Jerrie Short Stories

Hiding in the shadows

Perrie had always craved the dark. It wasn't something that was a huge part of her but she still preferred darker spaces. Debbie noticed it from the time Perrie was a toddler observing how she always chose to make forts rather than obstacle courses in the front room, or how she'd wrap herself up under blankets including her head rather than watch the movie on family movie nights. Darker settings are what Perrie sought out.

The mother didn't let it concern her for a few years, putting this behaviour down to Perrie's fondness of sleep. With Perrie there had always been a concern, something more pressing that she worried about. For her entire childhood Perrie struggled with malnutrition and anaemia, two things which caused fatigue. The cause of this was her oesophageal atresia. Simply put, the child couldn't eat. Even after half a dozen surgeries to properly connect her oesophagus to her stomach she still couldn't eat without pain due to building scar tissue. More surgeries followed to tackle this, but then she started choking as food got stuck in her throat. Her oesophagus wasn't growing at the same rate as the rest of her and she required frequent procedures to stretch her oesophagus on and off for most of her school years.

Regular hospital appointments for blood tests and gastric motility studies took up more time but allowed her to receive supplemental nutrition through intravenous infusions and, when required, a nasogastric feeding tube. A quality of life was restored to the girl that she hadn't previously known she was missing. The ten year old was allowed to take part in light sports at school and run around with her friends at the park for short periods. She was happier than she had ever been but Debbie still found Perrie playing in her room with the curtains pulled during the day or covering her eyes with her hands in the car.

Eventually her concern led the trio back to her paediatrician, Jonnie being dragged along as usual because their father lived too far away to watch him for most of Perrie's medical appointments. This time however they ended up being referred to paediatric psychology after an optometrist declared that Perrie's eyes were fine. After a series of tests Debbie was shocked to learn her daughter has no sense of smell and is autistic.

All of Perrie's rituals and habits that Debbie had cast aside as innocent quirks suddenly made sense. She couldn't properly understand non-verbal communication and nuanced language which explained why she kept ending up surrounded by bullies and children who would take advantage of her. Perrie just wanted people to be happy so let her friends borrow items she owned, not realising that they had no intention of returning the items. She had a sensory processing disorder, being hypersensitive to bright lights and loud noises but hyposensitive to touch, as well as absolutely no sense of smell. It turns out Perrie had never smelt anything in her life but copied people when they sniffed, thinking it was another communicative gesture that she copied to fit in.

During secondary school Perrie learnt to mask her behaviours because it was the only way to fit in. She couldn't tell when people were being nice to her because they wanted something from her and she couldn't tell the difference between compliments and passive aggressive digs. The more normal she came across the easier it was to go unnoticed by people around her and protect herself from negative attention.

Music was always a form of escape for the blonde. When she was upset or overwhelmed, not able to understand most of her emotions so most things overwhelmed her more easily than they should, music always eased the tightness in her chest and let her mind shut off. When she was unable to run around or was confined to a hospital bed she could put on a pair of headphones and close her eyes, allowing the songs to take her away to places where she could be a normal child.

Never would she have the confidence to pursue music though. Stepping foot on a stage was enough to freak her out, but Jonnie had sent a video of her singing to the X Factor open auditions. When she was invited to audition in front of the judges Perrie had refused. Just the week before she had asked her mother for a new phone because the buttons on hers were faulty and she wanted one of the new touch screen iPhones. Debbie promised if she attended the audition and gave it her best shot then she would buy Perrie one of those phones.