OCD Love Story

by Corey Ann Haydu

  “Just get your notebook. I’m good.” She doesn’t look good, all sprawled out and red-faced on my couch, but I do what she says, because I am too exhausted to have an anxiety attack right now.

  When I get back downstairs and curl myself back into the couch with the pink starred notebook, Lisha’s almost completely passed out, but she smiles and nods while I read out loud, lets out an occasional huff of laughter. Humors me, really.

  “So then they talked about Sylvia’s eating habits. Austin wants Sylvia to buy more ‘normal food’ and Sylvia says she’s taking care of his health. And then Austin said men need to eat meat, and Sylvia said if that will help him feel like a man, who’s she to argue, and then Dr. Pat asked what the word ‘man’ meant to both of them, and why it was the focus of so many arguments.”

  “Mmmm,” Lisha says. I should drag her up to the guest room so she can get a good night’s sleep and look presentable for school in the morning, but by the time I’ve done all the reading and reviewing and remembering I need to do, she’s fully asleep, and with her being a head taller than me, there will be no getting her up the stairs.

  Not to mention I could lose my shit and drop her. I could get a violent burst and break her neck. The thought gives me chills, so I dig my fingernail into the palm of my hand, grip the notebook to my chest, and vow not to touch my best friend in the world.

  You know, just in case.

  I get a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor, though, so she won’t wake up alone and confused and aching. And when I go to turn off my phone so that we can both be guaranteed a semirestful sleep without interruptions, I see that Beck has texted back to my asking him to go to Harvard Square with me on Friday. A string of eight perfect yesses.

  IN HARVARD SQUARE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE not to think of my first kiss, when I was twelve. Everything happens in Harvard Square: my first kiss with Jeff, my first time saying “I love you” with Kurt, and now my first time going on a totally purposeful date with Beck. It’s something about the brick crosswalks and double-lanterned lampposts that brings out the sea change in me.

  It occurs to me as I walk past centuries-old brick buildings that I should never have asked Beck to meet me where memories are so impossible to fight. My stomach stirs when a skater dude rolls by and I have to remember more about Jeff.

  I pinch my thigh to push the thought down, but it rises like bile: uncomfortable and unstoppable.

  “I wanna kiss you,” Jeff had said on the sidewalk in front of a stately academic building.

  “Now? In public?” I’d asked. Cooter and Lisha had run into Starbucks to go to the bathroom but it still wasn’t an ideal circumstance. Jeff and I had been eyeing each other for months and accidentally-on-purpose bumping elbows and knees and hips while we played H-O-R-S-E or sat on the couch or ran around the kitchen finding the perfect combination of snacks to devour.

  “This isn’t public. We could start a wildfire here and no one would notice. Safest place in the world to kiss you,” he’d said, and then he plunged in and we were gripped in a kiss for maybe a minute. It was wetter than I had imagined a first kiss being. I played it over in my head for weeks afterward. He was fourteen and I was only twelve, and it seemed scandalous and strange and secret. I wrote in my journal at the time that it was the best day of my life. But thinking back on it now I can’t even really picture his face. I think we used to have long talks when Lish and Cooter were having brother-sister spats, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what we talked about or what his voice sounded like.

  • • •

  The great thing about Cambridge is that it’s chock-full of kids with lots of piercings, and middle-aged academics who want to seem cool with whatever, and prissy Harvard students who are so busy taking notes on Faulkner that they don’t pay much attention to anything weird I’m doing. It’s a relief because the strain of not remembering and remembering all at once makes my breath catch and my head spin. It is not the first time I have had to fight the rush of memory and forgetting, but knowing Beck is going to appear at any moment intensifies the waves I thought I was accustomed to.

  I go every week to Newbury Comics, the best music store ever, because I’m terrified that it will go out of business like every other music store I’ve ever loved. I’ve invited Beck along to see who he is outside the comfort zone circuit of gym and shower and therapy.

  (Truth: Jeff introduced me to Newbury Comics, too. Right after he introduced me to kissing.)

