I am twenty years old. I am no longer a teenager, but twenty seems so interstitial. Twenty-one seems to be the gateway to adulthood. I don’t feel like an adult, by any means.
I stand in the bathroom, after my shower. I look at myself in the mirror. Slim. Short. Not exactly ripped, but there’s a bit of muscle there. There’s a small patch of hair in the very middle of my chest. Hardly worth mentioning. Hardly worth noticing. My shoulders are a fair bit wider than my waist. I guess it’s uncommon these days, but I’ve been told it was the ideal man shape, once upon a time. In some kind of romantic, black and white age, where everyone could smoke and not get cancer, and loneliness was exclusive to those who favoured gin, and short, breathy sentences, spoken through gritted teeth.

I’m running my hands down my chest, over the scars I see so prominently, but would probably go unnoticed. It makes me think about the little marks over my hands, arms, fingers, and dotted around the rest of my body. Then there’s always the ones no-one can see on your body, but show in your words, actions, and interactions. Sometimes I think they’re invisible, but, in all probability, they’re probably the most obvious.

I brush my teeth, and put something in my hair to keep it out of my face. It’s pretty pointless, the wind and snow outside will make short work of anything I try and do with it. I walk downstairs, grab my book, grab my mp3 player, grab my headphones. Lock the front door. Walk to the station.

I spend the next two hours on the train, down to Bexhill. Bexhill, to me, has always been a place where people and things get old, but time doesn’t pass. The same could be said for most of my experience of sussex, but then, I only know the decaying piers and ancient amusement arcades. I’ve been told Brighton is the place to be, but I’ve only been there once, on a school trip. I might not have even been a teenager.