OCD Love Story (32 page)

“You like the place?” Sylvia says with a big gesture to all of their things. She looks at herself in the mirror above my head, missing my gaze entirely. And there's more: a locket hanging down to her sternum I just know has a picture of her and Austin inside. Not just Austin alone. Never just Austin alone.

Sylvia is the kind of person who has to be in every picture. She's the kind of person who has a photograph of herself tucked into a locket engraved with her initials. And there it is, in her eyes: not fear of me following her around, not a reprimanding sternness or a warning tone. Instead, all over her face, is the thrill at being watched. The desire to see herself through my admiring eyes. The complicit agreement that she and Austin are definitely worth watching. It's on the tip of her tongue, and then it's out of her mouth, excitement poorly hidden.

“Why us? I mean. Is it just the music? It's a little freaky, honey, but a little awesome, too. I mean, it's like full circle, you know? Like, we loved musicians in a really hardcore way and they mattered to us and changed us and . . . it's cool, right? It's cool, you being here. It's cool you going to our therapist. I love that kind of thing. Fate.” The words are fine, but the thing underneath them, the tone or whatever, the energy, has the frenetic pace and fear factor of a tiny hummingbird's heartbeat. “Little weird that you pretended to live here, right? I mean, we both know that's a little strange. Cute-ish, though. I mean, don't feel bad.”

She's filling space with words. I pinch and pinch and pinch my thigh. There's a block of knives on the kitchen counter. I go over the relative pros and cons of asking her to please put them away. I don't really have a choice, though. Isn't it basic safety? I know they're rock stars and stuff, but it seems irresponsible. Maybe it's not a big deal to ask her to put them in a cabinet. Maybe she meant to put them away and forgot. Maybe she'll be grateful I reminded her.

“So? How's the tea?” she asks. I have not said a word.

“Oh! Great, thank you.”

“Seriously, don't feel weird. I mean, after Austin talked to you he explained
everything
. Being a teenager sucks. We get it.” These conversations I've been having with Austin and Sylvia keep being completely and absurdly disappointing. Profoundly. Because against all odds, in spite of all my
blustering belief about their awesomeness, they're lame. The kind of adults who think it's cool to be “down with” the teenagers, to acknowledge our feelings, to remember their days of acne and driver's permits and awkward losses of virginity, and they think they're doing us a service by being so accepting of our superobvious flaws.

Sylvia sips at her tea mug. It's clearly a discarded party favor from her wedding. It has a date and cheesy silver font:
AUSTIN AND SYLVIA: PUNKROCKLOVE
. Punk rock seems like something that has no place on wedding favors. It seems like the more aware you are of your own punk-rock-ness, the less it actually exists. They're making me so sad, so utterly let down I want to cry.

“So what brought you to Dr. Pat?” Sylvia says. It's fake-casual, like we're just girlfriends drinking Sylvia's special tea from our branded mugs. I've been doing such an excellent job at lying through my teeth, I think for a minute I'm going to be able to manage it here, too. I'll say something predictable about my horrible parents and my mean friends and the stress of trying to get into college with lame grades and a poor attitude.

But the truth has, of course, found its way from my brain into my mouth and I dig a fingernail into my thigh but with the thick jeans it's not really doing much of anything. The words are burning. If I don't say them something terrible will happen. I can't believe I even considered lying, knowing how
dire the consequences are, and now that I've lied a few times to Austin I basically need to make it better by saying even
more
truth. I don't want to. I know how she'll look at me after. But that's nothing compared to the ceiling falling in on us or the words burning a literal hole in my throat or the thousands and thousands of calamities that could possibly occur if I keep all the truth trapped inside me for even one second longer.

“OCD,” I say. Not with up-speak. Not like a question or an apology, which is a good way to say it when you don't want to freak someone out. “Anxiety at first. And then OCD. I'm in group therapy too. When I was younger, I saw a guy get stabbed with a broken bottle. Or, well, I mean I saw this guy I really liked stab a guy with a bottle. This guy Jeff? Anyway. I mean, that's what I've learned. I'd forgotten. But I remembered a few days ago. So. Yeah. OCD.”