  (Truth: This is the most amount of times I have thought about Jeff in a year.)

  I took the T into town to eliminate the stress of the car. And the good news is that there’s nothing to be afraid of at Newbury Comics (aside from memories, I guess. But with a few deep breaths and a look in my notebook, I scare those off). But otherwise, it’s a sharp-object-free-zone and that’s extra appealing today. I had a mini-incident with a bread knife back home in the kitchen before school this morning, and though I’m sure there will be scissors behind the counter and the regular cashier with the lip ring, and the tattoo of a demon on his neck might be carrying a knife or something, all things considered, everyone’s safe.

  Beck’s waiting outside for me when I get there, and there’s a loaded two seconds before we decide to hug. I feel the shiver of resistance in his spine when my hand touches it, but then he takes a deep inhale-exhale and smiles at me. Shines on me.

  “Don’t be mad,” he starts off. I roll my eyes and take a step back because I am for sure a worst-case scenario kind of girl.

  “That is a terrible way to start a date,” I say.

  “I told Dr. Pat. About us.”

  “Noooo,” I say, even though this definitely isn’t the worst thing he could have said. “Why?”

  “Private session today,” Beck says. “I just couldn’t keep it in.” And even though he’s gotta know I’m pissed, he’s grinning stupidly at me. Which means I can’t really be mad. It’s actually sort of a genius strategy. “But here’s where I say something nice, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I told her about us because I want to get better now,” he says. No one has ever smiled this big for this long. Not ever. “Dr. Pat called it a breakthrough.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. I’m itching to get inside the CD store, truth be told. It’s distracting out on the street with the skateboarders and the errant bits of cell phone conversations as people pass by. And though I can’t get enough of Beck’s dimpled grin and the fact that he hasn’t sanitized his hands after our hug, I don’t know that I want him getting better. I don’t know that I want him grinning and ebullient and full of charming, casual energy. Not really. Because while he’s having breakthroughs and working through his shit, I’m getting worse because I’m using therapy to check in with Austin and Sylvia instead of working on my shit.

  Not to mention this morning when I had to rip a chunk off my favorite sourdough loaf with my bare hands instead of cutting the thing like a normal person. My dad sat with his coffee and looked at me like I was a caveman. Not understanding that I did it for him, to save him from me.

  Beck’s talking about getting better and I’m only just now realizing how big the crazy in me has gotten. A few weeks ago I was a girl who was a little squeamish about driving and liked listening in on some sordid therapy sessions. Now I’m an OCD freak who can’t cut her own food and is officially a stalker.

  And that’s the truth. Which means I want to confess it right now to Beck’s shining, hopeful face.

  I swallow that down, or try to, but I have to say something honest or I’ll explode. “I like you messed up” is what I end up saying. “Maybe I won’t think you’re as cute if you’re all stable and stuff.” Then I nod toward the store like what I’ve said doesn’t warrant any more conversation.

  Beck shrugs like maybe I’m joking. And as we’re crossing the threshold into the retro wonder that is Newbury Comics, he leans forward and kisses my cheek.

  “Did Dr. Pat tell you to do that?” I say. Then I shak
e my head because I hear myself and I have too much attitude. “I mean, you told Dr. Pat about us and what’d she say? Or, actually, what’d you tell her?”

  “Just that I like you,” Beck says.

  “Oh!” I say. The front of the store has a few racks of records so I start flipping through those. I bubble a little inside from the impact of the words “I like you,” but I don’t say them back and I only give him the littlest twinge of a smile.

  “Dr. Pat said hanging out with you might be a good opportunity to push myself. So I told her I’d try to wash my hands no more than five times with you today. I mean, I’ll probably do the extra three after I get home, but that’s the plan, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say with a big, conversation-ending nod.

  “I told her you’re an inspiration. How well you’re doing, I mean. How together you are.”

  I jut out my chin a little and let my fingers fall to my thigh for a pinch. It was necessary and I let go of a big burst of breath with that little release. My chest collapses, that pebble of tension slipping just enough to let me breathe.

