NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | updates every monday

72: confession: I do it to myself

            Cece bounces back to their room midway through brushing their teeth, catching me red-handed making their bed. He don't even roll his eyes at it, though, and beelines to their window. 'I have to show you summat now that it's daylight,' he gurgles through the toothpaste in their mouth and pulls the blind to the side.

I round our beds to get to it, standing beside them so that the kennel comes into sight from the left.

Its roof is covered entirely by a mural and though it's different from the harshness I'm used to, it's instantly recognizable as their work. The style is similar to the portrait they gave me, still bold and brave but full of colour. A turquoise stuffy and a dalmatian with a tennis ball in its mouth stand out against violet ferns on the end that's visible from here, the plant motif carrying on out of sight.

'Cece, that's incredible.'

Toothbrush jutting out of their mouth, they dig out their phone. 'Bobbi let me do it. Obviously, no one can see it since it's on the roof but it were mint. And I got some good pictures of it for my portfolio with a drone Quinn let me borrow.'

They hand me the phone to look through the photos while they return to the toilet at the other end of the corridor. I slide through the drone photos, zooming in on some of the details. When I finish, I move on to the drawings on their desk.

These ones aren't bloody either but they are dreary. They're of a character with green twists and a face painted in a sugar skull style though the mask is a moth's closed wings. They've got actual moths circling their head too. Below the character designs, I find a page with a comic book panel of the same figure fighting some sort of shadow monster, I assume, with vines that emerge from their hair and jacket sleeves–

'No, don't look at those!' Cece shoves me out of the table's way, hurriedly flipping the pages over so that some of the corners fold. 'This is just summat stupid I've been doing, it's no good.'

'I didn't know you liked comics.'

'I don't.'

Despite my curiosity, I move on to the orchid on their windowsill. It has flourished since I gave it to them a year ago. Flowers bud in my ribcage too.

My mood wilts no more than seven minutes later when Cece hugs himself halfway down the last flight of stairs. They root to the step, attention nailed to the open kitchen doorway. I nudge them with my elbow, a faint touch that he can recede from if he wants, but they look up at me instead, fear infesting their irises.

'You're alright. I'm here with you.'

I'm not sure what comfort that's supposed to provide, but Cece sticks so close to me that our arms brush all the way to the kitchen.

The dining room table has four other teens sitting separately as they eat their breakfast. Yan is alone at the round table crammed into the kitchen. Cece sits there too with the bowl of granola he pours for himself with a shaking hand, and so I do too.

Yan is elated by this. She offers me a sly smile as she leans forward to caress my forearm. 'My room is bigger than theirs, by the way. You're always welcome to–'

'Yan,' Bobbi interrupts as she steps in, 'don't sexually harass our guests.'

'I'm just having fun.'

Bobbi hums. She manages to be gentle but firm in a way I suppose only comes from three decades of experience with fostering. Just as I assume her ability to pay attention to everything in a room without seemingly looking anywhere comes from experience. Just now, her eyes flick to Cece spooning up musli and slopping it back into their bowl so quickly that I'm not sure it happens at all.