CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | rewriting

16: STUMBLING TORTURE

               In the mirror, I'm fourteen again. Soaking wet and my right hand bandaged. The prayers echo in my skull still. Pain plagues my palm still though the skin is too layered in scar tissue to have much sensation left.

Then I'm twelve. This one still clings to the whisper of life inside them; curiosity, passion, love. All that's ash now.

Once given a scrap of hatred, it will be easy to find more. And since there's nowhere else to direct it, I'll stuff it inside myself where it swells until there's no space for fear.

I will make the world red. I will always give Beewolf pain when it asks for it.

I did this to myself. I, aged twelve, designed the reflection for me, aged sixteen—when you're dead, irredeemably and unavoidably, no one else can kill you.

That's what I thought, anyway.

'D'you want help?'

I flinch (LOCKED IN LOCKED IN LOCKED IN LOCKED IN) (DANGER! THREAT!) and snap my head to the toilet door where Nicolás stands, watching the tangled mess I've knotted my hair into. (DANGER!)

I stand at (HURTPAINHURTPAIN) the bathroom mirror, a comb (HURT) held between my teeth, and try to braid my hair.

Nicolás. It's just Nicolás. He's nice. He's not here to hurt me.

My heart still hammers into my ribs, shouting "THREAT!" with each beat. And beneath it, much more quietly, "He doesn't want you".

Nicolás's hair is the opposite of mine; always perfectly groomed. He never forgets to protect it when he goes to bed and is happy to spend an hour every wash day ensuring it has all the moisture it needs. Currently, his locs are loose and brush his waist to commemorate eight years of growth.

Nicolás lived with the same Rastafarian foster parents until he turned eighteen: nobody ever made him shave it. The physical manifestation of the spirit, his hair connects him to Pachamama.

Not me though. My soul stretches only four inches. Pachamama is done with me.

I drop the comb from my teeth. 'I can braid my own hair. I've only been doing it a decade.'

Debatable. I've only completed two cornrows and they're entirely uneven. I'll pretend it's on purpose.

'Sorry.' He raises his hands in mock surrender. 'Thought I'd offer.'

The maggots shift in my gut and I glance at him.

Nicolás supplements his job as an IT support technician with weekends as a bartender at a queer club in Gay Village. Unlike my all-black wardrobe, he's dressed in corduroy trousers and a printed shirt open halfway down his chest, exposing all the gold necklaces he wears. He's covered in significantly more glitter than when he left.

'Did you need the shower?'

'Sure.'

I've already started to pull my braids undone, too frustrated to finish them now, when he adds, 'Could we talk a bit?'

My muscles tense to fully ground me into the present, into my hollow skeleton, aged sixteen.

I will never have a home. I'll never be safe. He doesn't want me.

'Fine,' I say, withholding a shiver as Beewolf takes a step up my spine.

He's going to kick me out. Just like I said; I've moved thirty-one times, it were bound to happen.

Everything bad in his life is your fault.

Hovering in the doorway, Nicolás tucks his hands into his trouser pockets. 'In the future, I'd appreciate it if you let me know before having people over.'

I pinch my eyebrows. We already had this conversation.

He opens his mouth and shuts it again. 'And if you two are... intimate–'

'Holy fuck–' face burning, I shove past him '–it is so not like that.'

Nicolás swivels to stride after me to my bedroom. 'Right, but if it ever is like that, just remember to use protection.'

I shut the door in his face.

'And that doesn't mean the pill because that don't protect you against STIs and the last thing that school needs is another chlamydia outbreak–'

I open the door again. 'Another? When was the first?'

'Never. Just hypothetically.'

Such a believable liar, as always.

I shift my weight to one leg, still hanging to the door handle. 'Is this speech over?'

Though his cheeks are flushed, he soldiers on. 'No, Cece, this is important and I know that school ain't teaching ya owt.'

He follows into the room when I collapse face down onto the bed to scream.

'And it's complicated emotionally for us.'

Nicolás hesitates, teetering on the tightrope between callousness and oversharing. We've never had this conversation. We've hardly had any conversations in the past two years, all interactions either interrogations or arguments, and the territory has changed, rendering our maps obsolete. He has to navigate blindly.

'Desirability can well fuck you up. Being Black and Latine and queer makes sex complicated and I just want you to know you can talk to me about it.'

I lift my face from the pillow to glare at him. 'Fantastic. I'm asexual so no thanks.'

'Oh,' he says. 'Well, being ace don't mean you'll never have sex–'

'Does for me,' I counter. 'I will never in my life think "wow, I really want another person to touch my genitals". If you wanna bond, scrapbook together or summat. It's disgusting.'

He shifts his weight from foot to foot. 'Thanks for telling me,' he starts. Why can't he just shut up ever? I don't need a pat on the back for coming out like it's some production. 'But you shouldn't call it disgusting just because it's not for you. Cause that makes you the arsehole, innit.'

'Yeah... Sorry.'

'That's alright.' He offers me a smile that does nowt to ease my nausea.

Nicolás allows his focus to drift along the drawings on my walls. I keep looking at him, my neck beginning to strain from my cobra position.

'Do you wish you had a...' I realise I've no clue what his sexuality is, other than gross and lame, obviously, 'partner? Like, romantically?'

'Sure.'

'Why don't you have one then?'

'It's not that easy,' he says, immediately defensive. 'I can't just pop down the shops and get one. And where am I meant to find the time when I've got you to deal with?' His face collapses into regret but it eviscerates me nonetheless.

It's your fault.

Of course it is. Everything bad in his life is my fault.

'Even if I had time, it's just... difficult.'

He's saying that as damage control. He's lying: it is your fault.

I drop my face back into the pillow. It's your fault. He would be happy without you. He would actually have a life without you.

'Cece–'

'You can go now. I promise I will never have unprotected sex.' I plug my earbuds in and blast My Chemical Romance so that even as Nicolás tries to say something else, I can't hear it.