  “So what’s up with this place?” Beck says. “It’s pretty cool. Look at these records! Classic. You have a record player? Or a CD player for that matter?”

  It’s lonely to be the one with secrets. It’s why I never had them before, I think. But he wants this to resemble some kind of normal date, so I am going to do my best to give that to him.

  “I don’t know. I must have one somewhere. Is it lame that CDs are retro now? It feels lame.”

  “It’s lame,” he says. And I put a hand on his neck because I can. Because if he’s not going to be a freak with me, then at least I can let my fingers linger on the hard lines of his body. “Come here.” I take his hand and lead him into the back of the store, to the country music section that no one in Cambridge visits anyway, and certainly no one who is cool enough to be at Newbury Comics. And in the back of the store, with Garth Brooks and Blake Shelton and the Dixie Chicks looking on, I press myself against Beck and get a good kiss out of him.

  “So, seriously, you’re not mad I told her?” Beck says. I’m tired of Dr. Pat being on this date with us, so I try to leave him hanging, but then the finger that’s on my forearm taps it eight times and I know that under the bravado of coming out of a solid therapy session he’s still the mess I met the other week.

  “Little mad,” I say, a bit of tension evaporating at the two words of truth. “But I like that you like me.” And then more of the anxiety expels itself from my body and Beck’s got the grin back.

  “I think I made Dr. Pat lose her neutrality for half a second,” Beck says. “It was all in the eyebrows. They jumped.” He imitates.

  This is what a good date feels like. This is teasing and flirting and the strain of brand-new intimacy.

  I grab for Beck’s hand. He must be unprepared, because he pulls it away like we’ve reached our limit. Post–Dr. Pat ecstasy only lasts for a few minutes. I know that as well as anyone.

  “Sorry,” he says. “They got a bathroom? I mean, I’m sure it’s pretty awful, but they have one, right?” I point him in the direction of what will definitely be the worst bathroom he’s ever been in.

  • • •

  You know how when you learn a new vocabulary word you then suddenly notice it everywhere? Like, when I was studying for the SATs and I learned “viscous” and then every book I read, every conversation I had, “viscous” was there, front and center. I would have sworn I’d never seen the word before in my life, but then the second I knew it existed it was following me. “Viscous.”

  Austin is that SAT word.

  Dr. Pat would insist that life just has coincidences, and that my thoughts do not have any power. Dr. Pat says that multiple times a session: “Your thoughts do not have power. You are trying to control something that is beyond your control.”

  Regardless: I’m almost positive it’s Austin’s face on the bulletin board near the electronic/dance CD section, so I take a harder look and it is his face, and Sylvia’s face right next to his, and in the same instant it makes all the sense in the world and no sense at all.

  COME SEE INDIE POWER COUPLE TRYST

  AT CLUB PASSIM

  TUESDAY, MARCH 13.

  Then, under the text, their faces: hers crowded with makeup, his rough with stubble, both looking at each other with that intense, vacant look of love that seems somehow quintessentially indie-rock. They are some kind of singing duo and they call themselves Tryst. Leave it to me to accidentally fall for a musician. I take down the poster (is that allowed?) with as much certainty as I can muster, like I’m meant to be here doing that.

  No one notices. The Newbury Comics employees are a pierced, stoner bunch and I have on an A-line skirt and wool tights and librarian glasses, so I can get away with anything in this setting.

  Almost.

  “What you got there?” Beck says, coming in from behind me. Not touching me, but swooping in sort of close to my neck so I can feel the breath and vibration of his words without ruining his meticulous cleaning rituals.

  “Oh! Band I like.”

  “Lemme see.”

  “You won’t know them or whatever. They’re all, you know, hipster and stuff.”

  “I could be hipster. You’re making terrible assumptions just ’cause I go to Smith-Latin and like the gym.” Beck takes the poster out of my hands and I can’t really resist without getting him suspicious, so I try to look like what I imagine is sex-kitten cute and let him check out the poster.

