Page 19 of My Heart to Find

CHAPTER NINE

Cara

THE MORNING COMES AROUNDall too quickly.

I can’t do this.

I can’t. I feel sick—it’s one of those days. The kind with nausea that makes me dizzy, that makes bright lights drag across my vision. That makes me want to grab onto stuff, anything, to steady myself—even if I know my OCD won’t allow it.

I need to cancel. My Lyme disease is flaring, that much is obvious. Sure, it flares with emotional stress, but when I think of all I’ve done in the last few days—especially going to the club—it’s no wonder I’m sicker now. And I was due a flare-up anyway, wasn’t I? Plus, if I’m going to push myself, I have to live with the consequences. If I’m going to prove that I’mnot boring—and, really, I shouldn’t have to do that, anyway—I have to pay the price. And, anyway, Lyme’s nature is that you get good and bad days. It ebbs and flows. That’s part of the reason why it’s so hard—almost impossible—for me to plan ahead. This illness isn’t reliable.

Why was I thinking last night that a date with Damien wouldn’t be so bad? Why did I let my sleep-addled brain persuade me that I could just get it over with? That maybe I would be well enough?

I call Raymond again—I need him to talk me out of backing out—but he doesn’t answer. Of course not. He’ll be asleep.

Oh, God. Maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t go.

But then I think of the look he’ll give me next time we talk, when I tell him I didn’t go on the date and...

“You not feeling well?” Mum stares at me across the kitchen counter. “Cara, you look very pale.” She reaches behind her for the box of cereal.

“She’s nervous about herdate.” Esme practically sings the words, a highly gleeful look on her face.

“Date?” Mum turns back to me in an instant, quick as a flash of lightning. It’s a dark day, and the fluorescent strip of the kitchen light reflects off her glasses. “Who with?”

“Damien Noelle, of course,” Esme says. She says his name like it’s a secret that she’s letting Mum in on, her eyes all wide and buggy. “Weren’t you listening to all her moaning yesterday?Oh, I wonder if he still likes meandI wonder if he still likes true crime.” She makes her voice all low and husky.

“That is a truly horrendous impression of me.” I take a few more shaky steps into the kitchen. My knees ache, and my legs feel too weak, soft, insubstantial.

“And now you’re going on a date with him?” Mum sounds uncertain.

“I set it up,” Esme says gleefully. She digs a spoon into her Rice Krispies with gusto, so much so that milk sloshes over the sides of her bowl.

“Cara, are you well enough for this?” Mum asks. “With the OCD?” She looks doubtful.

I nod, don’t trust myself to speak. I grab an apple from the fruit bowl—though, really, we should call it an apple bowl as that’s the only type of fruit we ever keep in it. Everything else goes in the fridge—Mum’s always worried about fruit spoiling.

I take a bite of the apple and nearly break a tooth. Rock hard. I chew and chew but can’t seem to soften my mouthful. When I swallow it, it feels like nails scratching down my throat. My stomach turns.

Lyme makes eating hard. My stomach just feels too heavy most of the time, and then it’s hard to swallow. Food just seems to get caught in my throat, like all the words I struggle with.

It’ll be over soon, I tell myself. I look ahead—to a few hours’ time when I’m back here, when the date’s over, when I have showered and washed away every trace of contamination and unease, and can finally relax. I’ll watch a film or something in my room as I work on my cartoon—and maybe I won’t add Damien the Dashing to it at all, because that would just make it all the more painful. I’ll call Raymond and Jana too, after I’ve done some drawing for a while. And the date with Damien will be long over and I’ll feel so much better for it, knowing I can slip back into my current life, however boring it is.

As much as part of me wants Damien to be my boyfriend, to make up for what could’ve been all those years ago, the OCD has taken over now, and it’s trying to protect me. It always does. It knows my room is the safest place to me, and it keeps me there as much as possible, where there’s no danger. As much as I hate the OCD, I’m grateful for it as well. I’m more aware now; and I know, also, that that realization is the voice of the OCD, but sometimes it’s so difficult to separate it from myself.

“Where are you going?” Mum asks. “On this...date?” She says ‘date’ like it’s a foreign word that she’s having difficulty saying.

“Just walking around the park,” I say. I thought about it a lot last night, as I tossed and turned, where we would go. I can’t handle the woods. There are too many birds there that sit in branches, and too many leaves that could fall on me. The park—even though there could be dogwalkers there—is safer. If I have to choose between bird mess and dogs, I’ll pick dogs. Only just though.

“Don’t tire yourself out,” Mum says. “You’ve got that blood test later. And appointments next week.”

As if I can forget, huh. That’s all my life has seemed like for months—blood tests and appointments, preparing for them, processing them afterward whether they’ve been good or bad, and waiting for the next ones.

Mum makes small talk as I force down the rest of my apple, and Esme tells me disdainfully that I should’ve tried to make myself look prettier when I’m just about to head out of the door. I look down at my clothes. Wellies, jeans, and a purple hoody. I’m not taking a bag because if a dog jumps up at me, I can stick my clothes in the washing machine afterward, but my bags are all hand wash only. Whenever I’ve needed to wash them before, I’ve really struggled. It felt like I could never get them clean enough in the sink, like the water itself was contaminated. I can only really trust the washing machine. So, it is safer not taking a bag. When I’m at the hospital or doctors, I put my things in a disposable carrier bag, but I thought that would look tacky today. On adate. A date with Damien—and of course I really like him still.

“You look fine, dear,” Mum says, opening the door for me.

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