Page 30 of My Heart to Find

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Cara

SOMETIMES I WONDERwhat it would’ve been like, if I’d just been Cara the Confident and called Damien three years ago. If I’d overcome my shyness and just picked up the damn phone, not leaving it two weeks before deciding to make a move, by which point I discovered I’d lost the book he’d written his number in. Maybe we’d have gone out several times, and maybe when the girls invited me on that camping holiday I’d have refused because Damien and I would’ve had plans. Maybe he’d have taken me on a romantic holiday or something. Paris or Rome. Maybe we’d have been eating dinner at a posh restaurant, so I’d never have been at the campsite. I’d never have been bitten by the tick. I’d never have caught Lyme disease. I’d never have developed encephalitis. My brain would be normal. Not inflamed. I wouldn’t have OCD. I’d be able to lie in Damien’s arms without a constant spiel in my head, without thinking about how to safely decontaminate myself, without feeling possessed by thoughts I know are irrational, but I have no control over.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Tears burn the corners of my eyes, and I’m angry. Angry at the life I could’ve had. How happy I could’ve been. The suffering I could’ve avoided.

I take a deep breath. No. I can’t think like that. All it does is upset me. I know that. I dream often enough about what my life could’ve been like.

Mum gets back into the car, and I’m trying not to cry, trying not to show her that there’s anything wrong.

It’s my own fault, I tell myself. I made Damien think I wasn’t interested.

But Jana... my best friend?

I swallow a gulp as silently as I can, grateful when Mum starts the drive home.

*

ISHOWER METICULOUSLY, going through all my rituals four times—once more than usual—before I turn the hot water off. I dry myself with my towel, careful to dry myself in the correct order, and then deposit the towel into the laundry basket. I have to use a fresh one for each shower. Can’t reuse, because I can almost see all the dead skin cells on a once-used towel. All the contamination. All the badness. Can’t get that all on my body again. I’ve only just got it off.

Mum leaves to go and pick Esme up from school, and the house is eerily silent. I’d planned to watch a film or draw or something, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I just lie on my bed. My head spins and spins and I feel sick. My joints are aching a lot too, and I’m just so tired. Too tired to even listen to more of my book. I just stare with bleary eyes at my bookcase—all my favorite crime novels are up there:Sharp Objectsby Gillian Flynn,The Other Womanby Sandie Jones,The Wife Between Usby Greer Hendricks, andBefore I Go to Sleepby S.J. Watson. Those have prime position on my shelf. Paperbacks and hardcovers that I now struggle to read. Listening to audio is much easier with Lyme now.

I blink, groggily. The books seem to move, dancing a little. I shake my head.

Sleep. I need to sleep.

But I dream of Damien, of course I do. I dream that we’re together, and I haven’t got OCD or Lyme, and that he’s not going on dates with Jana, and when I wake up, I am crying.

There’s tinkering sounds downstairs along with Esme’s voice. And another one. Esme’s friend.

My phone rings. It’s Jana.

I don’t want to answer it. Revulsion pulls through me. Jana and Damien. I feel sicker.

She’s my best friend. I let her leave a message. She doesn’t.

*

AN HOUR LATER, DAMIENreplies to my text.

Sure! Sounds great. I can’t do tomorrow but can meet the day after?

---