After I returned the first one to him, Dominic continued to lend me CDs. They were always by bands I'd never heard of and though I didn't particularly like the music, I devoured them eagerly; it somehow lifted me above all my mates to know bands that didn't get played on the radio.

Sometimes he invited me to stay over and watch movies I would never get away with watching at home (Natural Born Killers, Basic Instinct, Trainspotting) so, of course, I stayed. I liked that he treated me like an adult but in a good way, not the way Má treated me like an adult and expected me to take care of everything but never let me gain any of the benefits — like watching any movie with a drop of blood or owt beyond a kiss. It quickly became habitual for me to go over to Dominic's between school and football, time which I used to spend at the library trying to study but enjoyed much more like this, and before long, I started going nearly every day. Dominic would order pizza, another thing Má never let me have at home, and within two months, I were so used to him that when he cut himself out of my routine, it were as if I'd lost one of my thumbs.

I were the one to kiss him.

We were watching Eyes Wide Shut, except I weren't really watching it. Dominic's flat were so small that he only had a bed and the telly were against the wall parallel to it. We'd sit sideways on the mattress as if it were a sofa. He had wrapped his arm around me and his other hand dipped regularly to grab handfuls of the salt and vinegar crisps in my lap. Which I were grateful for because, despite being a heterosexual movie, Eyes Wide Shut were erotic enough that I couldn't promise to not be turned on by it, especially with Dominic confining me into his body heat.

His chestnut brown hair draped over his forehead, nowt like the coarse strands of my own. He had a big nose, which were perfect, I thought, because my own flat nose would make space for it so our mouths would easily find each other. Jacob told me Dominic didn't have a girlfriend when I asked as subtly as I could but I imagined that he would be a good kisser — he were turning twenty-five in March, after all, and there were no way someone as fit as him could be inexperienced. I imagined the arm around my shoulders pulling me against him. I imagined his nose pressing against mine, his tongue in my mouth.

Then I kissed him.

I had never kissed anyone before and I didn't know how to do it. So I just clamped my lips over his and waited for him to lead. He didn't. I screwed my eyes shut as I pulled away only an inch, unable to face my shame, unable to face whatever I would see in those blue eyes — anger, disgust, hatred. Just because he didn't have a girlfriend didn't mean he were gay. What if he told Jacob? Jacob would tell the whole school. What if Má heard about it? What if he told Má?

Because I had little to lose, I tried again. This time, Dominic conceded and soon it were his mouth over mine. My lips were numb from the vinegar crisps and my nerves; I hardly felt the graze of his teeth. But just as I reached my hand out, he pulled away.

I tried to catch him again but Dominic anchored a hand on my chest to push me back. 'We can't do that, bunny—'

'I won't tell anyone!' Panic threw all the doors open at once and frozen air swarmed into me. 'I promise. I'm not even out so I literally can't tell anyone.'

'It's not about you telling someone...' His voice twisted with pity. 'You're so young.'

'I'm almost an adult.'

'You've just turned sixteen.'

'That's almost eighteen.' I were about to start shivering and my eyes were burning with the promise of tears. The last thing I needed were to prove his point that I were some immature kid so I wrestled my distress into the basement. 'I well like you and all.'

Dominic smiled. 'I well like you too. But we can't do this. Okay?'

I couldn't muster a response so I slumped back against the wall and glued my attention to the telly. When I left, he said, 'in a bit,' like he always did but he stopped responding to my texts.

For three weeks, I heard nowt from him. It agonised me. I didn't know what to do with myself, I didn't know what I had done wrong. I thought maybe I were a bad kisser so the next time I were home alone, I googled about kissing and when porn were all that came up, it's what I watched. I practised on my forearm until I accidentally gave myself a hickey. But Dominic didn't answer the phone and I sunk deeper into feelings of shame and inadequacy.

