Because We Are Bad Page 10

  “Oh shit,” she says. I look back at the road. There is no squished rabbit. Lucky rabbit.

  We are lucky too, because aside from being a bit shocked, neither of us is hurt, and the car is fine.

  “We went a bit fast there, didn’t we?” says Dr. Finch, with a nervous laugh that veers close to a sob.

  We sit for a few minutes, gathering ourselves, and then Dr. Finch decides that we’ve calmed down for long enough. She revs the engine and slams hard on the accelerator.

  After a few revs we are back on the road, but this time she remembers herself and only drives about thirty miles per hour over the limit. The trees and hedgerows still rush past in a slightly aggressive torrent, but now I can pick out little details like individual leaves and splashes of red berries.

  We drive for another half hour before she pulls over sharply, and the car jerks to a halt.

  “It’s here,” she says, half falling out the car door in her excitement and not bothering to shut it behind her.

  “But this is just a field.”

  “Come on!”

  She’s jumping over the barbed wire, lifting up her long, flowy skirt with one hand so it doesn’t snag, before breaking into a sprint.

  “Come on!”

  I climb over the wire and run after her.

  When I catch up with her, I’m panting hard, but Dr. Finch hasn’t broken a sweat. I throw myself facedown on the ground, breathing in its sweet grassy smell, trying to regulate my heart.

  “It’s here!” She’s grinning.

  “What?” I say, rolling onto my back under a huge oak tree whose canopy is filtering spotlights of sun. She lies down beside me.

  “Haven’t you worked it out?”

  I nod.

  “Well?”

  “It’s your tree.”

  “Yep. I liked it better than all the others; I picked it because it looked sturdy. I wanted to make a tree house, but I couldn’t work out how to do it. I used to live about a mile away. I could show you the house if you like.”

  “I’m okay here.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Why did you want to shoot people?”

  “I don’t know. I think they infuriated me.” She turns and looks at me, almost sternly. “Can you keep another secret?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  And then she gives me a hug,

  and all the while I

  am wondering whether she means it or

  if after she will climb up the tree

  and shoot me.

  Somewhere, a door opens. I open my eyes, and find I’m still at school.

  “Are you okay?” asks Ellie. “You need to wake up. It’s time for class.”

  I peek out from under the covers. “I’ll be there.”

  · 16 ·

  Those Who Love Me

  It is best not to think about the car journey that never was.

  Instead, I focus on the homework she set me for the week. Using the principle of graded exposure, I am trying to resist recording words, starting with those that occur around people I care about least.

  People I care about least are the ones I am never going to see again: passersby, train passengers, shop assistants, etc. I still record my actions around them, but the idea of not remembering everything isn’t as terrifying as when I know someone personally.

  After them come people I know a little: people in my school I’m not friends with, and most teachers.

  On the highest level are people I really care about: selected teachers, friends, and family.

  At the very top of this pyramid is Dr. Finch. It is critical to make sure my actions around her are perfect.

  Before She left, She said not to get too stressed about what I did around Dr. Finch. She told me She didn’t like her and that she didn’t matter. When I told Dr. Finch this, she said the reason my friend didn’t like her was because she threatened her existence.

  Now that my friend has gone, I am free to care about Dr. Finch as much as I want. She has replaced all my friends and stormed her way to the top of the letter charts. When I am with her, I want my actions to be so perfect, it is difficult to focus on what she is saying. I record everything.

  The problem is, I can’t tell her that.

  How strange, though, when the person you are seeing to help you deal with an issue becomes the issue.

  At our next session, I make it all the way up the stairs to her office, only generating one letter:

  “Sorry to keep you WAITING,” she says. “When did you get here?”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, “I only got here ten minutes ago.” But what if it was more like eleven or twelve minutes, and she checks with the receptionist and thinks I’m a liar?

  A single letter is very manageable. So I am proud of myself, ecstatic even, when:

  She opens the door and I approach the chair I usually sit on. I see there are two BLACK SPOTS on it. Perhaps she will only notice them after I leave and think that it is me who left them there?

  I sit down in the chair, and it squeaks. Does it sound as if I have done a FART?

  She asks me how I am, and a fleck of SPIT comes out when I say the S of “Sort of okay.” Does she notice? I realize I have been STARING AT MY LAP to avoid looking her in the eye. If I do that too much, she might think I’m coming on to her, but staring into my lap probably looks rude and obnoxious. So then I try not to be rude and attempt to look her in the eye.

  But as I do this, my gaze crosses the top of her V-NECK SWEATER. Will she think I am a pervert? Next my STOMACH makes a burbling noise, and the room is so quiet she definitely heard, which is disgusting in itself. I APOLOGIZE for the disgusting noise. She says “Stop apologizing for your stomach rumbling. It happens to everyone, it’s a normal thing that all bodies do.” Is she trying to tell me that I am annoying for apologizing? She changes the subject. She asks me to draw one of my routines on a piece of PAPER. I do so and give it to her. But what if I didn’t write down my routines, and instead I confessed to how much I love her, and she thinks I am weird and will never see me again?

