CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

67: WHAT YOU GET

            Wedging my skateboard between my thighs, I throw three different bags of crisps into the shopping basket. They're not on the list Nikki texted me, but I reckon if I'm the one going to the shop, I'm allowed to buy what I want.

Some electric pop song about passing out in the club drags along the Tesco industrial ceiling. Two kids are having a fervent debate about which chocolate bars to buy with their fiver. Someone's baby is crying. The refrigerator for energy drinks squeals each time it's opened, then slaps shut.

And somehow... I'm not filled with a primal rage that can only be suppressed with hardcore punk.

I drag my feet to the till, the puddle-wet legs of my trousers mopping up the day's grime from the shop floor. I've already heaved my basket onto the counter before I look up.

'What are you doing here?'

Sakda's will to live visibly drains from his eyes. His cleaved inhale tells me to take a wild guess—which is fair enough cause he is wearing an employee t-shirt and standing behind the cashier so I doubt he's just mooching about.

He scans the bags of crisps from the top of my basket with about equal enthusiasm to someone being forced to read every word of the terms and conditions. 'I'm working here til my case worker can get me to a new school.'

Right... O'Dorcey broached the subject but Nikki shut it down. If they've talked about my future, they've not included me in the conversation, and though paranoia pinches the back of my neck at the possibility of them conspiring to lock me in somewhere dark, I'm mostly relieved to be freed of those negotiations.

I throw things into a NutriLents-branded reusable shopping bag in the order that Sakda scans them though I know the sight would have Nikki clamping both hands over his mouth like the monkey emoji to keep from commenting on it. He's all "rectangular things at the bottom" etcetera whatever.

I don't endorse segregation.

'D'you need owt else?' Sakda asks, no resemblance of customer service voice anywhere within a sixty-mile radius.

'I'll get a Mayfair baccy,' I try.

'Did you spontaneously age two years?'

'C'mon, no one's gonna know.'

Sakda is so bored that he don't even look like he'd bother strangling me if we were in a less visible area. He checks the time, sighs, and shifts his focus back to me.

'I'd have to see ID.'

'First of all, you're not allowed to ask me that. It's a breach of my civil rights.' When Sakda's expression somehow manages to become more disinterested, I change my rhetoric. 'Second, customer is always right.'

A reaction! Not a good one, though. His eyes narrow, his voice gaining a chafe. 'You lot know fuck all. I'm the one that works here.'

            I exit the Tesco without any tobacco, not that I expected Sakda to sell it to me. Maybe I should try to quit anyway.

Since Nikki gave me my first hand-me-down smartphone, I've stepped into the world without music blasting in my ears so rarely that today, when I've for some reason decided not to play any, sounds catch me by surprise.

Like the splat of my trainers on the post-rain tarmac of the car park or the chafe of the loose fabric of my trousers with each step. Or the splash when cars zoom through puddles and the crash of trollies when a shopper returns theirs to the line.