Annoying Adam

The End

As soon as I walked in the door and put on the red, white, and black apron that Aunt Bee gave us as our uniform, Angel started to barrage me with questions in a passive-aggressive tone, making me feel (bizarrely) slightly worse for worrying her.

"Where were you? Why are you late? You're never late any more. What were you doing?" And finally, "Why do you look like you've been crying? You never cry."

I felt my eyes start to tear up. I brushed them angrily out of the corner of my eyes and started to make a cup of coffee from the slip of paper that was sitting on the counter next to the machine.

Angel gently took it from my hand and gestured to a chair.

"You sit and have a good cry. You look like you need it." Next she would be telling me to have some tea. Have a good cry...

I didn't want to cry. Crying makes you weak. You see, the nerds in school that get beat up by the jocks because the nerds cry. That's what the jocks like to see- the fact that they have power over the nerds. I didn't want to cry because I didn't want to be weak, just like the nerds. I didn't want to start the second chapter of my life by crying- that would be so lame.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Angel whispered soothingly, realizing what she had more or less started on accident. "Wait right here while I go give the customer his coffee and then I'll come back here and I'll talk to you, okay?"

She practically ran up to the counter and handed the man his coffee, waved him goodbye, and came back to talk to me, all within the minute. I sniffled a little, half-laughing at her antics. She was on point, as usual.

She looked me over carefully, as if judging what sort of mental state I was in and when I had broken through the emotional barrier that I had had up for the last few weeks. I sat there awkwardly, not really crying, but not exactly dry in the eyes either.

Then, she said exactly what I needed to hear.

"Honey, you are the only person that is ever going to be able to build yourself up, just like I'll be the only person to ever be able to build myself up. In order to build something better, you need to knock down the old stuff first, get rid of the visible flaws. Not that I need to- I'm practically flawless. How do you think computers evolved to what they are know? The big ones in the classrooms weren't good enough, so they moved on from there, using the old stuff for a reference. That's what people do, Stacy. They use the old to better the knew. And you are going to have to do the same thing. You need to move on from your old life. I know I haven't experienced what you went through and hope I won't ever have to. But I can still tell you to get over it, because I am your best friend. You aren't weak if you cry. The buff-est guy in the world probably cries, but he could still beat the h*ll out of whoever made fun of him for it. While you aren't exactly the buff-est guy in the world, hopefully you aren't even a guy or else we'd have to have a talk, the fact still stands: people cry. People cry all the time- that's just a part of being human. And not a sociopath.

"Everyone needs a good cry every once in a while. It lets out all the feelings that you have and if you don't cry, then all you're doing is making yourself into a time bomb. Tick, tick tick. All you need after that is the right circumstance to blow up and make an even bigger scene than if you had just done something to begin with like crying. So, in conclusion, for God's sake, just cry if you need to."

I looked up at Angel's face, which had a slightly scary look of mothering on it. I mean, Angel? As a mother? Oh lordy, please no. She would be a tiger mother. Scary, intimidating, and just a touch of loving. Aaand, I was distracting myself from my problems.

I let out a soft laugh directed towards both Angel and myself, then let the tears fall. I had held them in check for so long, it almost hurt to let them fall. I hated the feel of the salty water sliding down my cheeks, what I knew would make my eyes red and my nose run and my whole face puffy.