I tap on Cece's door, then knock louder in case they've got their headphones clamped over their ears. There's no response to either, nor is there one when I call his name, so I push the door ajar—not enough to see inside but enough to get his attention from the movement—and ask again. 'Can I come in?'

There's shuffling, then a taut "fine".

I open the door properly just as Cece pulls their hoodie over a loose t-shirt. Their eyes scythe to me as soon as they emerge from the black fabric. 'What're ya doing here? Ain't you got work?'

'I decided to take the day off.'

I also decide to ignore their sneer as I move into their room. Their sketchbook is shut on the bed, several of the Promarkers I got them for their birthday littered on the duvet. 

'Thought we could hang out.'

I tuck my hands into my trouser pockets and sway on the spot, allowing my gaze to glide over the torn-out notebook pages of drawings they've taped to their walls, probably to cover up the sky-blue paint. When they first moved in, I did say we could repaint and get summat more into the room than a chest of drawers and a metal-framed bed but Cece only laughed. "D'you make a habit of decorating hotel rooms too?"

But... they don't feel that way anymore, do they?

My attention veers to the locks on the door. It didn't have any when they moved in but Cece fastened several bolts to keep it shut. A door chain. A latch guard. Silicone seals the gap underneath.

'We could go to TK Maxx or round the charity shops. You never did decorate.' I gesture at the sketches of hellhounds and red-striped wasps above their head. 'I'll let ya paint that stuff directly on the wall.'

Cece slots his eyes to mine only to ensure I face the full brunt of his disinterest before he drops to lie down on the bed. Their curls jut like barbed wire around their face, and for a second I'm pleased to see the length his hair has gained since summer, but the matting at the roots quickly extinguishes that excitement. Their face gaunt and feathered with that pale fuzz I noticed at Christmas. The wispy hairs must cover the rest of his body too–

Even after I spent another half hour crying in my car before coming inside, I have to wrestle back a sob when I realise I've not seen their arms since August. How did I not notice?

How the fuck did I not notice? The coffee, the nosebleeds, the way they turned down meal after meal.

This whole time, I've been talking about how much better he is doing now... Talking about how I'm better now, but I'm just as bad at this as ever. They've not been using blades or their lighter but this is just as bad. I should've noticed.

Fact: I shouldn't be trusted to take care of him. They shouldn't trust me. Fact: I'm a failure.

'You wanna watch telly?' I ask, grateful when my voice comes out steady. 'We can go to the cinema? Last time we went to the cinema, you were, like, eleven. You insisted we go see some Tinkerbell film.'

They mutter summat.

'What?'

'It's called Secret of the Wings,' they grind at the ceiling. 'Not "some Tinkerbell film".'

I stare, unable to tell if they're just taking the piss. When there's no grin or eye roll, I assume not. 'Right, sorry. So no cinema? I could braid your hair. Or we can cook summat. They're still selling discount gingerbread dough, we could decorate those. That's a new medium for ya: icing. I'll let ya make all the people dead and bloody. Eh?'

No response.

Summat's wrong—summat more than them being tired or winding me up for an easy laugh. For the past few years, it's seemed like Cece is nowt but a maze of dead ends. Don't matter where I turn, I hit a wall—not labyrinth hedges either, but a ten-foot-high structure of pure cement, and just when I manage to chisel a single crack, they're already speckling it with fresh mortar.

This ain't the balustrade of psychosis or paranoia or depression; the fortress they're withdrawing into is one they lock up consciously and consensually.

"Are you alright?" is already on my tongue when I nod at their sketchbook. 'What're you drawing?'

'Stuff.'

'Cece, can we talk?'

I expect a leer—"I thought that's what you were doing right now." But what I get instead is a regression to monotonicity. 'Nowt to talk about. I get it.'

They sit up, turning to me but the black of their eyes is swarming again. 'Your relationships no son de mi incumbencia,' he flings my words back to me. 'You don't have to ask me for permission to have a girlfriend.'

