CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

63: DEMISE

            I come home from the park after sunset. Nikki jolts and pretends to be looking for summat from his jacket pocket as if he hasn't been waiting by the door. Possibly for hours.

'Hiya.' He smiles. How was I ever annoyed at him for doing that? He's only relieved I've come home.

But that relief shatters as soon as he notices the damp cling of my clothes.

'You been outside this whole time?' He cradles my face, finds it dead cold. 'Take a shower so you don't get ill, eh? I'll make you a hot chocolate.'

I nod.

He takes my jacket when I peel it off. He folds it onto a hanger but tells me to take it to the toilet to dry.

With his hands empty, Nikki twists his rings around his fingers. 'I got some pictures from Caleb's mums. I were hoping we could look at them together.'

'Pictures?'

'Yeah. From when were kids.'

"No" is already between my teeth when I chew it up. Instead, tell him I'll shower and see how I feel about it after.

But pictures? What for?

            I return to the kitchen in freshly washed trackies and my hoodie, no spikes or chains, just fluffy cotton. It makes it that much easier for Beewolf to stand on my shoulder and tell me all sorts of scenarios for what Nikki has planned with these pictures.

Frost still veneers my skin and I coil into myself when I sit down. Nikki makes me a hot chocolate like he said he would. With marshmallows and everything. I ask him about his week at work as I sip it.

'Sure,' I say when he finishes a story about how Caleb accidentally printed his data report on A3 paper, which made for a somewhat awkward but mostly hilarious moment at their meeting today. 'We can look at pictures.'

Nikki does his best to dull his excitement.

He has to dull everything for me. I'm erratic around rapid movements and vibrant colours so he wrings himself into some grey lump that couldn't be threatening to anybody.

He should be with his friends– his family. People who celebrate him the way he is.

Nikki never asks me to change, not even now that I'm pure evil. He welcomes the monster into his home, cooks for it and washes its clothes. But he changes everything about himself for me.

The maggots writhe. Joy, Beewolf reminds.

How can I feel joy at his suffering?

He takes a shoebox out of the pantry where he must've hidden it so I wouldn't feel pressured by its presence. Placing it on the table, he drags his chair around so that we sit next to each other.

'I dunno how much you remember from before... But since Caleb and I were best friends already when you were born and we were almost neighbours back then, you did spend quite a lot of time with his family too.

'I'd take you around when Ma– our parents were still at work. And Caleb's mums have always been the type to take pictures of everything so they let me borrow some. I thought... maybe it'll help.'

The box says THE KIDS, 2000-2005 on the side. Nikki explains that these are the ones that didn't make it to the better-curated photo albums.

His eyes are already misted over when he lifts the lid of the box. Summat between a laugh and sigh leaves his throat at the first glance inside. Does he dull that for me too?