The Sitter's Sister

Chapter 23

Leigh-Anne woke up in bed feeling confused.

She gasped once she realized her state and then sat up.

Amanda was sitting at the edge of her bed while the doctor who had diagnosed her mental illnesses was standing close by.

Leigh felt her body shaking. "D-did I . . . dissociate? What caused it?"

"No sweetie. No. That's not what hap- wait don't you remember?" Amanda seemed concerned.

Leigh licked her lips and they felt dry. "I . . ." She remembered being with Jade and Perrie and then them leaving. After that she had felt as if she might explode and then Sairah had been carrying her off. She had been lying on a bed in the school's sick room until Amanda had come to pick her up and bring her home. "Yes I remember."

The doctor nodded. "Sairah says you'd been having a rough day. You were anxious to the point that you could barely speak to anyone in your class. It all took a toll on you at lunch when your friends left and you threw up and became faint."

Leigh listened to him. "Mmm . . . yeah."

"Did school feel too overwhelming for you Leigh-Anne?"

Leigh rubbed at her face. "There are a whole lot of kids my age and though they seem nice I just can't shake my poor experiences. They frighten me."

The doctor took notes. "So the main issue is that it feels as if the children around you may put you in danger?"

"Yeah . . ." Leigh-Anne wondered what time it was. She had a watch so she checked. It was almost six p.m. Sairah and the girls were most likely home by now.

"Okay. Do the children seem threatening to you?"

"N-no. They're okay. Nice even but I just . . . it's hard."

He nodded. "Was that what drove you over the edge? Your sister said you'd been fine when your friends were with you."

"Well . . . there's also the fact that I learned that all of my schoolmates as well as students of the sister school know about my dissociative amnesia." Leigh-Anne felt uneasy again. "Oh and throughout the day I kept thinking that the children had seen that video of me with my trousers down. No one mentioned it but it'd been on my mind and that made me uncomfortable."

"Wait what did you say about everyone knowing about your dissociative amnesia? How did they find out?" Sairah had not mentioned this to Amanda.

Leigh gulped. "A girl, the same one who took the video of me with my pants down, she apparently told everyone about it once she got the information from um . . . Jesy. The girl who yelled at me and touched me at that party."

Amanda was frowning. "That's private information."

"Jesy may have heard it from her mum. I don't know. My friend Perrie said she just told the other girl about it so the girl could know how important it was to leave me alone but the girl spread it around." Leigh-Anne said.

"Hmm . . . and that made you more anxious on top of everything?" When she nodded he tilted his head. "Why? Is it just the unease of having people know something private? Something you're still trying to understand yourself?"

"W-well there's that but also . . . I just don't trust the people at that school knowing that I have something like that because they're clearly still out to get me and if they know that I have something that can make me that vulnerable then they may use it to their advantage." Leigh knew that she sounded paranoid but this was what was on her mind. "They have a strange obsession with me and it scares me. I know what they're capable of. They raped my friend Jade at a party and recorded it with no remorse. If they know I can dissociate and not be aware or remember anything then they may jolly well trigger me and have their way." It all just came out.