had chosen to stay boarded up in her room on Calypso's birthday.

It's not that Daisy wanted to ignore the girl. She had hugged Calypso the morning of and wished the newly-minted seven-year-old a happy birthday.

But Daisy and Calypso were very different in regards to attention.

Daisy hadn't wanted any sort of attention on her birthday back in October, merely accepting a last minute birthday cake with a couple candles slapped on. It was perfect, nobody there to look at Daisy and place all attention on her.

Calypso was a stark contrast. She wanted all the birthday attention. The glories of having a whole day to yourself, turning a year older, having a big cake. Calypso wanted a party, and she wanted all of her friends there with her.

Perhaps that was a big difference, too. Calypso was friends with the entire first grade. Maybe if Daisy had friends, she would've wanted a big birthday party too.

But the apartment was packed with far too many people, and Daisy knew if she took a single step into the hallway, she would have a nervous breakdown.

Too many people.

Daisy instead chose to stay in the safety of her bedroom, taking solace in the walls that muffled the talking and kept her safe. It was her own quiet solitude.

She flipped a page of the bulky hardcover in front of her. It wasn't a normal age-appropriate novel she'd find herself flipping through, but rather a book on the brain.

Daisy had met Caroline, and the biggest thing that stuck out to her was that the woman was a pediatric neurosurgeon. Maybe she knew what was wrong with Daisy, maybe she could dig around and fix her brain.

Though she wouldn't consent to doing unnecessary brain surgery on Daisy, Caroline did let the girl borrow some of her books, and Daisy liked her for that. Daisy liked that her problems weren't made a taboo of.

Dr. Sen had encouraged Daisy not to do so much research on her mental illness so as not to psych herself out. He probably wouldn't be happy to know that Daisy was currently chapters deep into a book titled Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Theory, Research, and Treatment.

It was so important to Daisy to figure out why she acted the way she did. Why did her brain hold her hostage? Why did she have the strangest impulses? Why couldn't she ever just take a second to breathe and feel okay?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorders involve repetitive behaviors that can be bizarre, disruptive, and eventually disabling. They can destroy lives and relationships.

Daisy frowned, reading the paragraph over again. It didn't sound too promising.

What exactly did a "disabling" disorder entail? What did that mean? Would Daisy's brain eventually just corner her, turning her into a nutcase as she was forced to repeat her behaviors over and over and over for years and years and years?

Daisy didn't like the thought. As a kid, there wasn't much Daisy was forced to oversee. Though she worried about a lot of things, she could pretty well just do her patterns while she let the adults handle the stressful things.

But Daisy couldn't possibly handle having to deal with these patterns all throughout adulthood. Adults have to do the heavy lifting. How would adult Daisy ever handle anything? How would she ever be able to do simple tasks like driving a car or cooking dinner without going into a nervous frenzy?

And what about working? Would Daisy ever really be able to get a real job? How would she explain to her employer that she couldn't carry out tasks because things needed to be rearranged, or she had to stop to flick the light switches a couple times?

Daisy couldn't handle it. She knew she wouldn't ever really be able to escape her mind, but she really hoped her brain would give her a break by the time she was an adult.

A light knock sounded on Daisy's bedroom door, the girl not even looking up as she flicked the page.

Callie entered, noticing the girl deep into a book, the cover hidden from her view. "What are you reading?"

"Just something for school." Daisy lied, not wanting to go into detail about the truth.

The truth was that Daisy was researching about her OCD to convince herself that she wasn't crazy since she felt crazy but upon reading about her "disabling" disorder, she sort of felt even crazier than when she had opened the cover page. Daisy had to have been crazy for feeling crazy after not wanting to feel crazy and opening up a book that basically told Daisy she was too crazy to even comprehend.

It was messy, and a whole lot of crazy to try to put into words and jam into an explanation.

"What book?"

"Uh...To Kill a Mockingbird." Daisy spoke off the top of her head. She had never read the book, she could only make an assumption of the plot based upon the title. "Super good. Super sad. All the birds are slaughtered so ruthlessly."

Callie raised her eyebrow at that, pulling the book from Daisy's grasp before the girl could protest, stealing a peek at the front cover.

"Are you reading about your OCD?" Callie questioned, not sounding impressed.

"Mhm. I'm conducting my own research." Daisy explained, gently taking the book back from Callie. "It's Caroline's, she let me borrow it to study everything."

"Caroline...thinks it's a good idea that you're reading all of this?"

"Yes. She does." Daisy spoke firmly, letting out a sigh. "I'm so tired of everybody thinking I have a screw loose."

"None of us think that, Daisy. And I don't think it's a bad thing to look into this stuff either. I just sort of...don't know if this is the right time." Callie pointed out, and Daisy knew the woman was right.

