OCD Love Story (23 page)

“Hang in there, Bea,” he says. I let him drive away first, so he doesn't see what kind of driver I am.

And for four hours afterward I'm an unwavering line of coolness and calm and I don't feel the need to do anything other than take notes on
The Great Gatsby
for English class and think about admiration and obsession and how Austin is every bit as flawed and beautiful and unattainable and incorrect as Gatsby is. When the teacher assigns a paper on the book, I'm almost excited to tackle the subject. I know exactly what to write about. I know exactly how to feel about Gatsby and Nick and the world we're never quite a part of, no matter how hard we try.

BY MY FIRST ENGLISH CLASS
the next day (yep, I take two English classes, prep school at its finest), I have written down the conversation with Austin no less than five times. I try to explain it all to Lisha again, but I keep losing details, and the mounting certainty that I'm not getting it quite right starts to press on my chest. Soon it feels like a whole Austin-size person is sitting on my chest, collapsing my rib cage, and I have to try again to write it down
just right.

Lisha shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, I think I've got the basics,” she says, and tries to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace.

It's funny how badly I want to tell Beck that I finally spoke to Austin, that I spoke to one of the patients I told him I listen in on, but he's starting to have too much information. If he tried hard he'd be able to connect the dots and make a constellation of my craziness and I can't have that. So I've ignored eight texts and eight missed calls and I know that will be it for a little while at least.

Lucky for me, we're just droning through advanced vocabulary today. I'm a vocab machine, so I don't need to use any extra parts of my brain.

“ ‘Ineptitude,' ” Ms. Peters says. She's giving each of us a word to define aloud, one by one. “ ‘Clemency.' ‘Mendacious.' ” That last one's me, lately: given to lying. “ ‘Flout.' ” Reject. Also totally relevant at this moment. “ ‘Venerate,' ” she says. I know that one too. To worship. I venerate Austin. It's like a fucking vocabulary test of my life right now. “ ‘Punctilious,' ” she says when she gets to me, and for the love of God, of course I know this one.

“Paying attention to small details,” I say, not able to stop the flush from rising in my cheeks.

I miss Beck, if it's possible to miss someone you've been actively avoiding all day long.

I sort of knew it would happen this way, that opening that little window of information about me would make things harder, not easier with Beck and me. That if I told him even one little thing about me, I'd want to tell him everything. It's not itching in my throat, I'm not tapping it out into a text message or melting down with the trapped words. It's not OCD that's making me want to share; not this time. It's the look of his face and the shape of his hands and the way we are when we kiss. It's that he told Dr. Pat he likes me.

I know what's going to happen: He'll ask me to tell him one more thing about myself and I'll have no choice but to
let it out in a blizzard of words and thoughts and feelings and crazy.

“ ‘Esoteric,' ” Ms. Peters says. “Can you use it in a sentence, Bea?”

“I'd like to remain esoteric, because being mysterious is best,” I say. There are giggles and Ms. Peters smirks and shrugs her shoulders.

“Sure,” she says. “Okay.”

Well. At least I'm going to kick some serious ass on our vocab quiz.

When Beck phones my cell during lunch period he calls me “babe” and says he's been listening to the Tryst album we both bought at Newbury Comics, and thinking about me.

“What the hell? Don't you guys do schoolwork? Or do Smith-Latin guys just sit around listening to their iPods?” I say, but he's not looking to tease.

“You know the song ‘Blue-Eyed Danger Lover'?” he asks. “I like that one. The title makes me laugh, but it also . . . I don't know. I love their lyrics. He's kinda Dylan-y right? And she sounds like some old-school jazz singer. Oh! And the song ‘Ask'? That's great too.”

I don't say much. Not because I'm not into the sweetness of his voice. Sometimes getting what I want gets me choked up, and I think I've always wanted to be spoken to in just this way, so I'm sort of swallowing back tears while eating a cheese sandwich in the cafeteria with Lisha. “Am I being way too
intense?” Beck asks. “I'm sorry. Maybe it's the drugs Dr. Pat's got me on. I usually play things a little cooler, I swear.”

“You're cute,” I say. Lisha rolls her eyes and leaves me alone at the table so that she can go get an order of french fries that she'll probably never eat. I'm off the phone by the time she's back; she nibbles at one single salty fry.

“Does he know you're, like, in love with another guy?” Lisha says. “Does he know you had a little Starbucks date yesterday with a rock star? I mean, save some men for the rest of us, lady.” This is the way we've always spoken to each other: verbal elbowing and big smiles. But today Lisha's eyes are in little slits and there's a new crease in her forehead. Her legs are crossed very tightly, her thighs and knees squeezing together. I bite into my cheese sandwich and try to laugh it off.

My biggest fear, bigger than cars or knives or going crazy, is that our friendship will change. But of course, the more I fear it, the more it comes true.

“I think you're confused about what
dating
is. And I told you. I'm not into Austin,” I say. We are straining to keep it light.

“Oh, I know. It's just your OCD.” Then lunch is over before Lisha even really has a minute to roll her eyes.

• • •

We finished discussing
The Great Gatsby
yesterday in my advanced literature class, so today we're reading the short
story “The Lottery” out loud, and I think it's going to be fine until I realize it's a story about stoning someone to death.

I have never before thought about the possibility of stoning someone to death. But now the thought exists and I know I'm going to do it someday because stones are
everywhere
and I can't possibly avoid them with the same reliability with which I can avoid sharp objects.

Crap. I do not want to be one of those people who can't leave the house.

