CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

19: BAD DOG

            Nicolás opens the door the moment I turn into the front garden. 'You're home.'

Astounding observation. So now I don't even get the chance to get in the house before he starts fussing?

'Where've you been?'

'Out,' I say, because it's what I always say considering it's none of his business what I do and at least eighty percent of it's illegal. I wedge past him to get into the house. 'We were about with Diwa.'

'Oh... Okay... You weren't answering your phone so...'

I pause with one shoe kicked off and the other still on. Worry is a tremor in his voice, only a murmur of the earthquake locked in his chest. Real actual worry. For my well-being. It worms in my gut.

None of my recent guardians have worried about where I am—honestly, they prefer I stay out for as long as possible. I've run away from over ten homes and no one has bothered to call more than once. Even my social worker has never expressed owt but frustration when I decide to disappear for a day or two.

But where I may be rubbish at understanding adults, if there's one thing I know, it's fear. And it oozes off Nicolás.

Easing off my second trainer, I force my eyes to Nicolás's, the black of his so saturated with locked-in tears that the ink almost spills out of the iris.

'It died, so... Sorry. I should've let you know.'

'That's alright.'

He attempts a smile but his anxiety claws right into my chest. Nicolás finds the kitchen door with a backwards stumble that allows him to keep me in sight. He's afraid of me.

He thinks I'll hurt him if he blinks.

No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. He's worried about me, is all.

'There's food if you're hungry.'

'I already ate.'

'Yeah, I assumed.'

With the twitch of a smile, he melts through the kitchen doorway. Diwa's voice burrows out of my memory—"at least he tries to spend time with you".

'I could,' I interrupt when Nicolás's hand is already on the doorknob, 'have some... water.'

His focus snaps to me. For a fragment of time, my own paranoia is mirrored in his eyes. He wonders whether he's hallucinating. Then he lights up. He might bounce on his feet.

'Okay! I've got ice.'

I force myself to enter the kitchen and Nicolás shuts the door—to trap the heat, I know, but it traps me too.

(HURT! HURT! HURT!)

I sit while he runs the cold tap. Nicolás even cuts (sharp) a slice of lemon into the glass.

Offering it to me, he takes his seat and watches me so intently that my cheeks burn as I take a sip.

'What did you and Diwa do?' I reckon he's tryna take the piss for the whole "we're not mates" thing—which we aren't—but his voice is feeble.

'The usual,' I say though the thought of Diwa and I having any sort of usual is comical.

Nicolás hums, stumbling fingers rubbing his left wrist. He turns to the window with the obvious intent to drop the subject but he can't help it, the grey sky refuses to shackle his attention.

'You're dead skilled and I'm happy you're passionate about painting, but have you got to do it illegally?'

I scowl. 'How else would I do it?'