life I had been made to feel weak and pathetic; from my mother to my boss. All this time I avoided confrontation for fear of reprisal, for fear that I was too weak to fight back. All this time I just wanted to keep my head down and not get into any fights. I just wanted to get through one failure to the next. But when my fist struck Richard in his chest, it was like a ton of weights had been lifted from me. For the first time in my life, I could lift my head up with pride – like a warrior making his first kill.

"I... stood up for myself..."

My smile widened despite there being very little flesh left to expand, as if hearing those words were somehow unattainable for me. As if I were in a dream, a fantasy. But this was no dream. I was wide awake for the first time in my entire life. Now the words that Dr Eve had taught me rang true.

Embrace who you are – and not what the world wants you to be.

I understood it all now. All my life I had played by the rules; and what had that gotten me?

Well, I wasn't going to play by their rules anymore!

Next day at work, I had a spring in my step – so much so that even Lara looked surprised. During the day, I did the footfall count, passing by The Fall of Man and admiring it's superbness as I always did.

I bet he never gave up – neither would I

I passed by a couple. One of them in a beaney hat and a beard that really could have done with a trim and a wash – I could smell the soy lattes all the way over here. Next to him was a girl with purple hair, tons of piercings and some jean looking dungarees. They were standing by a painting that was a replica of that famous We can do it picture – the one showing the housewife flexing her muscles that's shared on Social Media because reasons.

"I don't think I've ever said this before, but this picture really does capture the strength of women and their fight against oppression that they are still going for."

I could tell by the way he was overblowing every word that he was only saying it to impress the girl. She nodded at his phrases like a toy dog, like she was pretending to sound interested.

"I really don't see how you women do it," the soyboy neckbeard said, looking at the woman. "What you have to go through everyday is appalling. But I just want to say, on behalf of all men, we appreciate everything that you do! You women are amazing!"

Let's face it, no man would compliment women this much unless they wanted something. And who the fuck was he to talk about the struggles women had to go through anyway? What did he really know? The most he had to struggle probably was whether to have caramel with his drink or not. Or how much he wanted to ask from mummy so that he wouldn't need to get a job.