All night, I would stare at the ceiling as if my mind were projecting memories onto the white plaster for me to dissect. What I had done wrong? When I apologised for kissing him, he told me not to worry about it, that he had already forgotten it (that filled me with despair all over again) but clearly I'd done summat wrong. I'd text him, ask him if I had made him angry, apologise for the kiss again, and then apologise for bothering him with all my texts, but no matter what I said, he didn't respond.

One day I couldn't take it anymore so I showed up at his apartment after school. 'I won't try to kiss you again or owt, I promise,' I said as a greeting and he reluctantly let me in.

But I did kiss him again and this time he kissed me back, hungry as if he hadn't eaten in months and the only nourishment were at the back of my throat. His fingers dug into my waist as he caged me against the rickety kitchen table that would break before his hold did. 'If we go there,' he spoke into my mouth, 'I won't be able to stop myself.'

If a man ever exposes himself as a warning sign, don't stick around trying to prove him wrong.

According to Dr Qureshi, this is a common technique for predators. First, they establish their presence in the prey's life, then normalise physical contact at a level that appears innocent — hugs, accidental touches, fixing hair or clothes. When the prey (Dr Qureshi didn't use this word but if one is a predator, what else could the other be but a rabbit?) understandably becomes attached (because it's exactly their lack of attachments that makes them easy victims) and pursues the predator in a way that is explicitly sexual, he withdraws. That makes it easy to convince the prey that it were their fault, that they initiated it, when in reality, the predator intended it all along. And when they eventually "cave in" they are, in fact, the ones pillaging the pray until they collapse inward.

My eyelids are heavy as I watch the ceiling solidify from a black void to grey until it's light enough for me to see the shallow crack that cuts from the electrical outlet to the place where my stare naturally rests when I lie in bed. The sun is rising and I'm already awake. Or still awake, I'm not sure.

I thought counselling were s'posed to help me feel better. All it's done so far is pour a can of worms right on my lap.

I don't need to be picking apart memories I'm much better off forgetting. What I need to do is fix things with Iris and Má. I can't let Iris be as needy for attention as I were, I can't let her experience owt like this. I have to make their relationship secure enough that she won't walk right into a trap and call it a bed.

          I swirl the noodles around in my hu tieu. The fatigue that is quickly becoming familiar to me slathers my mind. I squeeze my eyes shut repetitively to force it out but the effort is in vain. My body only has one drive: sleep — not even to sleep but to die for a few hours if that were possible.

'What, you don't like Vietnamese food anymore?'

I force my eyes to Má's narrowed ones, clenching my jaw to stifle a yawn. I can't be tired without it being a personal attack — like Iris said, the rest of us are never allowed to be tired.

'No. We eat a lot of Vietnamese food. Ziri well likes it.'

'Why does he never come here to eat?' she snaps. 'You go there all the time.'

I blink several times as if my eyelids are the lever of a ViewMaster and each blink will rotate a new emotion to my face: confusion, irritation, exasperation, exhaustion, resignation until I finally reach a polite nonchalance. 'You've never invited him, Má.'

'Well, I didn't think I needed to invite him. If he's dating my son, I'd think the invitation is implied.' She rakes a hand through her frayed hair. Judging by the puffiness under her eyes, she didn't sleep much last night either.

'He don't know that, do he? You've never invited him... He ain't just gonna show up.'

'So do they invite you?' she bites. She never had an issue with Ziri's parents when they were our neighbours — when we moved here, she seemed to want to befriend them. But since we started dating, she suddenly refuses to speak their names. 'You ate there yesterday and refused to eat at home.'

'Re–?' I cut myself off. Fuck. I've been away for too long; my patience shouldn't be this thin after one sleepless night. Rotating my chopsticks in my fingers, I force my voice to soften. 'No, they didn't invite me yesterday.' They gave me my own key to their house two years ago. 'But they always invited me when we started dating. Now, it's implied.'

I've somehow proven her right...

'I can invite Ziri over next time if you want.'

Má makes a noise at the back of her throat but don't ask me to. She don't actually want him to come over. Relief trickles into my bloodstream: I don't want Ziri to come over either. He's not been here since the dinner Má invited his family to when we first moved in and I'm sure he excepts it to look less barren six years later. If he comes inside, I'll have to explain Má's new discovery of minimalism.

