I jump off my skateboard in the front garden and kick it to my hand, a simple move but I nearly fumble it. Either I'm still that high or I've got frostbite.

Cramming my earbuds into my pocket, I dig out my keys. Ease down the handle as slowly as possible and open the door without a sound. Once in the entrance, toe my Vans off and sink toward to staircase.

'Where've ya been?'

Fuck.

I drop my skateboard and backpack at my feet with a ruckus of paint cans. He's awake anyways.

'It's almost four in the morning.'

Nicolás strides from the kitchen and his morphs into a different one on each step. Watery and roughly sketched. Echoes of what I can remember from our parents, maybe.

His parents. They were his parents for seven years before they were mine.

It's your fault.

'Why haven't you answered your phone?'

My brain is still working on 0.25 speed and before I can answer, he grabs my right wrist, not tight, but firm enough to twist my hand and get a clear view of my fingers. He finds them tainted black.

'You've been painting? Cece, you–' He cuts himself off as his eyes find mine. They narrow in the dim light. 'Are you high?'

A laugh rolls against the roof of my mouth though I'm not sure what I find funny.

'Just a little, innit.' Without specifying which accusation I'm responding to, I tug myself free and step around him.

He climbs up the stairs at my heels. What must be a well-rehearsed lecture is lost on the other side of the bubble around my head. I catch only fragments and those fragments slip right through the broken sieve that is my brain at the moment.

'You can't be out in the middle of the night, get high, and vandalise private property. What if the police saw?'

'Don't be a Tory. Who gives a fuck what the dibble think?'

'I care. It's not a joke. Not for–'

I slam the toilet door before he can finish. Nicolás stumbles and curses; it must've hit his face. Defying the sting in my gut, I twist the lock.

The click snaps his temper.

'Oi! I'm talking to you!' He kicks the door. Not violent enough to attempt to break it, more a nonverbal "fuck you"—not that he's shy to repeat it verbally.

'Open the fucking door, Cece. You can't run away every time we try to have a conversation. And you can't stay out this late. You've got college in four hours.'

My eyes slit though he can't see them. 'I just got expelled.'

'No, you didn't. And you're not going to. What you're gonna do is go to school on time, and pick an extracurricular.' His voice is so drenched with derision that it seeps into the toilet through the crack under the door. 'And if someone mithers ya, you're gonna grow up and not break their nose.'

I glare at the wood, chest heaving. Each breath fans the flames behind my sternum. My high is quickly waning.

'I'm tryna help you stay home. But if you'd rather move to the other side of the country, be my guest. Go to that home O'Dorcey recommended.'

O'Dorcey's my social worker, and, like all adults, loathes me.

'That group hope for troubled teens—Oak Shaw, or what have you. You know what? I give up. If you get expelled, he can move you there.'

I rip the door open. Unprepared, Nicolás staggers back.

'I'd rather die than live in fucking Somerset.'

He recovers balance quickly and twists his face into mockery. 'So don't get expelled.'

I slam the door again.

Flames licking my neck, I dig out my phone and attempt to untangle my earphones from it but my fingers have gone numb and static claws at my palms. The wire winds itself into more knots the harder I try to undo it.

Nicolás sighs, anger dissipated to leave nowt but fatigue behind. He drops his forehead against the door. 'What do you want me to do, Cece? I'll do whatever you want me to. Just tell me. But I can't do this anymore.'

I freeze. A hollow skeleton has no chance of survival against a blade so sharp. It tears my ribcage open, bones me like a fish.

I stare at the handle, begging it to unlock itself, for the door to creak open of its own accord and for Nicolás to find an apology from where it's hooked behind my bellybutton, to recognise it without me needing to say a word.

The door don't budge and before I can hack my body from the cement it's encased in to open it myself, Nicolás retreats. His shuffling footsteps fade to his bedroom.

In the dark toilet, I tremble, throat cinched too tight to breathe.

Red flash. I slam my phone to the floor.