Daisy's state of mind had been particularly fragile for the past week and some. Her patterns had grown more frequent, her counting and tapping more panicked.

This fear of something happening was terrorizing Daisy. She didn't even like to leave the safety of her bedroom, if she could help it. The world was a scary, scary place, and Daisy had every intention of hiding from all the bad.

"I think it's the right time. I'm learning so much, it's educating me." Daisy tried to convince Callie. "Though...I feel like the treatment section could be written better. All it really talks about is counseling and medication, but I have both of those and my brain is just always uncontrollable anyway, so those aren't the automatic cures. I still think digging around in my brain would help things. I mean...I know lobotomies were a thing and they were a horrible thing, but I don't even think it would be a bad idea to let somebody scramble my brain around with an ice pick and give me a fresh start."

Callie gently took the book from Daisy again, Daisy's rambling spell having proved her point that she needed to give herself a break. "We're done with this for tonight."

Daisy frowned. "But I want to read."

"It's Calypso's birthday. And she's having a party, and they're gonna sing and cut cake, and she's gonna wonder where you are. Can you come out for cake at least?"

"You mean come out of my room? Like...into the living room? And the kitchen?" Daisy asked, as if the apartment outside of her four bedroom walls was some dangerous biohazard area. Callie nodded, and Daisy in return immediately shook her head. "No, I can't. Too many people, and germs too, and...it's not safe."

"Of course it's safe. It's your home. Nobody's going to hurt you in your own home." Callie pointed out.

"Not true. That happens all the time in those homicide cases. And a party too? Chances of murder hike way up in a group setting."

"You think a group of children at a seven-year-old's birthday party are secretly plotting to murder you?" Callie couldn't help the quiet laugh that escaped her lips.

It was a silly thought to Callie, but a very frightening one to Daisy.

"It could happen." Daisy defended her thoughts. "Something bad is going to happen. And I'm keeping safe because anything could happen at this point, anybody could be a secret murderer hiding a knife."

Callie let out a quiet sigh, knowing Daisy's mind was particularly wary lately of something bad happening. "Things are so scary, I know. And it would be so much easier if we could all wrap ourselves in bubble wrap before walking out the door. But...you can't live like that, Daisy. Bad things are always going to happen, and if you hide and wait for them to happen, you're always going to be miserable. You're gonna be okay."

Daisy's eyes were cloudy, making it evident to Callie that the girl hadn't heard a word of her speech. "Can I have my book back?"

Callie frowned, not sure how to respond, when a knock interrupted her thoughts.

"Do you guys want cake?" Caroline asked as she entered the room, a plate of the pink-frosted dessert in her hand. "I didn't really think store-bought sheet cake would be that appealing but this stuff is the real deal."

The woman shoved a forkful of cake into her mouth, muttering something partly inaudible that sounded something along the lines of "It's really good".

"They cut cake already?" Callie questioned, not even giving Caroline a second to respond as she turned to Daisy. "They cut cake already. Your sister just blew out her birthday candles, and you missed it."

"This sort of feels like a guilt trip." Daisy noted.

"It is a guilt trip. It's Caly's birthday, you should be out there with her!" Callie tried to emphasize her point, but Daisy wasn't really hearing it.

"Do you know how many more birthdays Calypso is gonna have? Next year, April 23rd will come, and then the next year, and then the next year, and it's never gonna stop coming. And birthday candles are stupid anyway. They're hard to blow out, and fire is a really dumb way to symbolize aging. I told her happy birthday already, and I'll tell her again tonight."

"That's not the point, though." Callie spoke, mentally agreeing with Daisy about the whole candle thing. "The point is you're missing these moments because you're hiding from them. Quit hiding."

Daisy liked hiding, though. If Callie tried hiding, Daisy was certain the woman would enjoy it too.

It was easy to just be away from everything, to not have to constantly worry about everyone. Daisy liked to be alone. Daisy loved Calypso, and she hoped her little sister had a really good birthday, but she liked hiding and being away from all the birthday party chaos.

"Can I have my book back?" Daisy repeated her question from earlier.

It was clear Daisy wasn't actually absorbing anything that Callie was saying, and Callie decided to just hand the book over.

"Your whole life is going to pass if you keep living like this, Daisy." Callie spoke quietly, placing the bulky book back into the girl's hands.

That made Daisy think a bit, actually, because she didn't want her whole life to pass by her. She wanted to be able to live happily and feel good and not constantly be tortured by her brain.

Callie had already begun to step out of Daisy's bedroom, but the girl could still hear her as she spoke. Callie repeatedly asked Caroline why she would give Daisy a book to read on OCD while the girl was in such a fragile state of mind, Caroline trying to defend herself through a mouthful of cake and a tangle of inaudible words.