I pinch my thigh as hard as I can. I cannot have a meltdown in the middle of class. It's not like I have some great reputation here but I have not yet been deemed a total lunatic. I'm okay looking. Popular girls compliment me on my accessories sometimes. I get the occasional party invite, so Lisha and I have the grudging acceptance of the prettier, richer, much more athletic girls. But at Greenough you can't get anywhere without being an athlete. And even the girls who hang out in the library loft have been giving me funny looks lately.

Like right now, for instance. Kim and Lacey are whispering about something in the back row and I think it's me.

Don't think about it,
I say to myself.
Forget about the stoning. Don't listen. Think about Beck's forearms.

I want that to be enough. I know for other girls it
is
enough. That falling for someone is enough to make even the worst, most gruesome thoughts bearable. I thought, when I
was kissing Beck the other day, that I would be able to return to the memory of his mouth on mine over and over and that just that thought would make me somehow magically normal.

I was wrong.

So I go back to what works: the pinch on my thigh and some serious note-taking. I list every household object that could potentially be used to kill someone. Then I list school utensils that should be kept locked away instead of out in the open for anyone to grab and attack with.

Sudden, very serious concern: How can I be a costume designer if I am afraid of scissors?

Saying I hate myself right now would be an understatement. Lisha has to poke me when class ends to remind me to get up. And maybe we're on edge with each other, but she is still a lighthouse for me, still something to give me hope in the midst of all the crap.

“You're sweaty, Bea,” she says, and pulls me into the bathroom where she hands me a bunch of cold, wet paper towels.

“Come on. We're skipping history class,” she says when we're done dabbing me off.

“Hm?”

“You can't make it through a short story about sacrifice and farming, you're certainly not going to get through a class about gas chambers and human suffering.”

“I'm fine.”

“Bea. You're not fooling me. You weren't taking notes
during class, you were drilling holes in paper. That's what it looks like when you go all hyperfocused and weird. It's not like you're hiding it well or something. Seriously. You think people don't notice that kind of thing?”

I hold my notebook closer to my body. She's not saying it to be mean, but it still hurts.

“Do you really think it's okay to have a bunch of unstable
kids
read about stoning their
parents
?” I say. I think if I emphasize the right words, Lisha will finally get it. That I'm not crazy for being vigilant. Maybe I'm just mature.

But Lish shakes her head and gives a laugh that is more an exhale than anything else.

“Bea,” she says. It's a tone of voice I'm getting used to. Part exasperation, part condescension. I miss the way it was just a few months earlier: me telling her what sex feels like and how to wear her hair and what fabulous thing I have been up to all evening. “You need to skip last period. I'm gonna go get ready for my recital. You go do what you need to do beforehand, okay? I really want you there.”

“I don't have to
do
anything. I'm totally fine,” I say, but we both hear the lie in it. She's going to rehearse for the world's most boring dance recital and I'm going to drive slowly to Austin's but make it back in time to hand her some roses and pretend she could actually be a Harvard-educated ballerina. (She won't be. If Lisha can be honest about my OCD, I can be honest about her future as a ballerina.)

Lisha drives off and I've gotta get out of the parking lot before a teacher catches me. The end of the school day is still an hour away but there's nothing safe to learn about in there. They're pushing violence down our throats like Columbine never happened, like it's Canada or something and schools are safe.

They're not.

I know if I get in my car, it will drive itself to Austin and Sylvia's place and I'll be able to breathe normally but I'll be right back at square one. Dr. Pat encourages us to find ways to resist compulsing when we can. “Challenge yourself,” is how she puts it. Like not performing the rituals that keep me and my friends and the strangers of the world alive is some kind of worthy goal instead of a death wish.

But I do what she says. I challenge myself.

New plan. I want to love something normal; I want to want something that other girls want. A cute guy with muscles and a kissable mouth and an interest in indie rock.

Smith-Latin's not far from here. And I wore my old-school hiking boots ironically over my dress-code-appropriate khaki pants, and I've got a very serious winter coat, so it's not a completely insane walk to be taking. If I text him first he could say no, so I just go for it. One foot in front of the other. I have to believe Dr. Pat would be proud.

I walk back roads and the being alone is bliss. I can pass boulder-size rocks or dangerously broken, splintered tree
branches and it doesn't matter because there's no one for me to hurt. I totally
get
Thoreau or Salinger or whatever famous writers shacked up in the woods for decades on end. Maybe they weren't hermits. Maybe they didn't hate people. Maybe they just were looking out for the rest of the world.

By the time I get to the Smith-Latin campus I've moved from chilly and windswept to full-on sweaty and hot.

I swear to God, someday I will hang out with Beck when I resemble a normal human being with glossy hair and clean hands (but not OCD clean), but I guess today isn't that day. I don't know where to find him so I do the only thing I can think of, which is staking out a couple of the bathrooms and hoping I'll catch him on his way in. The day must be almost over, so he's either in his last class or getting ready for sports, but either way he's not going anywhere until he's washed his hands.

• • •

Sudden terrifying/gratifying realization: I'm not stalking Beck because I have to; I'm stalking Beck because I want to be around him. There's no higher purpose. He is not some OCD creation. He's like Lisha—just a person I actually like.

• • •

I find him outside the bathroom right off the main hallway. He's suited up in Smith-Latin dress code: collared shirt and a tie and shoes without laces. His are so shiny they remind me of the shoe-polishing kit my dad used to keep in the kitchen
and use every day before work when he was still at a big corporation. I liked the early-morning ritual and the way the box got shifted around to become the foot stand, and then folded back on itself to become a box again.