'It's not RuPaul's H&M Lingerie Race,' Allan insists with uncharacteristic fervour, a McDonald's chip flattened between his fingers. 'Sex Siren's just a bunch of people in their underwear—and I'm all for walking around in your underwear, but you can't compare someone wearing a foot's worth of fabric to an outfit that took weeks, if not months, to make. You should know that: you sew all your outfits.'

Rishi is entirely unimpressed by this argument. 'Go on Project Runway then. This is a ball, mate. We have to see body so we can appreciate the vogue. Sex Siren always delivers. You've got no leg to stand on.'

'Oi!' Caleb interjects from the head of the table where he sits in his wheelchair.

Even Rishi's perpetual boredom cracks into a smile and Allan takes the opportunity to wedge in his closing line: 'If you don't like it, there's a ferry in the morning, love.'

The high from the House of Suarez ball survived the train ride from Liverpool and we still have the energy to gush over our favourite performances. A new House debuted: the Unlimited House of Krip, with all Deaf and hard-of-hearing members. They incorporated BSL into their voguing, summat that none of us have ever seen before.

Though our train got back at three am, we decided to grab summat to eat at the McDonalds on St Anne's Square along with, it turns out, every other person in Manchester. On the doorstep of November, it's too cold for people to happily eat outside. Meaning we're all squashed into a booth. Dunno about Joe opposite me but I'm near-painfully jammed into the window. Eilidh's shoulders need a whole bench to themselves.

Joe picks at her chips with a laugh forgotten on her face and summat swimming in her eyes. I nudge her foot. Though the McDonald's is so full I highly doubt it's within safety regulations, we enter our own world when she looks at me.

'You alright?' I mumble, so quiet I'm sure she has to read my lips.

Joe nods. 'It's just nice to have friends again... Do you want my chips?'

I understand not to push. Instead, I smile. 'I thought you were so hungry you could "eat three Christmas dinners".'

'Now I'm so full that I'll never eat again.' She slides the tray over my empty one and I start nibbling on her cold chips doused in seven sachets of black pepper. 'Um, actually, Nikki, I wanted to talk to you. I know that I've been so occupied with the whole sex thing but–'

My phone rings and, like Pavlov's dog, I sweat. The cacophony of McDonald's at three am drowns under the tone. Eilidh has already stood up by the time I've managed to wrestle my phone out of my pocket.

I glance at Joe. 'I'm sorry, I've gotta take this.'

'Oh, okay–'

'Hiya.'

I smile my gratitude to Eilidh and Rishi before beelining to the door. But even once the night winds its ivy around my ankles, I can't hear owt more than Cece's shivering breaths.

'You alright?'

I've left my coat inside. I wrap my free arm around myself in a meagre search for warmth as I pace the street. Every second Cece don't respond sprouts a new vine of dread in my spine.

Their confession is forced out through a throat that might be as tight as mine, suffocating on itself. 'I can't stop seeing myself dead. I tried drawing it but it won't go away.'

The vines cut off my airflow, spores itching at the back of my throat.

Do: Offer support. Do: Encourage them to seek help. Do: Tell them it gets better, but Don't: Invalidate. Don't: Act shocked, but Do: Express disagreement. Do: Allow them to express their feelings and thoughts openly. Do: Discuss suicide without judgment. Don't: Take it personally. Don't: Make it about you. Don't: Make it about you. Don't: Make it about you.

The Raoulia rubra, known as "vegetable sheep", has a sponge-like interior that allows it to survive in the harsh terrains of Aotearoa. Sometimes being soft is exactly what allows you to survive. But sometimes having a tough bark is more important. Don't: Make it about you.

'Where's Bobbi?' It's a miracle I manage to iron my voice into summat steady and sedate.

'Sleeping.'

'Can you–?'

'I don't wanna mither her.'

Sniffing rustles in the speaker, followed by a slick sound. I assume Esther is licking the tears from their cheeks. It's easy to imagine them crammed against the headboard, the reading light on and angled to the door. His sketchpad sloped off his lap, the paper torn from the force of their pen. They shiver from the cold and strangled sobs, afraid to look anywhere, afraid to blink. I'm just grateful Esther is in the image too, their free arm wrapped around her as she rests her chin on their shoulder.

