OCD Love Story (16 page)

“Yeah. Eighty-eight minutes exactly.”

“Eighty-eight,” I repeat, emphasis on the
eight
. “Do you do that every day? Or sometimes can you just take, you know, an eight-minute shower?” I do not ask why eight. That's a question for group therapy, not for our second date.

Obviously, there aren't accidents or coincidences with OCD. Or at least, not many. Not with someone as under control as Beck. Every minute that passes for him is careful, purposeful.

“I tried to just do eight. But, um, I sort of lost track of time for a second. You're a distracting thought, you know?” He smiles sheepishly. Shirtless Beck is flirting with me.

The eighty-eight minute shower was weird, but
I'm
weird, right?

“I'm distracting?” I say. I wipe under my eyes in case errant tears have clung to my eyelashes.

“You are. But, I guess . . . I wasn't ready for that,” he says. “With you. All the . . . touching. I mean, it was great. You're great. But now I feel . . . ”

He wants to say
dirty
. He wants to say he feels dirty. He's too polite to let the word out, so we just stand in the space where the word isn't.

“Can you put your clothes on?” I say. “I don't want to have this talk when you're like a glistening half-naked Adonis in my living room, you know?”

“Right, sorry,” Beck says, but he doesn't laugh even though I think I meant to lighten the mood with that.

“I mean, you can also stay like that, but not if you want to break up with me. Not that we're together. You know what I mean. Don't freak out and then dump me when you're half-naked, okay?”

Beck does smile then. Dimples and all.

“Someday you're going to have to be the messed-up one, and I'm going to get to be the normal one, Bea” is his reply.

I'm exhausted and grinning and feeling myself vanish into something scary. I pinch my leg to shake myself out of it as much as possible. Feelings are like blankets, covering you up so you can't see clearly. Or like mazes you can too
easily get lost inside. I am terrified of getting lost.

“Clothes. Seriously,” I say.

“Will you drive me back to the gym?” he says. I laugh at the thought. He's taken a sedative, fought dehydration, taken the world's longest shower, and spent hours lost in a totally blissed-out make-out session. It's nearing midnight. A gym's not even in the realm of possibility.

But he's not laughing.

“I didn't finish my workout,” he says.

“Yeah. 'Cause you got ill. From working out.” I keep a smile on. I badly want to keep it light, to say good-bye to him at the door to his parents' house and know that we had a Good Time.

“Right. And now I'm fine.” Beck stomps to the bathroom with his gym bag and apparently there's a whole change of clothes in there. (For just this purpose? Just in case he gets some girl's sexy make-out germs all over him?)

“You should really rest. I'll drive you home. Or you could even stay here—my parents wouldn't mind if you slept in the guest room. Or we could drive around for a while if you want and you can decide later? But don't be a total idiot.” It's the last part, I'm sure, that makes him bristle the most. But the words tickled my throat too much so I spat them out.

So, okay, I'm not really making progress either.

“I'll just walk home,” Beck says. “Thanks, though.”

“Walk home? You don't live anywhere near here—” Beck
glares. Shakes his head. Blushes. Holy crap, that's a lot of feelings and reactions at once. “Oh,” I say. “You want to walk home. You don't want me—”

“I want the exercise,” Beck says. “I'm telling you that so you don't think I am trying to get away from you. I'd love for you to drive me to the gym. I'm not mad or upset or anything. And I could lie and say I want to be alone. I could do that so that you don't judge me or try to stop me from getting my workout. But I don't want you to feel that way—”

“Okay,” I say. Because he's said exactly the right thing. Because in my book that kind of sacrifice is full-on romance. That risk. Most of all, more than (or maybe just as much as) he wants to protect his ability to go to the gym, he wants to protect me.

I sort of hate how weak I am, and I definitely hate that I give in so easily.

I drive him there. To the gym. We pick up a gallon of water and I lecture him on what I googled earlier about dehydration and the health risks of excess exercise. But I let him go in there. I watch him relax at the
OPEN 24 HOURS
sign. He relaxes enough that before he gets out he gives me a kiss on the lips. Not a lingering, wandering marathon kiss like before, but lips held against lips and his hand on my neck and another kiss behind my ear.

“Thank you,” he says. He's beaming. I guess I am too.

A FEW DAYS OF CAUTIOUS
daydreaming about Beck and taking Latin quizzes and avoiding the dangerous science lab later, I'm officially desperate for a good dose of therapy.

Not for me, but for Sylvia and Austin.

It's Wednesday, so they have the appointment before mine. I get there at my usual superearly time and bring the notebook and three pens in case something happens and I lose one or one is faulty or running out of ink or something. I have to get enough from this session to last me another week, since I'm only seeing Dr. Pat for private sessions once a week now.

I'll let them walk in before getting out of my car. And I'll go to the bathroom when their hour with Dr. Pat is up. I'm not messing around, and if I'm going to do stuff like take cigarette breaks with Sylvia, I definitely have to watch myself. Good thing I have OCD, because that makes me totally anal enough to cover my tracks.

That's a little OCD humor. Dr. Pat encouraged all of us in group to find some lightness instead of only seeing the diagnosis as, like, the worst thing ever.

Austin and Sylvia are right on time. Separate cars pulling in at the same moment. I make a note of it. I wonder if their session will be even worse than usual, if their new means of arrival is a bad sign. She's in an SUV and he's in something that looks fancy. I'm not into cars, so I let those details slide. Besides, I don't exactly need their plate numbers or whatever. That would be stalkery.

