Because We Are Bad, OCD and a girl lost in thought by Lily Bailey

Author:Lily Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

I am sitting cross-legged on my bed, worrying I have hepatitis because I just scratched a mosquito bite and it’s started to bleed.

Six-year-old Sea, the youngest in the orphanage, bursts into my room. She is in her pajamas and clutching a blanket.

“Tonight sleep here,” she says, pointing to my bed.

I laugh nervously. Michael Jackson crashes into my thoughts; I cannot have children sleeping in my bed.

I can hear Pim talking to Fah in the courtyard.

“Pim!” I call. “Pim!”

He pokes his head round my door.

“Pee Antan?”

“Yeah, Pim, could you tell Sea that she isn’t allowed to sleep in my bed?”

“Why she no allowed sleep your bed?”

“Well, don’t you think that would be a bit, er, unprofessional?”

“Why you say this word ‘unprofessional’?”

“Could you just tell her she’s not allowed?”

“Why she no allowed?”

Oh Jesus.

“I just, um . . . In England . . . um . . .”

Pim looks at me expectantly. Is he really that innocent?

“I no see problem.” He shrugs and wanders off.

And that’s how I end up trying to go to sleep with a six-year-old curled up round me, playing with my hair and whispering “Pee Antan?” in my ear every two seconds. I am trying to stay calm, but I worry this is all some sort of sick test.

What if OCD doesn’t exist? What if after I told Dr. Finch that I obsessively fear that people might think I’m a pervert, she actually reported me to the police? Imagine if all this—the showers, kids holding my hands, Sea getting into my bed—is a test and I am being filmed and the evidence will be used in court when I get home.

But how could it be a setup, when I decided to come here of my own accord?

Unless I was brainwashed?

I lie awake for hours, and before I know it, Sea is tickling my feet, calling for “brek brek.”

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