'But it's her job, right? She wants to be bothered.' Wiping the tears from my cheeks and tearing enough vines from around my throat to keep my voice calm, I continue. 'If you die right now, that'll be a lot of work for her, won't it? I reckon she'd rather you wake her up for one night than make her do all that paperwork and cleaning. It's much less a mither, isn't it?'

Silence lasts and for a second I'm struck with the terror that Cece's left the phone on the bed to glide in the dark vignettes that aren't illuminated by his reading light. But then, 'Yeah.'

'Can you go wake her up?'

'Okay.' He sniffs. A creak of bedsprings. 'Don't hang up!'

'I won't.'

The ruffle of their duvet is followed by the rap of Esther's nails on the floor when she jumps down. The clicking follows dutifully beside Cece's silent footsteps. A few floorboards creak, a knock, a door opening. 'Bobbi?'

I keep the phone at my ear even when Cece sets his on the floor. I've no idea how long it's been when someone brushes my arm and I turn to face Rishi, holding out my jacket. My body has gone numb though I reckon it'd be equally fossilised if it were sunny and twenty-five degrees.

'I've got a uber for those of us going south,' he whispers, the others filing out of the McDonald's behind him. Rishi holds my phone to my ear for me so I can get my jacket on without missing owt.

His voice is soft in a way I rarely hear it. 'They'll be okay.'

I nod but just hearing it trawls a sob out of my throat.

Allan wraps me up in a hug which I'm grateful to sink into, though I'm too cold to reciprocate it. He waves and sends kisses as he walks backwards, northbound. Joe heads to her bus stop. And the rest of us wait for the uber.

Rishi asks the driver to turn off the radio. With his wheelchair folded into the boot, Caleb sits in the middle seat and holds my hand while I listen to Bobbi guide Cece through breathing exercises to stop them from hyperventilating.

We're crossing the canal when Cece's voice rasps through the speaker again. 'I'll try to sleep now.' There's rustling and the scatter of Esther's nails on the floor again. 'Please don't hang up.'

'I'm not going anywhere.'

They turn on their camera and I scramble to untangle my earphones so I can turn mine on too, though not before scrubbing tears from my cheeks. The glow of a nightlight peaches his features into summat more delicate than they are in reality, grants me the mercy of soothing the haunting in their eyes.

Cece lies down on his stomach and urges Esther to jump onto the bed before he picks their phone again. My face washes in and out of sight as the streetlights drag their glow over me but Cece never looks away.

'Can you wait for me to fall asleep before you hang up?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry.'

'I'm glad you phoned me,' I mend. 'I love you.'

They lean the phone against summat to keep it upright before they tuck their arms under themself, Esther snuggling into his side. They keep opening their eyes to check I'm still there but by the time the uber arrives outside my house, he's in deep sleep. I keep the call open until the sun climbs over my windowsill.

Notes

This chapter title is in reference to the novel The General and His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez.

Ball/Ballroom culture: A queer subculture founded by Black and Brown queer and trans people that emerged in New York. In a ball, people compete ('walk') in different categories and are scored from 1-10 by judges. Ballroom is a form of resistance, celebration, and escapism and is today considered a fundamental aspect of queer culture globally. I recommend watching the TV series Pose if ballroom is something you're curious to learn more about without watching documentaries.

Sex Siren: Sex Siren is one of the fundamental categories, usually split into MF (male figure) and FF (female figure)*, where you are judged on your sexiness. This originated as a way for trans women of colour, especially sex workers, to both reclaim and satirise their sexuality.

MF and FF are just that, about the figure a person is currently aspiring to emulate. It says nothing about their gender or sex. The division is simply made so that the judges are able to rate participants on their 'realness': how authentically they appear as whatever it is that they are attempting to appear as.

House: Essentially the teams that you compete in in a ball. Often the House founder is called the mother and the rest are her children. For many people, their Houses are also their found family, with their House name functioning as a chosen surname. (If you're familiar with drag, you've probably noticed they sometimes have the same surname, like Alexis Davenport and Mariah Davenport. That means that are in the same House, the House of Davenport.)

The Unlimited House of Krip: They are a real house of Deaf and Disabled people who actually debuted at the ball that was mentioned in this chapter. Here's a short documentary about them that I recommend watching, it's so cool!

https://youtu.be/UIK81fIFpVA

Raouliarubra: Cushion plant or vegetable sheep. 

Aotearoa: Māori name for New Zealand.