Page 47 of My Heart to Find

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cara

IDON’T FEEL RIGHTas Mum and I travel back from the appointment, as we pick up Esme from the library, as Esme complains that we missed her story, as Mum tells her that we’re both sorry. But I can’t quite place what it iswrong—it’s more than that disastrous appointment—and even by the time I’m safely up in my room, having showered, I still don’t feel right. I just stare around my room. All I can tell is that I don’t feel right and this room doesn’t look right either. Nothing looks right. I frown and touch my head. My skin feels...different. Doesn’t it?

I take a deep breath.

Maybe I’m just tired.

Yep. I just need to rest.

My eyes fall on the medications on my desk. So many of them. I need to take my next dose of Doxycycline though.

I swallow the pills hastily, still feeling strange. Still feeling like none of this is real.

Just sleep, a voice says.

So, I lie on my bed, and I sleep. I sleep and sleep until Mum shouts up the stairs that I’ve got a visitor.

A visitor? I open my eyes, groggy. My sight isn’t quite right. I still feel strange.

At the bottom of the stairs, I come to an abrupt stop.

Damien is standing in my hallway.

I stare at him, half expecting him to just vanish before my eyes. Disappear—because he’s a figment of my imagination. He has to be.

But he doesn’t vanish.

If anything, he seems to get more real.

“Hi,” I say. My voice sounds scratchy.

“Cara,” he says, and just the way he says my name makes my legs weaken. Because he sounds the same as he did on the retreat, and those memories flood me.

Stop it,I tell myself. I ruined my chance with him. I can’t have him. He’s with Jana now anyway. Not me.

“How are you?” Damien asks.

How am I? I stare at him. My face is starting to sting. “Okay,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re ill.”

Ill. I hate that word. Like it’s the only thing that defines me now—and the problem is, that’s how it feels. It really does feel as if I’m only this illness now. It’s consumed me, and maybe somewhere inside me the old me is still here, but all I feel now is the Lyme. I feel that that’s the only thing that defines me. And, sure, Mum’s always saying that’s not true—and she’ll talk about my art and how I still like crime fiction. But even those things just seem bland now in comparison to the all-consuming force that is this disease.

And I didn’t want Damien to know about my illness. As if I could just pretend to be normal. My shoulders slacken.

“Jana told me a bit,” he says. “But I... I don’t understand?” He looks worried. “I had no idea you weren’t well, Cara. I mean, if this is too much, just tell me.” He gestures around my hallway.

“What?” I squint at him, confused.

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