I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 21: minefield

            Iris throws open the car door before I've properly stopped. She has one leg on the curb when I swivel to face. 'Don't do owt stupid this time. I ain't driving to London tonight.' I keep my voice low so Má don't wake up in the passenger seat. Iris rolls her eyes. 'I love you.'

Iris raises her eyebrows, prompting me to hurry up. I wave my hand to dismiss her and she's out of the car before I can blink.

I watch her sprint up Chloe's front yard, considerably larger than ours. The door opens before she reaches it, a rectangle of orange in the night, and Chloe hugs her in welcome. Though it's nearly two in the morning, her parents appear in the narrow frame I have into the house.

Only when the door is pulled shut, leaving Iris in the embrace of the orange light, do I leave. The houses become progressively smaller and simpler until we arrive at East Trough where every home is held together with chain-link fences and prayers.

Má don't stir when I park, or after I try to wake her — Má. Má, we're home. Má. Visiting Ông and Bà is exhausting enough to put anyone in a coma. I'd be asleep too if I could. I get out myself, unlock the front door, and return to the passenger side of the car. Reaching over Má to unbuckle her seatbelt, I ease her out of the seat. She's so short that she's easy to carry.

The house in its minimalism greets us as much as a morgue would. Má is a body that always horrifies me more when she's alive.

I get her to bed and, just as I turn around, her fingers stretch. They only brush my wrist before her arm falls, too tired to strain. 'Don't leave. Please don't leave me, Dean.'

Her face blurs behind my tears. I've always thought she meant him dying, that she saw me as a ghost from the future who she could still bargain with, but she's always meant the mundane interpretation.

I return to the bed enough to kiss her forehead. 'I'm not going anywhere, Hue.'

            As soon as I step inside, my breaths evade me. It's like I've punctured my lungs and no matter how deep I inhale, I can't get enough air in. Everywhere I look, I'm assaulted by mess. It's quite possible that everything we own has been taken and left out.

It's also dead quiet.

Leaving my bag at the door, I take off my shoes. 'Love?'

There's no response. Ziri must've gone to sleep, which disappoints me possibly more than it should — though it feels like I've not seen him for years, it's actually only been a few days. And it's the middle of the night, of course, he's asleep. And if he's asleep, maybe he's not as manic as I thought.

As I turn on the light, all I'm welcomed by is mess. Sweat collects on my skin and I take off my hoodie, grateful I don't have to hide my tattoos, but it barely makes a difference.

I don't even know where to start clearing it up: the table's has been transformed into a miniature model of the city skyline, created with everything from eyeshadow pallets to stacks of photos, a bottle of hobby glue balanced on top of a skyscraper of craft supplies. There's no food, though. Some laundry is drying on the clothes horse in front of the telly, the rest forgotten in the hamper by the ironing board, which in turn is currently balancing five of our plants on it along with a bag of potting mix.

I turn and my heart leaps into my throat. Ziri is curled up in the corner of the kitchenette, wrapped in one of the many blankets Sonia has crocheted for us, tight as a straitjacket. His tear-streaked face and shaking hands are all that are visible from below it. What I initially thought were rubbish littered on the floor around him are bits of lemon, at least three fruit torn into chunks.