Nicolás opens the door the moment I turn into the front garden. 'You're home.'

Astounding observation. So now I don't even get the chance to get in the house before he starts fussing?

'Where've you been?'

'Out,' I say, because it's what I always say considering it's none of his business what I do and at least eighty percent of it's illegal. I wedge past him to get into the house. 'We were about with Diwa.'

'Oh... Okay... You weren't answering your phone so...'

I pause with one shoe kicked off and the other still on. Worry is a tremor in his voice, only a murmur of the earthquake locked in his chest. Real actual worry. For my well-being. It worms in my gut.

None of my recent guardians have worried about where I am—honestly, they prefer I stay out for as long as possible. I've run away from over ten homes and no one has bothered to call more than once. Even my social worker has never expressed owt but frustration when I decide to disappear for a day or two.

But where I may be rubbish at understanding adults, if there's one thing I know, it's fear. And it oozes off Nicolás.

Easing off my second trainer, I force my eyes to Nicolás's, the black of his so saturated with locked-in tears that the ink almost spills out of the iris.

'It died, so... Sorry. I should've let you know.'

'That's alright.'

He attempts a smile but his anxiety claws right into my chest. Nicolás finds the kitchen door with a backwards stumble that allows him to keep his eyes on me. He's afraid of me.

He thinks I'll hurt him if he blinks.

No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. He's worried about me, is all.

'There's food if you're hungry.'

'I already ate.'

'Yeah, I assumed.'

With the twitch of a smile, he melts through the kitchen doorway. Diwa's voice burrows out of my memory—"at least he tries to spend time with you".

'I could,' I interrupt when Nicolás's hand is already on the doorknob, 'have some... water.'

His focus snaps to me. For a fragment of time, my own paranoia is mirrored in his eyes. He wonders whether he's hallucinating. Then he lights up. He might bounce on his feet.

'Okay! I've got ice.'

I force myself to enter the kitchen and Nicolás shuts the door—to trap the heat, I know, but it traps me too.

(HURT! HURT! HURT!)

I sit while he runs the cold tap. Nicolás even cuts (sharp) a slice of lemon into the glass.

Offering it to me, he takes his seat and watches me so intently that my cheeks burn as I take a sip.

'What did you and Diwa do?' I reckon he's tryna take the piss for the whole "we're not mates" thing—which we aren't—but his voice is feeble.

'The usual,' I say though the thought of Diwa and I having any sort of usual is comical.

Nicolás hums, stumbling fingers rubbing his left wrist. He turns to the window with the obvious intent to drop the subject but he can't help it, the grey sky refuses to shackle his attention.

'You're dead skilled and I'm happy you're passionate about painting, but have you got to do it illegally?'

I scowl. 'How else would I do it?'

Ms Lemberg, the art and design teacher at St Aquinas Preparatory School, made it clear it's not good enough to be done any other way. It would be a waste of canvas.

'Loads of people've been getting picked up lately, especially round Alexandra Park. So if you're gonna do whatever law breaking it is that you do, just please be careful.'

I stare at him, struggle to find him between the glitches in my vision where he flickers between danger and dead.

'I ain't gonna get arrested.' Rolling my eyes at the floor, I drink half of the water in one go. 'And if I did, what difference would that make? My record can't get worse.'

And you deserve it too. You should be locked in.

Then you would stop being such a nuisance in his life. They'd all finally get rid of you.

'This ain't just about your record!'

His voice echoes. It's summat between a shiver and a rattle, as though grains of sand are stuck in his throat and he can't cough them up nor swallow them down.

'It's about your safety.'

Cold licks my skin when I meet his eyes. For some reason, I stop moving. Even hold my breath. It feels like the respectful thing to do when the ghost hanging from his back introduces itself.

'Cece, this is important. You don't get arrested for a cool anecdote. It's complete luck of the draw with these coppers. How are you supposed to know which ones are sound? You have to assume the worst, so you don't aggravate any of them–'

'Okay,' I interrupt. 'Okay. I will be more careful.'

Sighing, Nicolás shuts his eyes.

'Just cause the shop manager from summer decided not to press charges, don't mean nobody else will. You can't assume that'll happen every time you get caught.'

I throw my hands up in surrender. 'Okay, I said.'

