OCD Love Story

by Corey Ann Haydu

  As long as I can keep myself from saying anything truly idiotic, maybe I’ll get out of group therapy after a few weeks.

  “Ah! Bea!” Dr. Pat says, effectively breaking the silence that inevitably follows someone new entering the scene. The room isn’t nearly as nice as her office, but her office would be too cramped for even a small group.

  “Hi, Dr. Pat.”

  “Come meet the group. This is Jenny, Rudy, Fawn, and Beck.”

  Beck. I’m shaking on the inside now, but the outside of me, the important part, is calm. I look immediately at Beck’s hands. They are cracked and dry. They are large and sure. I wouldn’t mind holding them again.

  It’s him. The same Beck from the dance. And from the jump in his shoulders he knows it’s me.

  I nod my head (no shaking hands or other physical contact—the rules were laid out to me very specifically by Dr. Pat). I repeat the names in my head because I hate the lost feeling of a forgotten name, especially of people I have to tell my deepest darkest secrets to. Jenny: no hair; Rudy: picks his face; Fawn: tapping fingers; Beck: good kisser. “Hi, guys,” I say, and they all nod and sputter in response and I mean, come on, I am so in the wrong group. I am wearing cashmere. I dated a football player. I’m just a little nervous and sad sometimes. I should be in a group of nice girls with tiny problems and pretty hair. Or, you know, any hair at all. Dr. Pat’s got her Don’t Worry Smile on and Beck is shaking his head a little, so I guess I’m not supposed to acknowledge that we met in the dark a week ago.

  I’m not big on astrology or fate or God or any of those kinds of things, but it’s just full-on weird to meet Beck again and in this context. I’d call it a coincidence and Lisha would probably say it’s destiny, but really it’s just probability and statistics, plain and simple. There aren’t that many therapists in the suburbs of Boston for kids with anxiety disorders, and the whole reason I approached Beck to begin with was because I recognized the fast-breathing sound of a panic attack. So. Here we are. Math at work. Amazing.

  “We left off last week with Jenny talking about how she feels when she looks in the mirror,” Dr. Pat says.

  Like shit, I’d imagine. Her head is a patchwork of bald spots.

  I nod too enthusiastically and smile at Jenny. “Have you ever considered just shaving it all off?” I can’t trap the words before they come out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I suffer from some sort of Tourette’s-autism hybrid, but Dr. Pat insists I can control the impulse to say whatever pops into my head. That it’s, like, a defensive mechanism, not a biological imperative. Therapists think everything is a defense mechanism. Just my thinking that in my head, right now, is a defense mechanism.

  Now they’re all looking at me. Fawn, Rudy, and Jenny have varying degrees of wide-eyed defensiveness. Beck is hiding his mouth and I can’t tell for sure, but I think maybe he is stifling a giggle.

  “I don’t know why I can’t stop pulling my hair out,” Jenny says. She rubs her head and I think she’s trying to pull a piece of hair out even here, even now. “It feels good in the moment. And then . . . this.” She gestures to her head, to the weak roots, the sad attempts to cover up the bald spots.

  There is absolutely no way I am as fucked up as Jenny. If I start talking through my little anxieties about driving and missing my ex-boyfriend, these people will feel approximately a thousand times worse about themselves. Actually, Dr. Pat is putting them in harm’s way by having me here.

  Beck is doing exactly what I’m doing: looking at Jenny’s knees and lap instead of at her head. But he’s also tapping his thigh with really quick jabs and looking a little breathless.

  “Dr. Pat, could we talk in private for a—” I try, pitching my voice high and sweet, superpolite.

  “Bea? Would you like to talk about your self-image?” She knows I don’t, but she also knows I will. This is going to be a problem with group therapy. Dr. Pat knows enough about me to manipulate me into oversharing. What she doesn’t know is how badly I want Beck to think I’m the almost-kinda-normal girl from the dance. “Or maybe you’d like to share why you’re here? We can start there if you’d prefer.” Like Dr. Pat recommends, I look at my physical surroundings to stop myself from launching into a stream of consciousness, truth-telling storm.

