Day 1 / 09:08
‘Small steps, Noah.’ Ms Turner’s voice is calm. ‘Small steps, one day at a time.’
Keep those defences up. You’re good at that, building high walls to keep danger out. She is a threat. Don’t let her in.
‘Small steps,’ Noah repeats and it’s permissible that 2 single-syllable words slip out, because inside his mouth he’s eating the other 8. Small steps, small steps, small steps, small steps.
He nods. Steps are what he does.
1. Steps.
2. Counting.
3. Adding.
4. Dividing.
5. Balancing.
And wobbling, trying not to let the walls come tumbling down, trying to keep the Dark from sidling in.
‘Fear doesn’t come from the outside, Noah. The enemy is inside you.’
She’s right. He’s heard this before. His fears are irrational, a monster isn’t waiting to tear his family apart; he can’t ward off evil; he doesn’t hold the power to keep his family safe. But ‘rational’ and ‘OCD’ do not belong in the same sentence.
And don’t forget, Noah. What if …?
The moment those words creep in, Noah’s breath quickens. What if he does hold the power?
He marshals his thoughts, forces them to make sense. No. He can’t ward off evil; he doesn’t hold the power to keep his family safe.
His mind sets out to sabotage him, each and every day. He knows this, even through the thick fog in his brain, when his dulled fingers are too tired to tap and he’s sitting, slowed and silent, staring at Ms Turner’s mouth and wishing he could arrange her words into sets of 5.
He can’t control his thoughts. No one can. But the problem is, if he doesn’t keep it all in order, in neat boxes, categorised and subcategorised, there’s no telling what might happen, who might get hurt.
He’s screwed. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, stuck in Greenhills, caught in a thick soup of new rules and new systems.
No matter how often he tells himself otherwise, every day he is away from home the barricades he built there get weaker.
Weaker than you can possibly know.
Noah’s thoughts are shadowed; his 5s are hovering, but he can’t reach them.
‘Now that you’re here and the stress of moving is done with, I’ll talk to Dr Lovelock about your medication, see when he thinks we should start to reduce it,’ Ms Turner is saying.
He looks at the clock on the wall. Only 10 more minutes, 600 seconds (5×12×10), and he can leave, head back to his new room and lie on his bed and tell his muggy brain that all is okay. Soon the fog will clear and Noah can concentrate on what he has to do to get out and get home. The Dark lifts a fraction. Ms Turner’s going to speak to Dr Lovelock. A good sign. And she’s finished virtually on time.
Noah stands to leave, but Ms Turner isn’t finished.
‘Before you go,’ she says. Noah tenses. All he had to get through was 6 more seconds, but she’s saved a bombshell for the very end, just as he was feeling calmer. Not better, but definitely calmer. And now she’s running over time.
This Turner woman? She has no clue, does she?
Noah might as well give up. He’s never going to keep things in order if people like her are set on disrupting his schedule. He wants to glance at the clock on the wall, look at the time on his watch, but he doesn’t. He can’t give too much away. She’s learnt enough already.
Her words are breaking through. ‘I’ll be seeing you every other day, Noah …’ and he wonders why she’s wasting time, telling him what he already knows, ‘… and of course there’ll be plenty of group sessions where we are hoping you’ll share.’
Share?
Noah struggles to get her words in order. Maybe then they’ll make sense. ‘The best place to start,’ Ms Turner says, ‘is with your “5 Things” sheets. Have you filled one in yet?’
He has, but there’s no way he’s getting into that now, not with precious seconds ticking away, stolen from the next block on his timetable. Noah can’t even remember where he’s supposed to be next, but he’s not going to stop and look at his notebook. So, no. No discussion about that, or anything else she might light on to make him later than he already is.
He shakes his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘No need.’ Ms Turner’s standing, finally. ‘It’s easier to work with what you’re happy to share. Fill one in for group, just in case. It might help, especially in the first few sessions, until you’re more relaxed.’
Share?
The Dark is gathering. If Noah opens his mouth, he will breathe it in.
Share?
‘Okay,’ Noah mumbles and ‘okay’ again, when Ms Turner says, ‘Just give it a go, Noah.’
That is the very last thing you will do.
It’s 20 steps down the corridor, 65 to the foyer where Sally-Anne sits, plump and perfumed behind the counter, waving a white hand. ‘Hi Noah, how are you today?’
But he can’t answer. He’s too busy turning words into alphabet soup, sprinkling it with lost commas and full stops and apostrophes. Shadows push past his stepping, past his tapping fingers and his touching-tapping walk.
They’ll always be here.
Those are the words Noah isn’t able to swallow as he lies on his bed and thinks about Ms Turner and her office and the circle of chairs he saw in the Rec Room ready for group.
‘5 Things About Me’ says the heading on the sheets, and there even 5 has lost the power to console and protect. Nothing can stop the Dark from spreading.
Things cannot continue like this. You have to find a way to resist.