NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY |

71: taste of your own medicine

            I hoist my gym bag up my shoulder as I wriggle on the doorstep. Situated amid acres of farmland, Oak Shaw Group Home for Troubled Teens has no shelter from the wind and I weren't quite prepared for the way it slices through to the bone. Manchester's spring is equally cold but it's different, an all-encompassing chill that finds a way to seep in through the smallest cracks, but it's dull. Here, the cold attacks in deliberate strikes.

Just as I reach to ring the bell again, the door opens. The girl behind it must be immune to the weather, judging by her miniskirt and cropped button-up that leave more milky skin exposed than not.

'Uh, hiya. I'm Nicolás...'

Her face lights up. 'Cece's brother? Why did they never tell me you're so fit?' She scans me over, curling a brown lock of hair between her fingers, and I think I'd rather have braced the cold for a while longer if it meant someone else would've opened the door. 'I'm Yan.'

'How old are you, Yan?'

The seductive act is discarded with a huff and Yan rolls her eyes. Spinning around in her bunny slippers, she stalks back into the house but leaves the door open. Though for a moment I hesitate to enter the house without invitation, another scythe of wind ushers me into the warmth and yellow light. I immediately understand why it took so long for someone to open the door; there's so much noise that I doubt most people even heard the bell ring. At least three arguments stack from different reaches of the house.

Still, Cece's voice isolates from the rest even as a low rasp. 'They don't want me to.'

'I understand that. But you're in control, Cecilio.'

Easing off my trainers and hanging up my coat, I follow the voice to a dining room with a wooden table large enough to seat fourteen people. All but two of the chairs are vacant. Cece and Bobbi sit with the corner between them, a plate in front of him and the fork shaking in his hold.

He looks up as I push through the ajar door and lights up even as tears roll down established tracks on their cheeks, only wrinkles of eyeliner left around reddened eyes.

'What are you doing here?' They're too relieved to remember to tack on the "not that I give a fuck" at the end.

I smile. This is far from the condition I hoped to find them in but at least they're not bearing their teeth and growling at the sight of me. 'I were in London for Caleb's Drag Expo and Bobbi said I could come by for a few days.'

They round the table to get to me, wiping their cheeks on the sleeve of their hoodie. It smears the makeup across his skin. Esther, who I hadn't seen behind the table, is dutifully at their heels. He don't hug me, grabbing my bag to carry it by way of greeting instead. But Bobbi stops them.

'Cecilio, you have to finish eating first.'

His excitement drains in one surge. They edge around to face Bobbi and his plate. The tremble in their spine is well-masked but I notice it, feel it more than see it.

When did it get to this?

I wrap an arm around their shoulders and they stop shivering. Though Cece looks like they're about to walk into their own execution, he allows me to guide him back to the chair and the plate full of food. It looks like they've been to a buffet and wanted to taste everything from a kale salad to nuggets though I suspect it's Bobbi who has wanted to give them as many options as possible.

I pull up the chair beside Cece and in the time it takes for me to sit, they've broken down into a cluster of rattling bones and whimpers.

They've always been suspicious of food—when they moved in with me, I didn't see them eat for weeks. They'd smuggle it to their room and scarf it down like a dog, pick up every crumb and lick oil from their fingers. It took months for them to trust any food I made to not come with ulterior motives or poison. But it were never this, rising to a fever from the mere thought of chewing.