Acid +rap

One

I've always been a late bloomer.

At 17 I still look like a prepubescent boy, with the only things reminding me of how female I am being my lack of male anatomy, infrequent bouts of menstruation and a face that would look better on a 12-year-old girl.

I'm almost one year away from graduating, but I'm yet to prove my worth to my teachers and parents - so I could finally let them know that I not as mediocre as they thought.

There was still hope for me there, I think. I'm just starting to get the hang of surviving this zoo disguised as a high school with my self-esteem intact and who knows, maybe I might even make a friend.

However, these things are the least of my worries.

At 17, two years after my coming of age, I'm yet to discover my Enhancement.
This is way more embarrassing than being flat chested, I can assure you.

At first they had been sympathetic. Mother had snuck into my room unnoticed, her frilled skirts whooshing against my furniture noiselessly, bangles jingling every so lightly to alert me of her presence. She had to wear them all the time, or we'd never know when she was here.

She had cradled me softly, stroking my mass of russet-coloured kinks while pity etched itself onto her face.

"I'm so sorry Maeve," she cooed, barely audible above the sounds of my sobs.
"Sometimes Enhancements take longer to develop if you're more.....childish than usual."

I tried to find it comforting, but no fifteen-year-old girl wanted to be called childish, especially when that fifteen-year-old girl barely looked ten.

"But everyone else has one!" I moaned, covering my snotty, tear-stained face. "They'll think I'm a freak!"
"But you're not a freak!" she insisted kindly, though we both knew that I was. "You're just different, special even."
I loved it when she tried to lie to me just to make me feel better.
It didn't last, though.
Within the next year, Mother and Father had me shuttled from specialist to specialist, from street witches to priestesses. Nothing was wrong with me, but there was no sign of my Enhancement. I was 16 years old, with no X factor to set me apart from my peers, no means of letting people know that yes, I am in fact human.

Scientists had researched this phenomenon extensively for decades, and it was always found that as long as we had the gene that coded for our respective Enhancements (which was always present, always dominant, and transferred via our female parent), there was no way we could have been born without one.

I might as well have been born without limbs.

My parents took it upon themselves inform my teachers about my problem, for whatever reason. I guess they thought that they'd pay special attention to the runt in the room.
It worked - but only for a year.

They had all insisted that they understood me, and assured that I'd grow up and have the most splendid Enhancement of them all.
That didn't last either.
The gazes of my teachers had morphed from understanding, to pity, to disgust. It was bad enough that my classroom presence was nil and my grades were 'mediocre' compared to my more academic classmates, but now there was even more of a reason for teachers to sigh whenever they saw me. The most I got from them was a second glance.

The students didn't even pretend to care about my disorder, or about me in general, now that I think about it.

No matter. I convinced myself. It was easier that way.

Right now I'm in a dark corner of a bar four blocks from my house. Music blares around me, and the alcohol I've managed to pilfer from the counter (without the bartender's knowledge, of course) is sizzling its way down my throat.