  The floor is covered in a thin layer of dust and all our voices echo in the mostly empty multifunction room. The suburbs are filled with places like this: uninspired and vaguely sized. Ready to be used for graduation parties and AA meetings and Christmas pageants. I’m not entirely sure where we fit into that mix, but I’d guess it’s somewhere between graduation and AA. Everyone looks a year or two away from college and a step or two crazier than your average alcoholic.

  Except me. And Beck. And obviously Dr. Pat.

  “I’d rather not talk right now, Dr. Pat,” I say with a smile and a flip of my hair in Beck’s general direction.

  “We all share here,” Jenny proclaims. She is that rare combination of pathetic and aggressive. I hate her immediately. They’re all looking at me eagerly, even Beck, chomping at the bit to hear what makes me crazy. I’ve seen Beck afraid of the dark and I’ve felt his too-dry hands, so I think he wants to even the playing field or whatever. See why I’m in this room on this awkward metal folding chair, wondering why no one has fixed the wall clock so that it’s not stuck indefinitely on 3:25.

  “I . . . um . . . sometimes get anxious?” I say. I’m trying it out, to see if that little bit of information is enough. It’s not. It’s unnaturally hot in here. The only windows are at the top of the wall and probably won’t ever get opened. “I don’t know how to deal with my anxiety?” I’m just trying to not vomit out a bunch of personal information before Beck has another chance to kiss me. I know I’ll lose him eventually when he gets a glimpse of my elaborate note-taking or my jumpy, sweaty driving style. So I’m just hoping for another kiss at this point.

  There’s a stream of sweat making its way down my spine.

  Scab-faced Rudy makes a tick-tick-tick noise. Tongue flicking against his teeth and a little puff of breath behind it.

  “I think everyone here knows what it’s like to be dealing with a lot of anxiety. Why don’t you talk about how that anxiety relates to how you see yourself?” Therapists. Always asking the same questions over and over in slightly different ways. They are, like, the Ultimate Thesauruses.

  “Uh. I don’t know that it’s connected to my self-image.” They all glare at me. But I’m not lying; I actually like the way my curves surprise my petite frame, the tininess of my waist, the way my hair hangs in brown ringlets like I’m a tap-dancing pageant girl instead of kinda-crazy Bea. I like being smaller than everyone else and always looking up into people’s eyes instead of straight ahead. Wispy, ironic bangs. I like the length of my torso: too long for my body. Or I did like all those things until I saw Sylvia with Austin and imagined what it would be like to have her life instead.

  Rudy pops a zit on his neck. He doesn’t wince, but I do.

  “I think all of us here sometimes feel unsure about ourselves,” Dr. Pat says. It seems dangerously close to breaking the doctor-patient confidentiality code, but I wouldn’t be doing myself any favors by pointing that out.

  Then my mind is thrumming with the image of Sylvia and the way she held Austin’s arm even after the huge fight they obviously had in Dr. Pat’s office. I swallow down that thought and grind my teeth so that I don’t say it out loud. But there’s something in that. Not jealousy. Not desire. But interest.

  Followed immediately by the desire to protect them. I don’t want to tell a group of strangers about Austin and Sylvia. It feels dangerous, for me and for them, and clamping down on the information, keeping it a secret, sets off a delicious wave of calm in my body. I take a nice, full breath but immediately regret it. The place smells like purple dust and fearful boys who need more deodorant.

  “Hello???” Rudy says, and moves his chair back with a huge, metal-against-linoleum screech. I’m so startled, the sound makes
goosebumps pop up all over my arms and legs, and I know I have to say something, even if it’s not everything.

  “Sometimes I wish I was someone else,” I say. The words have a different meaning for Jenny than they do for me, I think. I just want the drama of Sylvia’s Playboy Bunny looks. Or a half second in her skin. “There’s this woman I see around”—I have got to keep this revelation as small and normal sounding as possible—“she’s glamorous, in a California kind of way. In a swimsuit-model way. I think about what it would be like to live her life. To be as stand-out as she is, to be as substantial. I mean, she can’t be denied. She is there.” I dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand to shut myself up. It works, the same way the wake-up pinch on my thigh seems to be working, and I halt the whole sentence just like that. Fold my lips in on each other. Shrug. Look at Beck.

  I don’t have any crazy skin or hair-destroying habits, but there must be something in my face, too, that has the look of not-right-ness. I pray, pray, pray that this is enough of a confession for Dr. Pat. And then I wait for what I really want: some kind of confession from Beck. It’d be good to know just how messed up he is, if I’m going to have any kind of crush on him.