Sylvia swallows and plays with her locket and then musters up a smile so full of effort I'm worried her Botox will somehow crack and I'll be faced with the actual lines of her real face. And neither of us is ready for
that
kind of honesty. Austin comes in just then. Sylvia must have called him, and I can't really blame her for wanting backup.

He's brought cupcakes, because that's what all the kids are eating these days.

“What do you think of the place?” he says with that same swinging arm Sylvia gestured with just a few minutes earlier. The cupcakes have silver frosting. I think that's their signature
color. They are without a doubt the kind of couple that would have a signature color.

I've never wanted to eat something silver and I'm not about to start now.

I'm pretty sure I'm never coming back here. I don't know what I'm really doing here in the first place. Whatever I thought I would get from being near them, being in their space, seems to not really exist.

“Really nice,” I say.

“So, Bea. Sylvia and I talked after the concert last night,” he says. They're both straddling the same few emotions I think. They like how into them I am. They can't help the thrill of fame and
mattering
and being an object of desire. I mean, look at Sylvia's pushed-up breasts and painted mouth and popping-blue eyes that seem almost neon because of all the dark eyeliner surrounding them. They've been noticed, and I don't think they can help liking that at least a little. “And I meant what I said, absolutely, about understanding being a fan and being a teenager and being in this totally awkward life moment.”

I wonder if they are practicing to have kids.

I wonder if I am convincing them
not
to have kids.

“You've been great,” I say. I'm not even really in this conversation. I mean, it's about me and all, but mostly it's Austin and Sylvia exchanging a really complicated set of glances and and trying hard to be cool and understanding. They're talking to each other, not me.

Like their bedroom, the mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors.

I'm in that funhouse with all the mirrors and Austin and Sylvia.

“And of course I'm the one that invited you to the concert, but after what happened with your friend . . . well. I think we're feeling a little less comfortable. I'll be honest, we figured you might stop by today. It seems like you're stopping by a lot. Too much. And we did ask Kevin to look out for you. He said he'd . . . seen you around?”

I nod. This is mortifying.

“And we also put a call in to Dr. Pat,” Austin concludes. “And we want this to be safe and calm for all of us. No police, no security. So. Dr. Pat's on her way.”

I keep completely misinterpreting the situations I get into with Austin and Sylvia. Which is weird since I'm working so, so hard to take it all in accurately.

“Huh?” is all I muster up. I cling to one little phrase in all he just said, because it lodges in my head and doesn't make sense. “What do you mean ‘what happened with my friend?' ” It's possible he means my fight with Beck, but that doesn't seem like such a big deal. Did Lisha get wasted and throw herself at Austin or something? Did Austin hear what I told Sylvia about Jeff and the bottle and the guard? My mind's working overtime to try to fit together pieces that aren't quite right.

“I hope you understand. I think you're such a great kid.
But this is our home and we do need to take care of ourselves, too.” Now Austin is talking like a therapist. And it's sort of like I've been framed, except I did it all to myself. And they're right, of course they're right, in their cozy Austin-and-Sylvia-themed home. They're right to have called her, they're right to be worried, they're right to see that I am not, and never was, just like them.

It's the worst kind of silent waiting that comes next.

Then Dr. Pat's at the door and she thanks Austin and Sylvia for calling and leads me to the couch in the lobby. Austin's and Sylvia's smiles change from painful to peaceful as soon as I've stepped from their apartment to the threshold of their home. Dr. Pat keeps a hand on my shoulder the whole elevator ride down to the lobby.

“They could have just called my mom,” I say. “Or the police. They didn't need to bring you over here.”

