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I wake up, groggy. My face is a bruised mess from last night, I knew they hated Duplicity but hadn't expected this. I look in the mirror, my brown hair hangs down bedraggled in front of my beat-up face obscuring my emerald green orbs. My smile, which fans once queued for, a fractured mosaic. My fingers would never play the alluring melodies of bach or the sweet undertones of moatsart. I love moatsart. But like my mother and father, moatsart was dead. A moment later and I might be dead too.
The door burst open and a boy who in another life I might have been friends with walked in. He is 5 foot 8 and looks younger than he is. My heart rate speeds up and not because of the beans on toast he is bringing me. If I was the beans on toast, I hope he would be the cheese. The torture was already working, if it wasn't for the drugs they had given me I would have never used a beans on toast metaphor. But Zayne is just my type, perhaps I could become British, if only for him. He places down the plate in front of me and offers me a nice glass of wot'ah I decline his offer I don't know what wot'ah is. He looks at me like I am stupid, pity in his brown orbs reminding me of my dead mother. He comes back a few seconds later with a glass of water.
"What is this?" He asks kindly, but I know it is a test. If only I knew the answer.
"Water?" I say tentatively. Alas, I am wrong, he slaps me. It hurts but his disapproval hurts more.
"Try again Harry." I don't know who Harry is so I stay silent, wrong again I suppose.
A few slaps later and I have learned my lesson, it is wot'ah. My mind still thinks of it as water but I don't want to disappoint Zayne so I try hard to change that. It is night now and I lie in bed, thinking of moatsart, my dead mother and wot'ah but mostly of Zayne, I wish it didn't but I am glad it does. If he is wot'ah I am living in a drought.
It has been a few days now, his slaps are more comfort than pain. I dare not tell him, for fear he would stop. I have learned how to use a kettle, and already feel my American heritage flying away like the proud eagle that I love (Because I am American). I am still not used to being called Harry, it is too British, Sebastian was so much more American. Most Americans are called Sebastian, like 50% or more. But I am not Sebastian anymore, and worry I will not be American also soon. When I have kids will they not call me pop, will they also ask for wot'ah in their tea, and queue, even on black Friday. It is for the youth I fear, I am already a lost cause. I am lost in the oceans that are Zayne's eyes. Yet he will still not tell me his surname. No idle chat, no small talk. All he ever says is "Well wouldya look at the weather." or "Rain again, ain't that just our luck." Even with his great lessons I still do not understand these Britbongers.
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Zayne is a plug socket, I am a toddler with a fork and there are no adults around.
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It has been a month now, I am already very British. I eat fish and chips, I love the Beatles, and I voted in parliament against trans rights. But the more British I become the more it seems there is to learn. I mean, how am I ever supposed to be fully British if I haven't colonised a single native population. Sure, back in the day it was easy, but now international law practically forbids it. So the best I am going to get is to order a drone strike, and what's even the point, I could have done that as an American. At least there is Zayne to congratulate me on my progress, in a manner that is so distinctly him. Most people wouldn't think that being knocked out was a form of congratulation, but then again most people don't know Zayne like I know him. They don't know the mole he has on one of his ribs, or that his blood type is B+.