  “Well, we have to go see them, then!” he says. “Let me get us tickets.” Huge Beck smile. Quick surge of ohmygod, he really likes me, followed immediately by the realization of the mess this is all becoming.

  “No, I don’t want you to, I said that already” is what comes out from the panic going on in my head. There’s something about the way Beck is on top of the world after therapy today that is unsettling and making “us” decidedly not us. Like what worked about us, or what I liked about him, was the distance between us, the awkward competing obsessions and compulsions, the way we both darted in and out of unhappiness. This Beck, the one full of hope and recovery and willingness isn’t so easy to sidestep. Like availability is in and of itself something unlikeable.

  Not unlikeable. Terrifying. But as luck would have it, my totally awkward refusal of his really sweet offer to buy us tickets to their concert brings him right back to his vulnerable state.

  “ ’Kay,” Beck says.

  Then he taps eight times.

  “Don’t watch me do this, okay?” he says. “It’s embarrassing.”

  I turn my head, but my peripheral gaze catches him tapping another eight times. He starts touching things. Counting CDs. There are rows and rows of CDs so it’s going to be a losing battle, but he’s counting them in groups of eight.

  Then he’s reorganizing them. I stop watching from the corner of my eye and face him full on. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Then a stop. Leaving a space in the racks, and then grouping the next set of eight.

  “I’m sorry, that was bitchy. I had a late night. I didn’t sleep much. Going to the concert would be great. That’s sweet.”

  Eight more CDs set into a little group.

  Eight more.

  Then he starts counting them out loud. It’s under his breath, but audible. “Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight,” a long and strange whisper of a sound. Odd enough for people to notice, cock their heads, and tap their friends on the shoulders to point him out. I want to cover his mouth with my hand, lead him out, and find somewhere safe and hidden for us to coexist.

  The cashiers are starting to look at us funny. Newbury Comics isn’t exactly a Friday night hotspot, so there’s no crowd to hide behind. It’s just a couple of punked-out kids, some young hip mom, me and Beck, and a few old-timers looking for jazz records.

  “Hey,” I say. I don’t touch him. But I get in close, like he’d just done. So my breath is there, the friction of my body is
right up next to him but not ever quite breaking the wall between us. In grade school we used to play a game called Red Light, Green Light, and dating Beck is kinda like that. We are playing the longest, most tiring high-stakes version of Red Light, Green Light ever. When we are just normal teenagers temporarily unencumbered by our own lunacy, we rush at each other. Then the consequences happen and we halt. Midsentence sometimes. Midkiss. Midflirtation. Red Light. Green Light.

  “Would you call this our third date?” Beck says. He doesn’t look blissed-out and energized anymore. He looks just like Beck. I feel terrible and turned on all at once. I feel on safer ground with this damaged Beck.

  “Yeah, third date. Sure. Why?”

  “Just wondering,” Beck says, and for a split second I think it’s adorable, like he’s celebrating minianniversaries or something, and I look over at him to glow in his general direction, but he’s tapping eight, eight, eight with his finger on his thigh, and with something like a gasp it hits me that he’s counting. Not just randomly, on his thigh, not just how many times he’s washed his hands or turned on and off the lights. He’s counting me. We’re moving toward eight dates. And if his mind is anything like mine, we are hurtling toward the eighth date at an unstoppable speed. And we’re in trouble when we get there.

  I HAVEN’T LISTENED TO THE tryst cd yet.

  “Just listen to it already. I wanna hear,” Lish says when we hole up in my room googling the shit out of Tryst the next night. I use an entire ink cartridge printing out articles, reviews, random tweets about the band. I look at their website and take note of all the musicians they list as “influences.” Then I google all of those musicians and Lisha sits by just watching, and occasionally trying to distract me from the whole event with two bottles of wine that she managed to sneak out of her parents’ huge wine cellar. I am not easily distracted, since this very second I am glue-sticking an interview Austin did with some lame music blog last month into my pink shooting star notebook, and that takes up most of my mental power. That, and the anxiety and desire to do more, know more, check on them more.