  “And what kind of compulsions does that thought pattern lead to?” Dr. Pat says. I’ve never heard her use the word “compulsions” before, and her mouth slows down over the syllables. Her eyes meet mine, her huge glasses finally framing her eyes rather than slipping to the tip of her nose. Fawn has darting eyes and seems to be listening extra hard. A sure sign that she’s a virgin. As in a therapy virgin. Rudy on the other hand has probably been doing this since birth. He can’t stop his foot from tapping, counting out the seconds until he can get out of here. He tick-tick-ticks again, tongue against teeth. He’s the kind of guy that can make you feel like you’re in a mental institution, not just a Wednesday afternoon processing group.

  It’s only Beck that I can’t read at all. He’s more like me: somewhere in between broken and whole. Not desperate exactly, but caught in a cycle that he can’t get out of. Probably he thinks he’s okay, but his parents are annoyed with how much hand soap he goes through in a week. Or something. I’m just guessing here.

  “Bea? I asked you about your thought patterns?” Dr. Pat has an agenda. I’m supposed to own up to something, but I’m not sure what it is. I take notes. I drive carefully. I’m a little nervous sometimes. I know what it feels like to lose your breath from thinking too hard, but none of that is noteworthy in this context. Jenny reaches her hand to the back of her head and her fingers crawl all over her scalp. She stares at her lap and has the focus of a dog sniffing around, searching for a treat.

  “I’m feeling private today,” I say at last. And it’s not a lie. That is how I’m feeling. I don’t care how doubtful Dr. Pat looks. I’m not going to let her pigeonhole me in this group of crazies. I have anxiety issues. Not exactly unusual. Or a big deal, even.

  Beck swallows down a little laugh. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to him to stand up to Dr. Pat, if the blush on his face is any indication. Beck’s even cuter than I would have guessed after our interaction in the dark: hair buzzed so short that there is only a fuzz of black on his head. Huge blue eyes. Not tall, but all muscle, every last inch of him thick and hard. Dude works out. That much is for sure.

  “I think it’s good for us all to think about how our thoughts create compulsions in our bodies,” Dr. Pat says. There’s that word again, and the slow-down of speech that accompanies it. She overuses her mouth when she says it, the way you might speak to a toddler. Com-pul-shun.

  Dr. Pat’s looking right at me, so I nod and smile and say “okay” in that very polite way girls from New England are taught to do. A pocket of anxiety opens up in my chest, so I try to cover the space with the palm of my hand. If only I could reach in there and button it up for real.

  Instead, I take deep breaths and look out the window at the way the leaves are blowing off the trees: furiously spinning around each other, giving in to the wind instead of fighting against it.

  The fall in Boston is beautiful. It’s all orange sunsets and leaves under your sneakers and football fields of handsome boys and the anticipation of Thanksgiving dinner. At least that’s what it is for me. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

  “That’s some good, calming breath,” Dr. Pat says, and I jump. I thought my moment was over, so I’d stopped looking at myself from the outside in. The hypnotic power of dry leaves speeding along in the dry, dry wind. Five pairs of eyes observe me with interest.

  “Ha, sorry, I spaced out,” I say in the lightest voice I can manage. I’m not lying, but it feels like a lie in my mouth. I really was just spacing out. “I like the fall. And, you know, long day at school.” I smile in Beck’s direction, like this is some opportunity to flirt. His smile meets mine but I can’t take more than a half moment of eye contact. There’s blushing and awkwardness and a slide in my throat, like words might slip out without appropriate notification.

  If Dr. Pat can tell, she doesn’t show it. It seems impossible that someone could miss the zap of heat and fear between us, though.

  “Well, we all expect more from you in the coming weeks. More sharing. More willingness to dig deep. Right, everyone?” Nods all around.

  “Beck, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself.”

  “Well, uh, I had my first panic attack last week.” Those blue eyes are on me. It hurts, how oceanic they are. How much of his face they take up. The stark contrast between his pale face, shaved head, and bright, bright eyes. He is a lot to take in at once. I can’t keep a cough from escaping.

