CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

65: DON'T RUSH INTO THE GRAVE

           I watch "Diwa🦟 is typing..." appear and disappear at the top of the screen. At least her mum has given her her phone back but the time it takes for her to respond to my message don't comfort me much.

Our text thread from this week shows Diwa apologising over and over again, then asking how I'm doing, but I haven't been able to even open the messages, much less read them. It's Friday now that I finally texted her back.

You: hi

You: would u be free to talk today?

You: i can come round after school if your still grounded

Finally, her response shoves from the bottom of the screen.

Diwa🦟: Of course, I'm free! Thanks for messaging. I'll be home in a half hour. After that, I'm free all evening. So whenever suits you 😊

She hates you, Beewolf reminds. You've ignored her all week. You're a bad friend. You're evil and she knows that now.

Yeah, probably. But at least I should give her the opportunity to say that to me herself.

I change out of my pyjamas which I've spent the majority of the week in. Thankfully, my braids have held up well enough and I don't need to touch my hair. I manage to daub a swatch of black eyeshadow to the corners of my eyes before my energy reserves deplete. And so I leave my room, looking at least sixty percent dead.

I find Nikki in the kitchen where he has his work laptop set up. He's been working from home this week, only going to the office in the mornings. Usually, I would be annoyed by it, threatened by the supervision, but even when he's in the kitchen and I'm in my room, his presence makes the air around me softer.

Not surveillance. It's companionship.

Nikki smiles as soon as I enter. He knows I want to speak, knows I'm struggling to connect the wires of my brain to the hinge of my jaw, and waits patiently.

'I'm gonna go... see Diwa.'

'Yeah?' Swear down, his eyes sparkle. It's not even the reflection on his glasses—joy glimmers in his actual irises. 'Sounds good.'

That's all the permission I need but I stay in the kitchen. There's barely owt left of my fingernails but I gnaw until even the final strip splinters off. 'I thought maybe we could do summat together when I come back. I dunno, like play cards, or summat.'

Now, I promise he's got sparkles around his head too, like we're in a cartoon. 'I'd love that.'

A twist in my gut. He don't ask for much. It's so easy to make him happy and even that I refuse him. Why do I refuse him?

'I'm proud of you, kid.'

I flinch as I tear a fingernail too far. Pain shoots up to my knuckle. 'She might hate me.'

'But you're trying. I know it's not easy.' Gentleness sharpens. Not out of malice but from sincerity. 'You tend to bury things before they're dead.'

A flame jets from my stomach to my throat. I catch it right before I spit it at him, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth to snuff it out. Instinct or not, I'm not going to snap.

But in the absence of hostility, of even self-aware sarcasm, I've nowt to say. I stand there and watch his smile eventually fade as Nikki redirects his attention to his laptop.

In the end, I nod and mumble a few incoherencies before I exit the kitchen and soon the house.