  WAITING, BLACK SPOTS, FART, SPIT, STARING, V-NECK, STOMACH, APOLOGIZE, PAPER.

  WBFSSVSAP.

  WBFSSVSAP.

  WBFSSVSAP.

  I look at the clock. It hasn’t even been five minutes.

  “You seem distracted today,” says Dr. Finch. “I mean, you always seem a little far away, but today you’re even further than usual.”

  “Sorry. I really am sorry. My lists aren’t so good. Sorry.”

  “You apologize too much.”

  “I know. It used to be a huge problem. I once won a prize for apologizing. . . . It was very embarrassing.”

  “Can you think of someone who apologizes the right amount and try to emulate them?”

  “You,” I say. “You don’t apologize for no reason, but if you say something that’s unfair, then you do.”

  She shakes her head. “The thing is, you really don’t know me very well, so you can’t use me as your model.”

  Uh-oh, I think.

  I do not know a single thing about the person who knows me best.

  To love someone who is paid to be your friend is a terrible thing.

  I am saying this to her. She stares back, doesn’t say anything. Crosses and uncrosses her legs. Makes a note on her pad.

  “Help me,” I am saying, “please, please help me.”

  I am no longer in my chair. I am curled up on the floor. I crawl across and wrap my arms round her legs. Dr. Finch is very clever, and though when I first met her, I didn’t think she was beautiful, I do now.

  “I’m not going to let go, ever, I won’t. Please help me.”

  She chews her pen. “I’m trying to.”

  I fall asleep with my head on her lap while the clock ticks by an hour, and I wake up because she says quietly, “That’s all we’ve got time for now.”

  I realize I’ve been in my chair all along.

  Knock, knock. “Scarlett,” I say. “Scarlett?”


  “Ywhuh?”

  I push open her door. Scarlett is sitting up sleepily—a gritty outline in the dark, an animal seen on night cam. My eyes adjust. I see her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Sorry, I woke you up, didn’t I?”

  “Not really. I was just going to sleep. Turn the light on. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Do you want a hot squash?”

  “Mmm . . . No. I’ve just brushed my teeth. I’ll keep you company, though.”

  We traipse into the kitchen, and Scarlett plonks herself down at the table. I fill the kettle from the sink and flick it on, pulling a mug out of the cupboard and pouring three fingers’ worth of blackcurrant syrup into it.

  I sit on the plastic countertop, waiting for the water to boil. Scarlett knows about my routines now. So does Ellie. They don’t know everything, but I wanted them to understand, so I told them as much as I could. It’s funny, because Scarlett and I drifted apart over the last few years. We both focused on making new friends, on not seeming freakishly inseparable. But now that we’re in Austen together, it’s just like the old days.

  I thought Scarlett, scientifically wired, might laugh at the things I do, the way she did when we were younger and I told her about the prayer.

  But she didn’t. She listened carefully, without a trace of mirth. She wanted to know if there was anything she could do.

  “Thanks,” I say, pouring the steaming water in and reveling in the hot, fruity tang. “For coming and sitting with me.”

  “No problem,” she replies. “Do you feel like you’re getting better? Now you’re seeing the doctor?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think so. I like her a lot. She’s really clever, logical. Kind of like you, really. You remind me of her.”

  “But you’ve known me for years and years,” says Scarlett, making a funny face. “So surely she should remind you of me.”

  She’s got a point, actually. I must be careful not to seem too obsessed with Dr. Finch. I feel my fingertips tingle with embarrassment.

  We stay here for over an hour, talking about . . . I don’t even know what. When you’ve known someone since you were eight, your conversations work in galactic ways. One topic is just a stepping-stone to a thousand other possible discussions. You can hop from how to fix the whole world to your favorite funny videos on the Internet via socialism, your top five types of cheese, and homework in the space of five minutes.

  Thankfully, Scarlett is almost as nocturnal as me. So we sit like this, often long into the night, drinking hot squash and talking.

  Nights without my friend are more bearable with Scarlett by my side.

  I take my medication last thing before bed—an act of daily defiance toward my friend. I gulp them down guiltily. And not just because of what it does to her. Dad and Mum don’t like me being on these pills. “You have to think of Dr. Finch like a priest,” says Dad. “Medication is what her church, the psychiatric community, believes in, and so of course that is what she will preach. But that doesn’t make it true. It’s not necessarily right. I’m not convinced it’s helping you. And I’m very concerned about the long-term effects.”

  “It is helping me,” I squeak. But I can’t deny that I’ve read the little folded leaflets that are slipped inconspicuously among the pills. They sit there in the packet, not causing any immediate concern, until you unfold them.

  Dad goes on and on. He says I should do more sports, that endorphins and personal fitness are the answer. “You are thin,” he says, “but not fit.” I want to say,

  I was at my fittest when my OCD was at its worst.

  He says Dr. Finch is toxic and wants to turn me against him. I don’t know where he gets this idea from. I understand he had a phone call with her once. It did not go well. Dr. Finch told me she had spoken to him. Headstrong was the word she used.

  “There are specialists out there who would try to treat you without using medication,” he says. “I could arrange an appointment for you with one. What do you think?”

