CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

64: DYING IS NOT THE SAME AS DEAD

            We continue to look through the pictures even when we're both raw from crying. Maybe we're too tired to reorient ourselves elsewhere or maybe we need it as a distraction.

Or maybe as salve. There are so many happy pictures, so many happy moments.

The silence that settles around us doesn't crave to be filled, less a stifling shroud and more a blanket that keeps us warm.

I lay down a photo of Nikki and Caleb dressed up as Sailor Jupiter and Professor Tomoe for Halloween in 2005, which I know only because it's written on the back.

'How've you... managed to be friends for so long?' I ask, focus still on the picture. 'It took me a few weeks to cock things up with Diwa.'

She's been trying to phone and text but I've ignored her. I shouldn't have got so angry with her. But now she knows I'm–

'Love,' Nikki answers. 'And a lot of work.'

He swivels in his chair. His gaze is warm on my cheek.

'Cece, it's not spoilt between you two. I'm sure she'd be happy to hear from you.'

I shake my head and fish for a new photo from the box. It's another Halloween costume. 2002 this time. They're dressed as Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc and look so dumb that the only reason I don't laugh is that I'm too tired.

I sigh. 'What's the point? Even if things don't work out with her crush, she'll get a girlfriend eventually. Everyone is always going to get a girlfriend eventually. And then I'll just be "some person they know".

'Everything is always about romance, romance always comes first, and I won't ever have that.' I shrug. 'Might as well get used to it.'

'It's not like that. Queer friendships are not like that. Things aren't in a hierarchy. People can love their friends and love their partners and I love their family. And...' Nikki shifts, as if there's summat prodding his insides and he needs to rearrange his bones '–it'll hurt sometimes. Sometimes it'll be a difficult adjustment. But it's not a competition.'

His stare continues to nudge until I relent and look at him. The yellow light of the kitchen lamp hangs like a sheer curtain around us. The rest of the world... isn't quite there.

'I mean, Caleb and I have nowt romantic between us but he really is my soulmate if I ever had one.'

I can't decide whether to roll my eyes or narrow them and I end up managing both though I couldn't say what it looks like to him. There's enough derision in my voice for him to get the message though.

'But I'll never be able to give her that, what you and Caleb have. It's too late for me.'

A smirk snags at the corner of his mouth. 'Cece, you're sixteen.'

'But you've been best friends since you were four!'

'Yeah, we have,' he agrees. 'But I made most of my friends after I were eighteen and they're wonderful and I love them very much. Caleb and I are always gonna have a special bond cause we've experienced so much together but it's not less. You've got so much life left to experience with your mates.'

Jaw clenched, I glare at the wall across from us. There are screws drilled into it. He had hung some of my childhood drawings there but I tore them down when I moved in...

'Friendships like me and Caleb take work, yeah?' Nikki continues. 'If we stopped being mates after our first argument, we would've stopped being mates within the first hour when I used up his favourite blue crayon even though there were fifty more of the exact same shade.'

He's not telling me off, he's not mocking me. He's genuinely trying to help which is all he ever does. Why did I let Beewolf convince me otherwise?

Nicolás is all love.

When he speaks, there's an undercurrent in his voice that reels my gaze to his. 'You don't trust people not to ostracise you, so you do it yourself.'

My mind goes into overdrive to hot glue together a passable protest. One after the next, they disintegrate, adhesive as robust as cotton candy on the tongue, until I'm forced to admit that there's no counterargument to make.

'How do I stop?'

'I'll let you know when I figure it out.'

The doorbell rings and Nikki gets up. It must be our takeaway delivery. He ordered from some Rastafari place on Withington Road owned by mates of his foster parents. They still give him a discount.

How does he know so many people? How is he not afraid?

Well, I suppose he just told me that he is. He's just braver than I am.

I gather the photos into neat stacks against the window sill to clear space for plates and glasses. Nikki chats with the delivery bloke for almost ten minutes. Probably flirting or summat equally disgusting. My stomach growls the moment he opens the kitchen door and I get the first whiff of food.

I practically pour the lentil stew and black rice into my mouth. Why does crying always make me so fucking hungry?

I even try the sus-looking yellow stuff Nikki tells me is ackee. Then immediately regret it.

'You'll warm up to it,' he laughs as he pulls the aluminium container to his side of the table.

We only slow down when the last few spoonfuls of rice and callaloo are left.

I fork the remnants around my plate. Suddenly, the same food I've eaten two servings of makes me want to gag. I have to tug my attention away from the sight.

'The way you're so affectionate...' I clear my throat and speak to the topmost photograph in the stack at the end of the table. 'I don't know how to do that. Maybe a hug here and there but... I can't give her that, I can't give anyone that.'

My heart constricts in my chest, sinewy and slimy. The ventricles suck blood in. Then they squeeze it back out through the pulmonary and aortic valves.

Like fish mouths, the valves bop open and smack shut. Lub dub. Lub dub.

Nikki's gaze caresses my cheek but I refuse to look. 'People express affection in different ways.'

I stare at the photo. In it, Nikki and Caleb wave down from a tree. The glare of the kitchen lamp is trapped in the picture, like a sun when the real one is caught behind the Manchester overcast.

'Yeah,' I say as I gather up the last grains of rice on my plate. 'You're right. I guess I should at least talk to her.'