snapshot #15

Alecia stopped writing on the board, crouching down after feeling a small tug on her skirt. She brushed a stray black strand of hair away from the little girl’s face and patted her head. “What’s up, Raven?” 

“Why do you like the number five?” Raven asked timidly. “It’s just that you do stuff five times. Like just now, you patted my head five times.”

“Oh,” she chuckled nervously. How was she supposed to explain the obsessive-compulsive disorder to a six-year old? Alecia started tapping the wooden table. “I don’t like the number five, sweetie. It’s part of what’s making me sick.”

“Sick?” Raven cocked her head to the side. “How is doing things five times sick? My brother vomits when he’s sick. But my dog poops a lot when she’s sick – like me! So I don’t think you’re sick, Miss Travis. You don’t look sick.”

“Clarke! I need you to take over my shift for a while, thank you!” Alecia barely gave the blonde haired assistant time to respond before she ran out of the building. Everything she did, she did in fives. She always saw it as a disease, as something that would stop her from reaching her potential of becoming an actress.

Not anymore.

“Hello?”

“Tyler! Look, I just realized something – I’m not sick! This OCD is a gift, not a plague or something that will kill me. A kid made me realize that and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for yelling at you, for insulting you and for not believing you. I just–”

“Turn around.”

“Wha– turn around? What the hell for?” 

“Just do it.”

When a pair of lips molded against hers, she knew it was a gift, not a curse.