Her sleeves are pulled down over her skinny wrists and her black eyeliner is more pronounced than ever. ‘It’s you,’ I say. Stupid. Of course it’s her. It couldn’t really be anyone else, not with that foul mouth, blonde hair and grumpy expression. Caro gets up. She sits on the edge of my bed and looks down at her narrow fingers with their diamond-studded black nails and then into my hot, plump, red-cheeked face. I’m wary of her, remembering what I saw earlier. I need to wash my hands and face, but I don’t want to do my rituals in front of this girl. ‘So, OCD,’ she says, ‘why didn’t you tell the Doc what you saw me doing?’ I shrug. ‘Not my business,’ I say. ‘All I want to do is get out of this place.’ The girl laughs, a husky sound that turns into a smoker’s cough. ‘Yeah, right,’ she says. ‘Everyone says that. Nobody thinks that they’ve got anything wrong at all. Blah blah blah.’ I draw myself up until I am sitting, straight, rigid. ‘I’m quite happy,’ I say.
