CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

39: SWEET, SWEET FLAME

            Nicolás turns the engine off and plunges the car into silence. The weight of it seals me in place like wet cement. Even breathing becomes laborious as I stare at the road behind the windscreen. Nicolás stares too.

I want to say summat but the nerves that connect my mouth to my brain are severed and words crash into my teeth in a pile-up collision. A few stray letters roll all the way to my tonsils. There's no hope of extracting syllables from each other into comprehensible speech.

Nicolás lifts a hand and I flinch. He lays it back into his lap where he starts to twist his many gold rings around his fingers, gathering up the courage to try again.

'You don't have to go today if you don't want to,' he eventually whispers.

'I'm fine.'

I doubt I can hold a pencil. The burns have swollen into fluid-filled pustules that stiffen my hands too much to retain refined motor skills even if pain didn't flash through my entire palm at the slightest touch.

But if I don't go to school, I'll be home alone with no distractions from Beewolf and that's no better.

Fidgeting with his rings, Nicolás trembles toward the path cut off with "DO NOT ENTER" and "DANGER" signs. 'Maybe we can see a doctor–'

'No,' I press. 'No doctors.'

Though every muscle in his body is taut, he trudges on. 'They could help.'

Help? Beewolf scoffs before I can consider it. Help? Don't you remember what happened last time?

Last time Nicolás had to take me to A&E, the doctors wanted to keep me after they had stitched me up. For surveillance. The only reason they didn't section me was that they were out of beds and Nicolás would've had to drive me to a different hospital which I managed to threaten him out of.

Doctors won't help. They'll lock me in and watch. And watch and watch and watch. They'll find out that I'm evil and insane and possessed. They'll never let me out. They'll force me to take poison. Poison every day.

'No doctors,' I say and open the door.

Nicolás undoes his seatbelt before I've got more than one foot out of the car. 'I'll walk with ya.'

I (watching) expect anger to spark and so does he. But (he's watching he's watching he's watching) it don't come. So I nod.

The school front were too congested and Nicolás parked a block away. It's not like the walk is long but as I watch my feet and count my steps in threes, the street somehow goes on and on and on.

I watch the shoes of people (watching watching watching) in the smoking hall flicker behind the fence as we pass it. Dread is a leaking tap that bleeds more into me with every step. Diwa's words echo in my mind—"you don't have to hate school".

Would I be capable of going to a school and not being afraid? Though I know that I'm the problem—I've been to plenty of schools and only gotten worse with each one, I'm too tired to stop my mind from toying with the idea.

'What would you say,' I start as we turn the corner, 'if I, like, as a joke, said I were gonna apply to art college?'

Nicolás is shocked into silence for a step. But then he answers with perfect confidence. 'In this hypothetical situation, I'd probably say "that sounds like a mint idea".'

My gaze flicks to meet his. There's no trace of sarcasm or dishonesty in his face, though I study it intently, double and triple check.

'But art don't make money. That's all you care about.'