Daisy thought back to Callie's speech. She wasn't trying to make the woman annoyed. She wasn't trying to avoid Calypso on her birthday. She wasn't trying to live a dull life.

She was trying to be safe. Safety was the most important thing in the world, avoiding whatever looming obstacles were ahead. Daisy wanted to be safe. She wanted to keep herself safe, she wanted to keep her torturous brain safe. Daisy didn't want to die.

Daisy decided that she was making the right choice by hiding away in her bedroom. Besides, by the time all of Calypso's first-grader friends cleared out, maybe there would be some leftover cake for Daisy.

The anxious girl opened up the book, finding her spot again as she began a new paragraph, a new tangle of words for her brain to tackle.

By the early nineteenth century, the condition was considered to be a variant of 'insanity'.

Though Daisy did sort of consider herself to be crazy, she wouldn't necessarily classify herself as insane. She didn't think this weird rut she was stuck in was a sign of insanity, this feeling she had about a looming negative wasn't something she considered insanity.

Maybe just...insightfulness.

That's what it was, Daisy decided. She knew something bad could be coming, and she was choosing to be aware. She was insightful, and she was protecting herself from any sort of scary possibility that could spring on her.

Daisy frowned as her hand skimmed the page of the book, and she felt dirty. Caroline was a doctor and therefore Daisy figured she had to be pretty sanitary as a result, but still. Daisy became aware of the fact that she had somebody else's book in her hands.

Caroline could've taken this book thousands of places. She could've taken it to the coffee shop, and put it on the gross counter, and then the book could've picked up millions of bacteria, and the bacteria would be all over Daisy's hands. And then Daisy would rub her eye, or fix her hair, or touch her doorknob on the way to get cake later and God there would be bacteria everywhere.

Daisy felt the gripping urge to go wash her hands immediately. She had always been a bit of a germaphobe, naturally. But during this weird period of being overly conscious of something bad happening, Daisy found herself washing her hands an unusual amount.

Because while Daisy was predicting that this "something bad" was something of gigantic and dramatic proportions, like a murder or something, maybe it would creep in like a silent killer via bacteria.

Daisy would feel nauseous first, and Mark would tell her it's a stomach bug. And then she'd feel clammy, and she'd tell Mark that it was something bigger because something bad was coming and it was probably the bacteria invading her body. Then she'd pass out, and she'd go to the hospital, and she'd develop an infection, and bam. Dead. All because Daisy had borrowed some stupid book to look into some stupid mental illness.

Daisy looked down at her hands, the skin red from the constant scrubbing and exposure to water. Despite the skin practically crying out to be left untouched, Daisy needed to go wash her hands.

But people were out there. And they could be knife-wielding people. Knife-wielding children.

But was a knife to the gut a worser fate than succumbing to illness?

Illness or murder? Illness or murder? Which would be a better way to go?

They'd both be painstakingly long, of course, lots of suffering to be had. But which was truly worse than the other?

Daisy decided she didn't want to be murdered. Besides a knife tearing into flesh being extremely painful, Daisy thought she would be fatally embarrassed if a mere six-year-old killed her.

Daisy apologized to her hands for not cleaning them due to her phobia of social interaction.

The girl wiped her hands against her legs, imagining that she was shedding millions and millions of harmful bacteria off of her hands and onto her jeans.

Except...now her jeans were dirty, weren't they?

Daisy groaned, not wanting to continue this endless roundabout with her thoughts. She decided she wouldn't touch the book anymore, finishing the rest of the page and doing some hands-free reading.

The next section was titled, OCD AND CLEANLINESS, and Daisy decided that was her cue to quit reading for the night. She didn't need a paragraph to keep reminding her that her hands remained dirty and unwashed while millions of bacteria bred and multiplied with each word she read.

Daisy tried to wipe her hands on the bed below her, making a mental note to wash her sheets later.

There was so much bacteria everywhere in the world, and it seriously freaked Daisy out. She was sick of all the little kids running around the apartment, spreading their own germs and preventing her from washing her hands as she desperately needed.

Perhaps this was it. Perhaps this was the big thing Daisy was anticipating. Death by bacteria.

"Quit it." Daisy spoke aloud, not speaking to anybody in particular. She was trying to talk to her brain, but then again Daisy and her brain were the same thing. That's all Daisy was. A brain in a mere body.

The thought made Daisy nervous, and the girl continued to try to wipe every little microbe off of her hands and onto her surroundings. She just wanted to be clean, it was freaking her out that she wasn't clean. It was freaking her out that she wasn't even a person. Daisy was a brain in a body. Daisy's brain was captain of the ship, and it would never stop terrorizing her body until it got what it wanted.