“You should have told me, Bea,” Dr. Pat says. For someone whose job it is to listen, she's plowing right over me. “I can't help you if you're not honest. Do you get that? There are a lot of people who would love to be getting the help you're getting. And I don't mind slipups; I expect them. But it's insulting for you to be spending all this time in group and in one-on-one therapy and to just be lying. How can I help you if you're lying all the time?” The doorman pretends to ignore us while we have some kind of impromptu session right here in Sylvia and Austin's lobby.

How many times can I be blacklisted as full-on insane at the same building?

“I just hadn't gotten to it yet,” I say in the weakest voice imaginable. “I'm really fucked up. I had a lot to talk to you about.” I'm pissed at Dr. Pat and I know that's not really fair, because I'm the one who keeps messing up. But she's on my turf now. All the little pieces of my life, all the little things I've been keeping separate and manageable . . . she's invading all of it: Beck, Austin and Sylvia, my car, my life, my past, the things I do just to keep myself sane.

She's a thief. That's the best word for the kind of person she is.

“Bea. You have a history of stalking. You knew this would be a priority to me and our work together.” She has never used the word “stalking” before. It's an ugly, ugly word.

“I didn't think—”

“You're a smart girl, Bea. We need to get more aggressive with your treatment. And I can't do that when you aren't actually telling me what you're doing. Use Beck as an example. See how that worked for him? He was honest, and that allowed us to really work through his problems and he's made leaps and bounds—”

“I don't want to talk about Beck.” There's this horrible edge in my voice that I don't recognize as my own, but I can't stamp it out. It's making me sound like some cliché of a surly teenager. “I get it. Beck's all better and I'm just getting worse. That
doesn't exactly help, you know?” I sigh. Not a little breathy sigh, a fully voiced
sigh
that includes crossed arms and a pout.

I hate myself.

There was a time when I could exercise some amount of control over the things I did and said. I mean, it was never my best skill, but it was there a little bit, once upon a time. Now the doorman, Kevin, is raising his eyebrows at me the way you do when a baby is throwing a tantrum on an airplane. An unspoken
hmph
on his face. I hate him too. I'm making a list now. Of people I hate. It's extensive.

“I'm all for you going at your own pace,” Dr. Pat says. She's wearing more makeup than usual, and there's cleavage showing in her black shirt, and there's a whole world of things I don't know about this woman. “We need to change your appointment times though.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Bea.”

And I stare her down for a few long, satisfying moments, but she wins out. She goes into her purse. And pulls out a notebook.

A pink leather notebook.

My
pink leather notebook. Shooting star embossed on the cover. The height of ugliness and humiliation.

Certain moments don't make sense.

“Austin said he found this. Do you have an explanation for this? Do you understand the ethical, even the legal . . . ?”
She can't even finish her sentence. I swallow and my fingers crawl toward my thigh and I want to dig in there so hard because I am going to either vanish or do something terrible to Dr. Pat, and it's the only way to stay in control of the rushing, terrible feelings.

There's a vase on the coffee table in front of us. I could break the glass and use a single sharp piece to hurt her, like Jeff.

But she grabs my hand before it makes its way to my thigh, and she holds it still.

“I have to do it!” I scream, and then there's more crying, the kind that makes my eyes sting and my insides feel all squeezed out and overworked. But Dr. Pat doesn't say anything, she just holds that hand still and I let my head drop into her lap and we stay like that until Kevin asks us to please leave because we have worn out our welcome.

Dr. Pat drives me home. I tell her I can do it myself but she says that's not an option. I try to put the notebook away in my purse, but she grabs it and puts it on the dashboard so it's watching us the whole drive back. Heavy and pointed and unavoidable. And no longer mine.

“You looked inside?” I say when we're off the highway and getting close to my house.

“Austin looked inside,” Dr. Pat says, which doesn't answer my question but definitely tells me all I really need to know. “You should feel lucky,
very
lucky that they are such kind people. Scared them, seeing this, reading their personal
conversations, their most private, vulnerable moments . . . you terrified them.” I wonder if this part is therapy or her showing her actual feelings. I'm the kind of dizzy I usually only get after a really serious wine-drinking night with Lish.