Beewolf cackles, its joy filling up the kitchen like the static before a storm. He caught you! You're useless and evil and he's had enough of you. He has had enough of you, just like everyone else–

'And don't mess Diwa up in it.'

A laugh claws through my throat. I stand, chuckles trickling from my teeth as I pick up my bag. 'No, I wouldn't wanna mess Diwa up in owt. Consider her safe from me.'

            The next morning is noticeably colder. It's not raining but the air is so muggy it might as well be. My hair clings to my skull like I'm a wet dog.

Which is fine now but it'll be a different story when it dries into frizz. I already know I won't have the patience to detangle it for days. You know, I'm kinda starting to get the whole head shaving thing; maybe Mrs Harland was onto summat–

Holy water stings my eyes. I'm soaking wet but it's got nothing to do with Manchester weather. My knees buckle.

Pain. Hurt– Sting.

The tarmac cuts my palms (letuspray) open on impact.

Pain. Let us pray–

Hurt.

My knees throb (pray) as I put my weight back onto them. My trousers have torn though not all the way through.

I pick the worst of the debris out of my skinned palms before I fetch my skateboard from where it has rolled after my fall. I turn up the volume of my music past the point where a newer phone would warn about permanent ear damage and walk the rest of the way to school.

Despite the weather, I linger outside to have a smoke. The air is too damp for the fag to catch after several tries but finally the ember gnaws the heads off the strands of tobacco that jut out due to my hasty roll job.

I lean against the bars of the fence. A tourist could pass Isaac Evans and reckon it's a prison with its burglary-slash-suicide-prevention bars in all the windows and the two-metre fence that lines the property. We're one knife-related incident from them installing metal detectors.

I could do with a narc detector. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Diwa walks up to me.

But she's drained of her usual arrogance. Her footsteps stutter toward me and I look up to find her arms crossed over her chest, not defiantly, but in an effort to shrink. She's not wearing any of the pastel goth outfits we stole yesterday but she has dared to pair the Hello Kitty fishnets with her usual grey skirt and blazer.

Her gaze drops to her feet several times before she speaks. I can't hear whatever the fuck she's saying over Dirt in My Mouth but eventually I pity her enough to pull my earphones out. The lyrics are still audible with then hanging by my waist.

'I wanted to say thanks... For standing up to my mum.'

Like a plug removed, her meekness disappears and she stands straight.

'And covering for me. Oh, she were well raged either way and I'm grounded but it were nice. I've not had anyone do that for me before.'

I hold the smoke in my lungs as if the nicotine will help me process the absolute mindfuck that is this situation. I must've entered an alternate universe cause there ain't no chance Diwa just thanked me.

'Don't mention it,' I say eventually. 'Literally. Never bring it up again.'

I start another drag but, when Diwa don't leave, tug the cigarette from my mouth prematurely. 'You ain't gonna ask me for drugs again, are ya?'

Wouldn't wanna get her "messed up in anything".

She stares. 'We've got lessons in five minutes.'

'Right, yeah, and I would never engage in illegalities before nine a.m.'

To make this morning more fucking bizarre, Diwa laughs. Albeit, not without rolling her eyes.

She's proper stretching the seconds if she wants to be on time for form. Diwa still don't leave and the longer she stays, the more I relax into her presence. The air around me moulds into the air around her.

Except no it fucking don't! I can't stand this human-shaped vessel of mosquitoes.

I press the fag into the fence to put it out though there's half of it left. If Diwa refuses to leave then it ain't gonna be on my neck that she's late for the first time in her entire life.

She follows beside me as I enter the gates. The silence is awkward but not significantly so that I have any interest in breaking it with awkward conversation.

Pathirana has just opened the door for form when we turn into the corridor, the rest of our classmates filing in.

Saadia's eyes snag on us and I stop. Diwa looks over her shoulder, immediately blowing any possible interpretation that we just happened to be walking at the same time without noticing each other. Brilliant. She's always ruining shit for me.

'We're not walking in together,' I say, ushering her to get a move on. 'People might get ideas.'

Her face hardens. 'Right. And that would be a disaster.'

Notes

Picked up: Arrested ortaken to the police station for detainment.

Copper: Police officer.

Sound: Decent, okay, good.