'What?' That's the last thing I expected him to say. 'It's not– Joe is not my girlfriend. It's just casual between us.'

'You've got her a fucking dish for her eyelashes. Don't look very casual to me.'

It's my turn to scowl. I feel increasingly like I'm back in primary school and the whole year has found out about the love note I slipped to Zhìwěi Lin.

'It's not about that.'

I scrape my temper back together and banish the jeers of "Nicolás is in loooove, Nicolás has a cruuuush" from my thoughts. Since he has no desk or chair, I sit on the carpet in front of him.

Cece senses the shift in energy; pulling their feet up on the bed, they wrap their arms around themself. The mask is hot glued over his face so quickly it's disorienting.

'I talked to Bobbi. She says you're not eating.'

'I'm eating just fine.'

Wringing my hands in my lap, I flex my abdomen as though that'll keep the faultline in my chest from deepening. 'I've not seen you eat for a while.'

'Just cause you're not there to watch, don't mean it don't happen.' Each word is sliced sharp and it's exactly that edge that reveals I've got under their skin. I never intended to get under any skin. But I can practically hear the ticking that counts down to their detonation.

Now or never, then.

'Cece, if there's summat wrong, you can talk to me about it. I want to support you. Please talk to me about it.'

'Don't worry about that. You manage to be perfectly annoying without knowing all the details.' Their eyes cut to the door. 'Go away.'

Reminder: I'm a failure.

            A dry throat draws me out of sleep. I'm fully immersed in the task of cleaning my fridge that keeps spawning full of rotten broccoli while I'm also conscious of my body lying in bed; the dream frays at the edges only to turn into ash with a single prod.

I'm more tired now than when I went for a nap and I feel around for my phone while my brain is still full of fog. I peer at the numbers for much longer than I should need to to decipher them. It's just past seven. The glass on my nightstand is empty though I have no memory of drinking it. I have no memory of going to sleep—I thought I were only gonna lie down a bit.

After drinking three glasses of water from the bathroom tap, I knock on Cece's door. No response. So he must still be out with Diwa.

No matter how much I grovelled, I couldn't get them to talk to me—or do owt with me—so taking the day off weren't worth much in the end. I did get the chance to pay off some of my sleep debt, which is evidently stacking up—with a hefty interest rate too.

My mind is still hazy when I get into the kitchen and I have to keep re-checking the measurements for the empanada dough. I make them with extra coriander the way Cece likes—maybe it'll entice him to eat even a little. By the time I have the last tray in the oven, it's half-eight. I check my phone but there's no response to the message I sent when I woke up. I call Cece. Unsurprisingly, it goes to voicemail.

I find Diwa's contact instead.

You: Hey. Sorry to bother. Cece's not answering their phone so just wanted to check how long you think yous will still be out for?

The message is marked as read within a second.

Diwa (Cece): They're not home yet?

Diwa (Cece): We had an argument. They left hours ago.

A moment, then:

Diwa (Cece): Do you think he's okay?

Despite the fact that my heart has just plummeted six feet underground, I text back that I'm sure he's alright and has probably just gone to paint somewhere.

But the vines strangle me.

I have access to their location in case of emergencies. We agreed it was for the best but we also agreed that I would use it only when there was reasonable justification to worry. I shouldn't... If I don't trust him, he's never going to trust himself. If I don't trust him, he's never going to trust himself. If I don't trust him–

The Find My Phone app loads Cece's location for a century before their blue dot appears partially overlapped with mine.

'Cece?' I shout and hold my breath to listen before I bound up the stairs and knock on their door, throwing it open without pause.

I collapse against it, tears blurring the neatly made bed out of focus. I stumble forward, mind drifting somewhere above the white incisors of waves crashing against my ribs where it's too distant to have proper control of my body. My hands and legs go numb. I jab at my eyes, drying them with my wrist but there's nowt in the room to see, not a single corner of tape left on the blue walls. Cece's phone lies on top of the chest of drawers, positioned too parallel with the edge to have been forgotten there.