don't look up — • mateo, day 2.

I learnt climbing from a young age.

At first it was because I loved to scale the large oak trees that would grow near our house, my hands full of splinters every evening, but it quickly became a valuable skill in most of the odd jobs I would pick up: spying on cheating spouses and the delivery of enclosed parcels to others’ windows, to name a few.

The training center has numerous handholds and lovely, solid steel trusses that hold up the ceiling like ribs forged of iron. It takes only a few minutes for me to have climbed considerably high up, taking on a vantage point as I perch on the edge of one truss, looking down at Roe and Vin with my one hand grasped around Alfer.

That’s what I named the knife. Alfer after, well, Alfer, my brother. I give it a spin and keep my eyes trained on the two silently moving down below, tracking their moves, trailing their steps.

Height offers perspective and perspective brings safety.

I can’t let another mannequin situation spring up again, so I watch and survey the land, pleased to see it clear of any threats all until something else moves into my periphery.

My knuckles turn to white around the handle of my knife. Two new shapes. I hunker down, making myself become nothing but a blot of shadow overhead, a spiderboy in his own twisted little cobweb.

Voices pipe up, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet.

Whoever is speaking, they have a singsong quality to their tone, and it’d even be melodious if they could stop yammering on for a moment. “Arlo,” I catch them say. Then, “Oh. Ew. They're hooking up.”

I scrunch up my nose unbidden. And yet I don’t make a sound. I keep Alfer close by, all as my eyes now affixed themselves to the back of the new boy’s head, memorizing it as a target just in case.

And throughout it all, a small thought at the back of my own head keeps repeating itself over and over again:

Roe and Vin? Roe and Vin? Roe and Vin?