NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | updates every monday

51: hey google: how to tell if you're a helicopter parent

            By Tuesday morning, which also happens to be the day after Christmas, my peripheral worries have blossomed into a vibrant panic. I thought he might've seen Diwa on Christmas or gone to her party like he did last year, but instead, they stayed shut in their room all day, just like they did on Saturday and Sunday, emerging only to walk and feed Esther.

I'm on the third page of the Google results for "how to tell if someone is depressed?"—by which point every blog and medical website repeats the same list as the NHS website that I've already read so many times I could probably recite it from memory—when Cece drags their feet into the kitchen. The under-eye circles debunk the possibility that they've been sleeping this late.

'Good morning,' I say, though it's nearly two.

Cece responds with a hum that barely scrapes through their vocal cords. He grabs a mug at random and ends up with one shaped like Gromit's head and pours the rest of the coffee I made five hours ago into it.

'I can make you a fresh cup.'

No response. They look at the doorway, weighing out their desire to return to their room with the chore of staying here. To my surprise, he sits opposite me, sipping his coffee with a grimace. So they've not quite learnt to like it yet.

The gauntness of their eyes is jarring when it isn't offset by eyeliner. They've got their hood drawn over their head, the drawstrings pulled tight. They sink into their shoulders, seeking warmth.

'Are you cold?' I ask, glancing at the thermometer on the windowsill. It's eighteen celsius inside—which ain't warm by any stretch of the imagination but as far as British houses go, it ain't that cold either.

I did tape new insulator strips around all the windows last month but there's only so much I can do without renovating the whole house and if I could afford that I wouldn't be renting a council house, now would I?

Cece makes another vague sound.

My phone screen has gone black. I lay it on the table. 'I'm going to tea at Shayna and Desmond's today. Do you wanna come?'

'Do I wanna come have tea with your parents?' he repeats but not even derision can crack their monotony. 

'They invited you.'

He shakes his head.

'Okay.'

I didn't expect they would want to even if they weren't on the periphery of or already within a depressive episode. I'll bring Caleb; Shayna and Desmond love Caleb just as much as all the people they've fostered over the past three decades.

As kids, we exclusively hung out at his but once Mamá and Papá left and I moved to Shayna and Desmond's, Caleb came around all the time. Desmond was, for both of us, a mentor in gentle masculinity. He taught Caleb the things he missed out on in a house with only women. When we were in college and didn't yet know where to get it ourselves, Shayna would offer him weed whenever he came around—"medicinal, for the pain in his leg". After his accident, she installed grab bars around the house and rearranged the furniture to make it easier for him to get around so he could still visit.

'I'm gonna see Diwa anyway. We're gonna listen to the new Destroy Boys album together and then she were gonna show me some new stuff she's practised on the drums.'

I do my best to mask the relief that floods in. Breaking news: He is going outside!

'What do you wanna eat for lunch– erm, breakfast? We've got loads of leftovers in the freezer. Or we can go down to the chippy.'

'I'm not really hungry.'

'I can make you toast.'

Cece sniffs and, for a split-second, I think he's about to start crying over toast. But the next moment he has a hand clamped over their nose, blood crawling up the gaps in their fingers.

Staggering to their feet, they struggle to tear off a piece of kitchen roll with only one hand free and I leap up to help them with it. He crumples it under his nose, their hand already lacquered scarlet, and mutters summat that may be a "thanks". I sigh my "that's okay" with an equal willingness to allow the syllables to be lost in my breathing.

'Are you alright?'

'S fine. I've been getting these lately. Winter air.'

I tug off a second piece of kitchen roll mostly to feel useful but when, mere minutes later, Cece drops that onto the counter, soaked with blood, and rips off a third, my muscles are starting to buzz with adrenaline.

'Why isn't it stopping?'

They shrug. 'Maybe I should put ice on it.'

'No, you're not supposed to do that. I think that'll make it worse.' I grab my phone from the table, already opened to Google. Erasing the depression search, I look up nosebleeds. 'Google says you should pinch it for five minutes straight and after three sets—so fifteen minutes total—if the bleeding still don't stop, you're supposed to go to hospital.'

Their eyes finally break their flat affect and whet into a glare, though the impact is slightly undermined when they pinch their nose and start to breathe through their mouth. 'I ain't going to hospital over a nosebleed.'

We both remain standing until the first five minutes are over and Cece lets go of his nose. Though there's enough blood smeared across his mouth that I couldn't blame someone for thinking he's just gutted a small animal with their teeth, the bleeding has stopped.

I watch him tentatively wash his face in the kitchen sink, tryna avoid breaking the incipient clot.

'Are you... alright?' I ask, rubbing my wrist. 'You can talk to me, you know? About... anything you're feeling.'

Cece uses a flattened hand to guide the water into the corners so it washes down all the blood he spat into the sink to avoid swallowing it. Their stare drags to me, lethargic again. 'I don't have feelings. I'm evil, remember?'

The sardonic look in their eyes flickers to outright fear, a shift I've seen happen enough times to know what it means. Whatever the details are, there's blood in them. He sees me either dead or as a killer.

'Please talk to me. I thought we were–?' Past this? Did I think he would trust me again? What have I done to earn that? 'What can I do?'

'Relax. I'm just tired.'