My gaze returns to hers and I pull my hand away. 'Do you want me to leave?'

The sleep clears from her eyes. Joe wedges her elbow under herself to lift her torso from the bed just so she can ensure I feel the full weight of her shock—annoyance maybe. 'No, I don't want you to leave. It's freezing outside.'

'I just don't wanna assume–'

'I always want you to stay unless I specifically ask you to leave. How about that?' Joe raises her eyebrows, an uncharacteristically firm expression on her face, and I mostly nod because it catches me so off-guard.

Just as I start to relax into the bed, Joe interrupts me. 'Besides, we haven't done your thing.'

'My thing?'

'Yeah,' she shoves my shoulder to keep me awake. 'You have to practice talking about yourself.'

I whine. Turning onto my back, I wrap my arms over my face as if the neon sunset and string of stars on the ceiling have abruptly become as searing as those lights inside energy drink display fridges.

'Can we do it in the morning?' I'm so soothingly sore and sleepy. And ain't her fucking me enough of me receiving attention for a day?

Joe makes a very Caleb-like noise of scepticism. 'You have work in the morning—I'm not waking up for that.'

I smack my arms pin straight to my sides. 'What d'you want me to tell ya then?'

Joe sits up, finding a pillow from the floor to lean against. She takes off her harness as she comes up with a question, finding her orangutan to cuddle in her lap, tapping its fur. Finally, she asks, 'What's your worst fear?'

'What kinda fucking question is that after we've just had sex–?'

'Stop changing the subject, you muppet!'

Vines tug at the base of my skeleton as my euphoria drains into the towel. Of course I knew the answer before the question had time to land. Now, it's an anvil on my chest.

I massage my wrist as I move the words around my mouth, bitter like chunks of lemon peel. The acid makes my face screw up in a way that can't be remotely attractive but I can't smooth, nor can I get my voice any less raw.

'I got arrested once.'

The shift is instant. The orange light becomes, not an aphrodisiac, but an alert. The way it shaves depth from everything it illuminates turns to distressing, not helped by the fact that I'm not wearing my glasses. I suppose this is how Cece feels all the time, like they can't quite see things clearly enough to know whether they're a foot away or three, whether a shadow's solid or bottomless.

'I weren't even doing owt—like, I've done illegal things in my life, smoked loads of bud for one, so if I were caught then, at least it would make sense. But I weren't doing owt.'

Even as I spit each syllable out, the bitterness only gets worse. Until the vines of dread climb high enough in my spine that all I taste is blood.

'I just don't want our kid to go through that. They sure love testing their fucking luck, though. They're always testing their fucking luck and at some point, it's going to break. They don't... They can't not fight. Anyone tries to constrain him and he'll bite— police or not.'

The rest of my explanation plummets into the well in my stomach. I press my forearms over my eyes again, not that it masks my crying given the way my breath rattles.

I've seen Cece when they feel even a little cornered. He don't see owt but the threat and he'll crawl free with no thought for lung or ligament. Makes no difference if it's real. Makes no difference who he faces. There ain't a bone in their body that knows how to cooperate, how to comply. One stop and search and they'll be in prison for the next few months. And that's the best-case scenario.

Common assault of a police officer: six months to a year. Actual bodily harm of a police officer: five years. Grievous bodily harm of a police officer: that's anything up to a life sentence.

At least they don't, as far I'm aware, do graffiti anymore. But then I also thought he weren't stealing anymore when he nicked that key in the summer to break into that fucking spa. While high, too. And that's all tame for them. It is sheer favouritism from the cosmos that he hasn't been arrested already.

The humiliation of the search is bad enough. Then comes the laughter, the cut of the handcuffs, the taunting. Taking the scenic route just to watch me sweat. All to end it with "You fit the description. It's an honest mistake. I'm sure you understand." The description of aqueous. I'll always fit the description.

But if Simon Says "dance", you dance.

'I were so terrified I'd end up prison—they could always make summat up. I'd've never even got my GCSEs. And I know they're not all bad but how am I supposed to know which ones aren't?' I rub my cheeks dry. 'Cece experiencing that is the worst thing I could imagine.'

Joe shifts and I realise how rigid she's been even though I've talked slowly and with constant pauses. She might've been holding her breath for several minutes.

Now that I've finished, she reaches for my arm. 'Nicolás, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked that. I thought you'd say like flying or the ocean.'

The horrified remorse in her voice tugs at my lips.

I dare to uncover my face to see hers, lips flattened and lines knitted between her eyebrows. 'Are you afraid of the ocean?'

'Yes. A hundred per cent!' Her relief that I'm not cross with her might be why she's so theatrical with her response. 'It's enormous and full of creatures. Are you telling me you're not afraid of the ocean?'

'Dunno. I've only seen the sea from Liverpool and it weren't particularly scary there. But–' I cut over her as she starts to disagree '–the point is, you're from Saint Kitts.'

'Does that mean I'm not allowed to be afraid of the ocean?'

'But it's an island.'

'Britain's an island.'

Heat rises slowly under my cheeks until I cover my face again. Joe holds in her laugh but it tugs at her stomach so joyously that it vibrates through the bed. 'I've allowed a complete dimwit in my bed.'

I peek from the side of my bicep to watch the laughter cascade from her. She squints, the butterfly at the corner of her mouth glinting in the orange light. Seeds take root from my stomach to my fingertips.

I'm not in love with her. These are just sex chemicals. My brain is having some dopamine or oxytocin reaction to her presence because I'm horny and not because I'm in love with her. Because I'm not.

The string of hearts in my ribs disagrees. New leaves bud and unfurl even as I think it.

'Not my fault. You've fucked my brain to mush.'

Joe shakes her head at my weak defence.

She forces herself out of bed and yanks me up too so we can shower before sleeping. But as she guides me to the bathroom and runs the water, all I can think about is the ocean.

Mamá and Papá rarely spent time with us but after I'd just turned eleven, they took me and Cece to Ainsdale beach. It were a rainy day in late September and there weren't anyone there. The wind yanked waves out of the sea, dragging them halfway up the sand before they tore themselves free and receded into the depths.

It was the first time I'd seen the ocean.

All Cece wanted to do were to draw things into the sand and look for crabs. He scampered around the beach in my old wellies that were too big and my old jacket that were too tight over the bulky jumper stuffed under it. And for once, instead of sighing and rubbing his temples, Papá ran with them. They even managed to find a crab.

Meanwhile, Mamá taught me to identify the movement of the waves. We stood where they lapped at our feet and peered at the horizon hazy with rain. Mamá told me to revere it, reminded me that the ocean takes as much as it gives but it is the heart of this planet. When you listen, you can hear it beat.

Us Ticuna are from the jungle but most of all, we're from the river. And just as each vein returns to the heart, each river returns to the sea. No matter where we are in the world, we're always connected. Our duty is always to protect.

Did they know then that they were going to leave three months later?

Joe smiles as she lathers soap onto my skin. Water pearls in her lashes, her tooth gems returned to their purple and pink shine in the neutral light of the bathroom. She's so beautiful. She looks at me with so little armour. And I've still not told her.

How can I let her pour a drizzle of affection into me when she doesn't know there are holes poked to the bottom?

Notes

Stop and search: The act of a police officer searching someone if they suspect on 'reasonable grounds' that a person is carrying anything that has been or will be used to commit a crime (e.g. illicit drugs, weapons, stolen goods). Disproportionately targets young men racialised as Black or assumed to be Muslim.