Sylvia's got on the kind of boots that look like a rabbit died on their behalf. Like, yesterday. And Austin's rocking a leather jacket and a bright blue plaid scarf and a cold-weather flush to his cheeks. It's so many kinds of fabulous it almost distracts me from all the other things I need to record about them. I would photograph them for my Costume Ideas folder that I have in my desk at home like a total nerd, but I don't think I can get away with it.

I take what feels like my first full breath of the day upon seeing him. They don't hold hands, but he touches her shoulder and they smile just enough to make it seem like they're not totally doomed.

I tear my eyes away from them for just long enough to write down what they're wearing and what the look on his face was when he touched her shoulder (wistful meets desperate). I count to one hundred after they get inside, long
enough for the coast to be clear, and I let myself into the waiting room after peeking through the glass door.

From the outside this place looks like a totally cozy house, but there's a plaque on the side of the building that says
NEW BEGINNINGS THERAPY PRACTICES
and lists five other therapists. There's no doorman or bell to ring. There aren't even trashy magazines in the waiting room. Only one other girl is waiting for her appointment and she's so lost in her phone's screen that I doubt she notices I come in. So we wouldn't have to interact at all. Except she's in my chair. The only chair that lets me hear what I need to hear.

So I guess I could just give up on the little fix I'm wanting. I guess maybe a few months, or even weeks, ago that's what I would have done. But. If they are in there I
have
to listen. It's not a choice anymore and I don't know when exactly it stopped being a funny thing I chose to do and became a matter of life or death, but it's pretty far on that side of things now. If I don't listen in, Austin could basically drop dead. Or I could. Some people wear the same underwear for every baseball game or have little preperformance rituals like listening to a favorite song or jumping up and down seven times before stepping on stage. What I'm doing is the same thing. Except there's no game or performance, just my life and my desire to be able to deal with it.

I sit in a different chair for a minute. I tap my foot and strain to hear something coming through the walls.

There's nothing.

Something's probably wrong. With them, I mean. Something's happened in there. I mean, it's been like five minutes now and I haven't heard a single word. I pinch, pinch, pinch my leg and it's enough to make me focus, but not enough to stop the fast rise of anxiety.

I try to breathe through it. But that's useless because I'm about to drop dead and if not me, than one of them, and if not one of them, than maybe the whole world. So it's not worth thinking about how bat-shit crazy it all will sound to the girl sitting in my perfectly situated chair. Because when you're trying to save yourself or the world, there's not really anything else worth your time.

“That's my chair,” I say to the girl. She has headphones on, which I hadn't noticed, so there's no response. Which means I have to actually walk up to her and then stand there, hovering over her. I don't think I should touch her, just in case she's like, homicidal or something. The hovering works. My shadow must finally register on her radar, and she looks up to find me staring at her. I push my mouth into a little smile because I don't want her to actually think I'm insane, just serious. “Sorry,” I say when she pulls one of her earbuds out so that she can hear me. “I have to sit there. It's kind of important.” The girl looks to the room of empty chairs.

And that'd be enough to deter me under normal circumstances. But I am dripping in sweat by now. The little tremors
in my hands have turned to a full-body hum of shakes and shivers and the hum is mirrored in my actual brain. A white-noise sound puncturing my actual head.

So screw it. Seriously. It's not totally crazy to think something could happen to them. Superstition exists for a reason, right? And the things we do
matter
. Like that whole butterfly-effect thing. Every movement we make, even the movement of butterflies' wings, matters. That's what that theory is
about
. So yeah, this girl doesn't get why I'm doing what I'm doing, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. I clear my throat with more confidence and grip my right hand in my left to try to stop them both from shaking with anxiety.

“Yeah. Sorry. You have to move. Now.
Now.
” I try to say it like maybe I'm an actual authority figure, but from the look on her face I'm not pulling it off. It doesn't matter. She moves. Not just to a different chair but all the way across the room to a cheesily upholstered couch that's trying really hard to make this place look warm and homey. And I settle in to my chair. I'm in so much panic I can't determine if it's more important for me to open my notebook up or if it's more important to focus on the listening before attempting note-taking. I risk doing both at once.

My heart is racing so fervently I worry that it could short out. That it will keep speeding up to new levels until there's nowhere else for it to speed up to and it will burst. I pinch my thigh as hard as I possibly can and lean unabashedly against
the wall with my pen poised above the pages of my notebook. The girl is avoiding looking at me so she won't notice and besides, she's already written me off as a total lunatic.

Screw it. I just start scribbling. I don't care how it looks.

Austin: We don't have kids. We don't have to stick it out.

Sylvia: That's not exactly the vow you took. Those aren't the actual stipulations, you know.

Austin: Sometimes I look at you and just think . . . Where's my wife? Where's that woman I—

Sylvia: Right here. I'm right here. I can't compete with every little girl you—

Dr. Pat: Remember how we talked about not accusing Austin of liking “little girls.” We need to talk about that insecurity in some other way.

Austin: Men have things on their computers.

Sylvia: You think that makes it okay to—

Austin: I don't even know that woman.

Dr. Pat: I'm sorry, can we clarify? Are we talking about someone specific or about pornographic material in general . . . ?

There's a long pause where no one says anything. My body's cooled off, which leaves that horrible feeling of sweat gone stale all over. And my heart's slowed down and I'm
repulsed, kind of. But I also want to hear every word, to have the whole record of it right in my hands whenever I need it. So when the grumbling of voices starts again, quieter now, I close my eyes to hear it better.