Fishbones can be reused as toothpicks. An empty jar takes as much space as a full jar. Bà Ngoại used to say that all the time and Má filled all the glass jars (peanut butter, minced ginger, coconut oil) she could never throw away with water. In case summat happened and water were cut off from the country. Every surface in the house had jars stacked on jars, filled with water. It drove Ba crazy.

When he died, Má spent two days pouring water down the drain and driving to the recycling station with all her junk. She swung from hoarding to such a strict bare-bones life that she makes us put the kettle into a cabinet and take it out only when we're using it so the kitchen won't look messy. She once slapped me when I got a plastic bag from the shops because I had forgotten a reusable one. Don't bring rubbish into my house, you understand?

Iris stands up with a scrape of her chair legs.

She's been on her phone through breakfast and I almost forgot her presence entirely. She collects her bowl, glass, and mug into a tower in one hand to type summat with her phone in the other and casts a cursory glance at me because she's either still cross with Má or just intimidated by her. 'I'll see you later.'

Her strategy don't work. Má's eyes slit. 'Where d'you think you're going?'

'Chloe's.'

'You have homework to do.'

Iris's cheeks burn red in warning of the bomb about to explode. 'What–?'

'Let her go,' I whisper.

Iris don't wait a moment; the door slams shut with her goodbye before Má can recover from her shock.

My stare fixates on my noodles as Má's eyes prod at the side of my face. Guilt tightens its band around my chest. Though I keep my attention firmly on my hu tieu, I know she feels betrayed. I'm s'posed to be on her side. I'm always on her side.

'Why'd you do that?'

'I just... If you want her— She won't—' This is new territory for us; I have to tread carefully not to step on a landmine. I hollow my cheeks, then force the muscles of my face to relax, for my body language to be gentle and approachable before I finally look up. 'Maybe you could go a little easier on her.'

'Easier?' Má's eyebrows raise. 'She's got her GCSEs in a few months, she does.'

'Aye, I know. But she's sixteen. When you're so strict with her, it just makes her wanna rebel more, don't it? You have to let her have some fun and then when she comes home, she'll actually want to study. When you keep nagging, it just makes her not wanna do any of the stuff you want her to do.'

Má clenches her jaw and I know I've fucked up. I shouldn't have used a word like nagging, that's too strong. I'm about to apologise when she plucks a shrimp from her bowl and crushes it in her mouth. 'You weren't ever like this when you were sixteen.'

No. When I were sixteen, I were sneaking around to be fucked by a guy over eight years older than me. When I were a few months from my GCSEs, Má got fired from another job and hardly left her bed so I had to take care of her, Ông Ngoại, and Iris who were nine. So no, I didn't study whether she nagged me about it or not.

Iris's insult about me being a doormat resurfaces like acid reflux, somehow more bitter now than the first time I swallowed it.

But I have to help Má, I have to be on her side.

Má had postpartum depression after Iris, there's no doubt she had it because of me too. Not that anyone has ever confirmed it, but I'm quite sure I weren't planned — I mean, they didn't even live in the same city. Má went to Manchester for uni and she had to move back to Leeds and deter her studies. She and Ba were so happy before I came along. There's a joy in early photographs that dulled after. I were born into the world as the cause of my mother's grief. I have to make up for it.

I should spend my time helping her, not unearthing memories I'd much rather keep buried. I've been neglecting them, Má and Iris. Since moving to Brighton, I've slacked off; I work a shift job so I rarely have my days off in a row and I'm always so tired from work, I spend those days in bed. But that's just an excuse, ain't it? Ziri comes home three weekends of every month and he has to take the train. It's an hour's drive. I could do it easily instead of spending my time off in therapy.

'Maybe I can try to come over more often, like.' The words lay heavy in my stomach. 'Try to help out.'

Má looks up, her eyes glistening. Tears wash her anger away. 'Oh, Thỏ. Thank you. You're so good for me.'