  No, I tell him, I only want to see Dr. Finch.

  “It seems to be very exclusive—this relationship between you and her. She’s not telling me and your mum anything about what’s going on.”

  That’s because, I should say, I’ve asked her not to go into the details with you and Mum. I’m over sixteen. She won’t tell you anything if I don’t say she can. And I don’t.

  At the moment my Bupa health-care plan is covering my treatment, but I don’t know what will happen when that runs out.

  Even though they are divorced, Mum agrees with Dad about the pills. She says she wishes I would give natural remedies and mindfulness a chance.

  Mindfulness is the fucking problem: my mind is too full.

  But I know my parents are being this way because they care. Because they want the best for me. Because they love me.

  I have thought about this. Dr. Finch thinks I should take the pills, but she will never love me. Mum and Dad don’t want me to take the pills, and they will always love me. It is most important to keep close the people who love you unreservedly.

  Therefore I will stop taking the pills.

  “Dr. Finch,” I say, “I want to come off my medication. It’s making my parents unhappy, and I can’t do that to them. And I’m not going to come back for a while.”

  She definitely has a response to this, but I can’t quite work out what. Everything is coming out of her mouth in a rush; her jaw creaks and drops several inches to make a cave, spouting a rapid waterfall, foaming and gushing down her chest before soaking her trousers. She is staring at me with hollow eyes, saying everything and nothing at once.

  But, I am thinking, she must be saying something. If I look closely, I can see that the cave is moving, annunciating, pronouncing, flashing between tunnels of teeth and tongue. Vowels and consonants and words are coming out. But what exactly? Everything she says seems silenced by the roar of falling water. At school I learned about sibilance. What is the intended effect of sibilance? This is something my English teacher once asked. I had to reply that I wasn’t sure. I knew exactly how it worked, but I didn’t know its point.

  I feel the same now. I am absolutely certain that she is producing real sentences. I understand the mechanics, but I cannot see the point she is making. I briefly conjure up an image of her head on top of a printing press, hammering away with print all over her teeth.

  What is the intended effect of sibilance?

  “Do you have a strategy,” I hear, coming across the haze, “if you are becoming more vulnerable to your routines while you’re not seeing me, are you going to—”

  And then on and on and more of that dreadful whooshing noise.

  “Dr. Finch, I don’t care. You’ve told me before.”

  She looks upset, but it’s true. I didn’t come here to be lectured. We’ve already been over everything I need to know. I came because I love her, because I want her to be my friend, and because she, the only acquaintance—is that the right word?—I have ever had who didn’t want to tell me all about their life, is also the only person I ever wanted to know all about.

  I end the session by saying I have to leave promptly, even though I have nowhere to go. (I worry about this lie all day, but it’s better than being there a minute longer.)

  “Okay,” she says, “are you sure you don’t want to go over anything else? Will you keep in contact while you are away? You know you can.”

  I close my eyes and think about what to say next. I can hear her crossing the room, and I know she is behind my chair. She bends down, putting her arms round my shoulders, and I feel her hair float against my cheek, tickling like fleeting rays of sun in January. I open my eyes. She’s sitting in her chair, looking at me over her papers, raising an eyebrow.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  We walk away from her office down the corridor, whose freshly painted smell I will surely drown in if the most important moments of your life really do flash past in your last living seconds.
She looks at me.

  “It feels like you’re not coming back ever,” she says softly.

  It is a thread of hope, and I cling to it. Is it possible that she is going to miss me?

  “Good-bye, then,” she says.

  I head out to my taxi. The driver stubs his cigarette out with an orthopedic-looking shoe, grunts, nods. “Bye,” I say, without looking back.

  There is going to have to be a grieving period. Without her, everything is dark. It is like her room in reverse.

  And how exactly do my eyes see people?

  She is everywhere. She is the backs of long skinny women who look willowy and slightly malnourished. She is the woman across the park sitting on the bench with her hair flying out behind her like telltales on sails. She is every person with fair hair, every person with blue-gray eyes, every person who is too hard-line liberal to wear makeup, and every person who has ever thrown me a sympathetic look. I cross streets to be closer to these people. I want to say something to them, but I have no idea what wouldn’t sound completely weird.

  This evening I see her face in the dips and swells of a cloud, so I climb up onto the roof of the house to be closer to it.

  Now I am lying in bed with a fever.

  How exactly did I get down from the roof? At the end of my bed I see a giant black Wellington boot, tapping up and down. There are words printed on hundreds of paper ribbons swirling out of it like steam from a cauldron. I try to catch them, and they dart back into the boot. They are so quick, they remind me of shoals of fish that appear composed until you try to touch them. I think they are teasing me. But I am resolute; I will catch one of them. I do catch one, but it disintegrates and ash falls through my sieving fingers back into the boot. But the words have been left behind and are hanging in the air, superimposed on the haze. They shimmer in black, fresh, wet print, and I read them.

  We are living in an age of copy and paste.

  Now that I have heard these words, I cannot forget them. I wish I hadn’t seen them. I lie down again, but the room is spinning and the words are there and they will not go. The phrase will not leave me alone.