Eggy Cup

It’s 1999, or thereabouts. I am lying on the sofa in my parents’ family home, eleven or twelve years old and already beginning to feel exhausted by everyday life. I’m not like other girls; not in the manic, pixie-dream, girl trope of the selfish Hollywood protagonist, but acutely aware of my difference without being able to give it a name. I get distracted, I talk too loudly. I finish my work quickly and then become disruptive, eager to be liked, to be laughed with or at – any form of valid