Two seconds later, when the flames shrink and smoke fades, I rush to pick it up. Thankfully, the bathroom rug cushioned the impact and the screen is no more shattered than it already were.

Panic fades. Knees weak, I slump against the radiator. The warmth does nowt to melt the ice in my ligaments.

It's not even my phone. I broke my own at the skate park in July and Nicolás, having recently bought himself a new one, gave me his old Huawei. The screen was cracked a week later. Me breaking it entirely in a fit of rage would be the fatal crack in his charity. He's had enough of me.

He's had enough of me.

Toilets have functioned as sanctuaries since I moved to Brookes Boys' Home in 2012. Toilets are usually the only rooms in a house with a lock. Still, you'd think after so many times, I'd learn a lock don't make a room soundproof. Even when it protects from physical blows, a lock never stopped anyone from breaking my bones.

He doesn't want me.

The scars on my thighs burn with the urge to multiply but the last thing Nicolás needs is for me to get blood all over the place again.

He doesn't want me.

Nobody is coming back for me.

Three things you'll never have: home, sanity, safety.

I drop my head against my knees. I'm tired. I'm so tired of being angry all the time.

But dread, which is my only other option, is terrifying. Unlike anger, it don't mind waiting its turn. Worse: it's inflammable. I can't destroy it. Unlike fear, I can't melt it away with flame. Distraction is the next best thing. If I need to burn everything around me to avoid what swarms inside, so be it.

Nicolás can't deal with it anymore? Well, neither can I.

Energised by the maggots in my stomach, by the tar that replaces blood in my arteries, I climb to my feet and find my reflection. In the dark, my black eyes glint like dead tadpoles in a bucket.

Faded eyeliner smears my cheeks. It's smudged further by the tears that slip past my lashes only to freeze and drop like hail into the rug. They build icicles at the corners of my mouth—mock canines. Do you think you're tough? Beewolf's hisses past its prison bars.

There's a coffee mug beside the block soap. A single calathea cutting rests in it. Nicolás will have stolen it from his work reception or the bank waiting room.

Too poor to buy them and unwilling to "monetarily support the houseplant market considering how unsustainable it is", he's been doing this for years. Twists a leaf off a flora when no one is looking and propagates it at home. Free, harmless, and one plant closer to his dream of transforming his bedroom into a greenhouse.

Would it have been so tough to text him? Tell him I'd be home later so he wouldn't need to stay up worrying?

But you like hurting him.

You do it on purpose.

We both know that.

Peeling my gaze from the calathea clipping, I undo the damp braids at the sides of my mohawk. Once untangled, I gather the limp coils into a bun and scrub my face clean, brush my teeth, and attempt to clear the remnants of weed-induced cotton from my tongue.

I unlock my phone as I brush my teeth a second time. Clearly, I'm not the only Isaac Evans pupil awake at four in the morning. My Tumblr post already has eighty-four likes and a dozen comments. I scroll through them without properly reading any; as the high dissipates, fatigue takes over and my eyes are too lazy to focus.

Without conscious awareness of what I'm doing, I switch to Google and type in Oak Shaw. Nowt relevant comes up. I specify to "oak shaw foster home somerset" and their website pops up.

It takes a moment to load. The front page is dominated by a group photo of various teenagers and several dogs. I scroll past it to the introductory text.

Oak Shaw Group Home for Teens provides a therapeutic environment for youths who struggle with anti-social behaviour. What separates us from other facilities around the country is our combined effort as a canine rehabilitation centre where we train stray dogs and pets with aggression issues until they're ready to be adopted into forever homes. Whether struggling with substance abuse, self-harm, or violence, teens get to work alongside animals in making emotional and behavioural change.

Rolling my eyes, I drop my phone onto the edge of the basin. All I can think is fucking hell.

The foster system has already moved me to Wigan for three months and those were the worst three months of my life. I have zero intention of living with a bunch of hippies on some farm and talking about my feelings.

Not gonna happen.

Notes

Tory: Member or supporter of the Conservative Party.

Dibble: Police.

Mither: Annoy, trouble.