  “Your first panic attack? You’ve only had one? Then what the hell are you doing here?” Rudy says, exploding from his chair. His face is red, and not just from the scabbing of whatever it is he has been picking off of it. He is a flushed color with spider-bite-like red blotches popping up in the worst spots: forehead, cheeks, chin, neck.

  “Rudy, when it’s your turn I’ll let you know.” Dr. Pat never talks to me with any sort of harshness in her voice, but it’s there when she speaks to Rudy. A kind of impatience I didn’t think therapists were allowed to have.

  “Hey, one of those panic attacks is enough for me,” Beck says. “I mean the other night was scary. And I guess it made me realize I have these things I like to do. Like Dr. Pat was saying. Compulsions, I guess. I sort of like to wash my hands. My parents say I go to the gym too much. I don’t know. Those both seem like good things to do. Healthy things. But . . . when I couldn’t do them the other night, I felt so horrible that I had that panic attack thing.” Beck closes his eyes as soon as he’s gotten all the words out. He’s perfect-bodied but has a look of shame on his face like we’re all judging him. Meanwhile, I doubt anyone else here has ever even been inside a gym. That’s the thing about anxiety: It’s a real time suck.

  When Beck opens his eyes, we get caught in prolonged eye contact and I start to smile again, because there’s something just so attractive about a hot guy with muscles getting all vulnerable. Like the way women think it’s hot when men play with puppies or babies. The corners of my lips can’t seem to help themselves from lifting around him.

  That’s when Jenny starts pulling out her hair more aggressively. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen: worse than the time I saw my mother’s broken ankle all distorted and backward; worse than Rudy’s cratered face or the flaky, dry patches of skin in between Beck’s fingers. I wince with every tug and Jenny lays each little hair on her thigh before Dr. Pat pulls her chair right up to Jenny’s. She holds Jenny’s hands and maintains steady eye contact while the rest of us try to politely look away. They sit like that for a few minutes: Dr. Pat and Jenny, knee to knee.

  I’ve never sat that close to Dr. Pat. I tell her everything and she keeps her distance, watching me from her perch on her armchair. The sight of Jenny’s strands of pulled hair lined up with the ridges of her corduroys gives my insides a painful squeeze and the Fear I Can’t Name blossoms in my chest.


  Beck must notice something giving way in my face. Beause before I know it he’s sitting in the empty chair next to me and putting his hand on my forehead.

  “No touching,” Dr. Pat says, because she has the ability to look at five places at once. She may be sitting with Jenny and calming her down, but we’re all still under her watch. Rudy sighs and Beck settles back into the seat reluctantly. I liked his hand on my forehead, and the second it’s gone the little panic spikes into something bigger. Then a bunch of immediate needs spring into action and start tapping on my brain to get me to pay attention to them. The desire to get out my notebook. The desire to see Austin’s face again. To listen in on family secrets of strangers. Then the memories start to invade too. The memory of Kurt’s face when he saw that notebook of newspaper clippings. The memory of being twelve and having a monstrous crush on skateboarding Jeff. It’s the thought of Jeff, above all else, that causes the persistent desire to keep my hands and mind so busy that I can’t think anymore.

  Com-pul-shun, I hear Dr. Pat saying in my head, a diagnosis I refuse to listen to.

  So then Beck and I are just sitting next to each other not touching, and that is charged too. Beck’s eyes are mockingly blue, that’s what I’ve decided after giving it more thought. I have blue eyes too, but mine are more of an impression of a color whereas his are the purest shade, the blue that comes to mind when you hear the word. He’s sort of smiling and I think it’s because we’re both thinking about how totally ridiculous this situation is. How we are little beacons of normal in a room full of crazy.

  We’re saying all of that (I think) without saying a word.

  And there is the thickness of his neck and the way his shoulders reach so far past mine they could be a brick wall.

  I don’t know that I’ve ever held eye contact with someone for this long. Especially not a guy who looks like Beck. And the longer it goes on the more blissful it is, until it shifts into being funny. Dr. Pat and Jenny are deep in a breathing exercise while Rudy and Fawn wait it out in silence. But without warning Beck and I are biting our lips to keep in the laughter and then letting it sputter out in gasping laughs and squeezed-out tears. I’ve wrapped an arm around my stomach to help hold it in and Beck is clamping his palm over his mouth and shaking instead of guffawing.