CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

57: CLAWING THROUGH DEAD ENDS

            'You make it look so easy,' Diwa says an hour later when she unplugs her power bank from my phone and pauses the timelapse video.

She hands me the phone so I can take a picture of the completed work. Thankfully, the sun's come back out and I get decent photos.

Rather than a direct recreation of the original, the wasp battles a moth in this one. And though its wing is torn, the moth is winning.

I open Tumblr to post the best shot along with one of the old painting. I didn't make my account until December of last year when I had thirteen months of practice and the internet has never seen the absolute rubbish I started out with.

Before I can even exit the app, a notification pops up, "algebradivaaaaa00 liked your photo". I look up with raised eyebrows.

Diwa meets my mockery with a smile.

Though the corner of my mouth tugs, I drop my gaze as I drag a step toward her. My throat tightens before I even get a word out.

'You asked me what it means—Death to Beewolf.'

Pulling out our Co-Op shopping, I sit on my empty backpack beside her. First with my legs straight in front of me, then change my mind and cross them. I speak to the repetitive TOO HIGH 5 SCHOOL sharpied into the rubber of my Vans.

'D'you remember when I came back to Isaac Evans and I were on crutches for the first month and everyone said it's cause I were stabbed in the leg at my old school?'

A pause lingers as Diwa attempts to connect the relevance. 'Yeah...'

'Well, I was stabbed. But... I did it myself. These–' I turn my palms up for her to see '–were also me. There's more. I hear these voices–'

I cut myself off with a laugh and once it starts, I can't stop it, which is certainly not helping my case. It hacks around my ribs like cutlery in a washing machine until I'm caught somewhere between laughing and sobbing. She must reckon I'm one day from a straitjacket.

I run my hands down my face, stretching my eyelids, and try to ignore the warnings being whispered in my ear: it's a trap, I shouldn't tell her, it's not safe.

'If you wanna run away and never talk to me again, I won't hold it against ya.'

I wait a moment but when Diwa don't move, I continue.

'I hear things. And I have these thoughts. Really violent thoughts about hurting myself and other people. There's one voice that's the loudest, I guess. Sometimes I think: what if it's me, the real me, and I'm just in denial about it? Like what if it tells me to kill someone and I do, and what if I like it? What if I really am... evil?

'So I named it: Beewolf.

'That way it's easier for me to remember it's not real, that it's not me. And I can fight it. I paint or draw the things it scares me with and, for a moment, I regain control. Hence, Death To Beewolf.'

Diwa's attention chafes my skin like oncoming thunder and I hunch away from her. She probably thinks I've brought her here to, like, dismember her and make earrings out of her teeth.

I shouldn't have told her that. Why would I–?

'Okay.'

My eyes snap to hers. 'What? What d'you mean "okay"?'

Diwa sighs and peels open the packet of her tomato and mozzarella triangle sandwich.

'You don't reckon I'm a psycho?'

Mouth full, she shakes her head. 'That's not the real you, the cold one. I've seen the real you and they're sweet and kind and a good friend.'

My nose crinkles.

I don't have time to ruminate before Diwa continues. 'No one in my family actually likes each other—we don't even know each other. I mean, I know it's silly to complain about, but you're not meant to get candles as gifts from your own family. Sometimes I think if one of them dies, I'll have nowt to say at the funeral.'

I adjust my position to face her properly. Not that it matters with her russet eyes focused on the sandwich packet.

'When I see families that are close and happy and love just oozes off them, sometimes I get so jealous I think about hurting them. I reckon it's more normal than you think, thoughts like that.'

She tugs at the ends of her waves. She takes a bite of her sandwich though it seems mostly to be a tactic to keep herself from chewing her hair.

'I get what you mean by it feeling bigger than you, outside of you.'

I rack my brain for summat wise to say but when nowt comes up, go a different route. 'D'you want a hug?'

Though the one outside Molotov couldn't have given a high impression of my skills, Diwa nods. I shuffle forward and uncertainly wrap my arms around her. With us sitting on the floor, the angle of our bodies is clumsy and I'm not sure how tight to squeeze. It's unbearably awkward.

But it's nice too. Her floral perfume dulls my anxieties. Maybe I can get better at this, affection. Slowly but surely.

'What happens Monday?' Fear carves an echo into her voice and I get the sense that she's staying in the hug to avoid facing me. 'I mean, maths olympiad is over. We've no reason to hang out. Are we gonna never speak again?'

The thought never crossed my mind. Until now.

What if we end up as one of those relationships that sizzle to a slow death? We try our best to find things to do together but neither of us can ever find the time until, one day, we stop asking. End even the minimal communication of tagging each other in memes until we pass in the corridors without a glance, never to speak again save for awkward and generic wishes for luck and "have a nice life" at graduation.

In my early years in care, I had people I bonded with, people who were my friends, who I promised to stay in touch with even when we were separated. But we didn't have our own cells and home phones were redundant with kids that got moved around every few years. And though I could probably find them on Instagram or Twitter if I tried, the connection has long since gone cold, now nowt but damp charcoal abandoned at a campsite.

'Nah.' The confidence in my voice surprises me too. But I'm safe here. 'You need to tell me all about your horrible date with Annabella tomorrow.'

Her laughter spills into my neck. 'Weirdly enough, I'm not even nervous about it. Like, what's the worst that could happen, you know.'

As we eat our sandwiches and satsumas, we laugh about possible ways it could go horribly wrong like Annabella turning into a monster halfway through or inviting Jeremy along.

'Just one thing first,' I say when we get up to leave.

I pick up the can of black paint and hold it toward her. Diwa stares at it, gentle knit in her brow until she looks up and my expression answers all her questions in an instant.

She steps back. 'I can't draw.'

'Everyone can draw. Don't need to be no Michelangelo.'

None of my prompting gets through until I threaten to stand here until she does, meaning I'll probably die from hyperthermia overnight and how is she going to live with that? Though she grabs the can with a scowl, she's laughing by the time she steps back from her stick-figure cat. She giggles at its wonky whiskers but mostly it's the rush of the thrill.

'Good, innit?'

For a moment, Diwa battles with herself: should she stick to her reluctance? She decides to give it up and grins.

'Yeah.'