CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

61: ROADKILL

            Nicolás don't say a word as he stalks through the school forecourt. I slink behind him, unable to look higher than the worn rubber heels of his trainers. Dozens of eyes aim darts at me through the windows.

I'd've expected to be proud to leave a legacy behind at Isaac Evans Community Academy. They'll remember the crazy lunatic who got locked in a cage for violence. Years later when our cohort has graduated, younger siblings will keep the story alive until it warps to summat entirely unrecognisable.

If there ever was any pride, the maggots have devoured it. Even the embarrassment of my episode in front of Sakda drowns in shame.

Blur of pink. Diwa leaps at me from whenever she's been waiting. Her cheeks glisten, eyes puffy.

She's supposed to be in physics. Has she skived off just to wait for me?

See? Bad influence. Am I not satisfied until I corrupt everyone?

'Cece, I'm well sorry! I promise I'll–'

'Don't talk to me.'

Diwa staggers to a halt. I can't look at her either, so I speak to the dried mud she missed on the side of her right boot. That day in Wigan feels so, so far away.

Did you think you could be safe with her?

'I thought we were mates,' I say. 'Clearly, romance comes first. That's what I get, right? Just leave it.'

You'll never be safe. I told you: they're out to get you. All of them. They all want to see you dead.

She'll tell them about us and they'll all know you're evil. They'll lock you in forever and ever and ever and ever–

She can tell whoever she wants. They already know.

Without another word, I trail after Nicolás. Diwa's stare adheres to my back but the vulture is hardly distinguishable from the rest of the carrion feeders waiting for me to finally die.

Nicolás unlocks the car doors. The click is a gunshot in our silence. I flinch. In the passenger seat, I curl my shoulders to minimise the space I take up but the pressure only grows. Silence pours in like cement. Someone in a millennium will dig us up as fossils.

'Lo siento–'

'Please don't.' Nicolás wrings his fingers until they threaten to pop out of their sockets. 'I need to process before we talk about it.'

I know he's thinking of my best, but, fuck, I'd prefer he yelled. Fire breeds fire and I'm used to burning but I have no defence against the pestilence of his disappointment.

At Your Best (You Are Love) by Aaliyah automatically plays from his bluetooth when he starts the car. Neither of us reaches to turn it off. Rather than ease the pressure, it builds it up, and though it's just after morning traffic, we're caught in every red light so that halfway home, there's no oxygen left at all.

I stare at my hands where bruises bloom on my knuckles. I still can't feel it, can't feel anything, now that the evil has claimed even the last hair follicle in my scalp. My rings will cut off circulation from my swelling fingers at any moment. I don't remove them.

Beewolf buzzes in the backseat, beyond thrilled. Are you tough yet?

Am I tough yet? How do I manage to be both monstrous and so weak?

Neither of us unbuckles our seatbelts when we park on the curb in front of our house– his house.

I don't belong here. I'll never have a home.