CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

12: HUMBLE MY BONES

               The world is made of wax. The periphery blurs, shimmers as though its atoms are too tired (HURT) to hold together. Discomfort dogs my heels, the incessant sensation someone is following me that won't go away even after I look back.

And look back. And look again.

It looks exactly as I remember. Except summat's off: everything's been moved an inch to the left or sunlight has thawed it all and night hardened it at a slight tilt. Memory (pain hurt) is the best of liars: it'll have me insisting I'm right even when my own eyes prove otherwise.

I hover opposite Sakda's. The brick townhouse is ablaze in the cold night. The windows vomit light into the inky street, silhouettes osmosing into each other only to splice again.

A gust smacks me with the smell of cheap liquor. Who's in control now: memory or craving?

Summat rustles. (PAIN!) I whip around. Lighting speed. Heart becomes a choking hazard.

It's only a waxwing perched in a rowan in the front yard of an identically ramshackle home. As I watch, the bird bursts from the branches, leaving the entire cluster joggling. The red fruit bob and cling to brittle phalanges with the desperation possessed only by things that have overstayed their welcome.

Wind tickles the back of my neck, innocuous until it braids a noose to strangle me with: from beneath the alcohol, chlorine emerges to burn at each inhale.

My heart, which hammered against my ribs only seconds ago, barely dares to beat. A grass snake that withers at the sight of predators, it plays dead in my chest.

Don't kill me. Don't kill me. I'm already dead.

With numb fingers, I fumble to ring Diwa. She don't answer the first or the fifth attempt. I jitter to keep my muscles active and flick the lid of my zippo in my pocket.

Open, shut, open. Shut.

I could leg it.

Even as I think it, I know it's not an option. Then I'll have hurt Nicolás for nowt. It's my fault he's upset. Everything bad in his life is my fault.

I only have one option: breach my exile.

If only I could get high or drunk. But that would defeat the whole purpose of being Diwa's sober chaperone. Why did she have to ring me? We're not mates! Let it serve as a reminder to throw my phone in the Alexandra Park pond when I next pass.

I cross the road.

Sweat slathers my skin the moment I'm over the threshold. Though I've no intention of lollygagging about, I take my jacket off; the spikes and chains and insect patches and other miscellaneous things I've stitched onto it don't exactly blend into the crowd. The black hoodie beneath is much more anonymous.

They're going to catch you.

The flavour of cigarettes coats my tongue. So Lailah Paracha still smokes inside. Or is this one of those lasting consequences you can't get rid of even when you've changed for the better?

Disorientation follows me inside as the 2D crayon sketch of memory don't match reality. I could swear the mahogany key holder and the landscape painting have switched places but there's no sun-fading or patched-up marks in the wallpaper to indicate such a change.

The bass of Trap Queen reverberates in my knees as I enter the hoard. Combined with a dozen drunken conversations held at once and the sloshing of blood in my ears, the noise threatens to cause an avalanche. The whole house is about to collapse.