by Aaron Karo
I slowly rub the sanitizer into my hands, savoring every last tingle—my only remaining pleasure. I absentmindedly look at the wall outside the gym. It’s the PWLJFKHS Sports Hall of Fame. It’s filled with old black-and-white photos of athletes with short shorts and mullets. I imagine a Biggest Reject Hall of Fame or Shittiest High School Experience Lifetime Achievement Award. That’s the only way I’d ever be memorialized in this godforsaken place.
I continue on, slowly, to class. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a flash of red. It’s Amy, though I only see her for a split second before she disappears from view. I notice my body has very little reaction. Such a sighting used to stop me dead in my tracks while annoyed classmates swerved to avoid me. Now: nothing.
I walk past the cafeteria and remember the first time I tried to CBT my way out of washing my hands after I ate a sandwich. I failed that day but eventually figured it out. I haven’t done any CBT for a while now. Don’t plan on doing any anytime soon.
I decide I’m not going to class after all. I’ve never missed a class in my entire life. Never even been sick. I guess that’s one of the benefits of constantly washing your hands and being addicted to sanitizer. There’s a first for everything, though. I walk outside. There are a few kids eating or just hanging out on their lunch period. I stand right where the table was where Stacey sold me that piece of cake. I haven’t been eating much lately.
I look up. There’s not a cloud in the sky. It hasn’t rained in forever. Dad had the Weather Channel on yesterday and I heard some shitty weather might be coming next week. I think about how little effect it will have on my life. Rain, no rain, whatever. It doesn’t matter.
I step on a flyer that’s lying on the ground. It reads:
SENIOR WEEKEND—DON’T MISS IT!
I remember seeing a similar flyer when I was a freshman, and asking Steve what Senior Weekend was. I remember when I cared.
My dad looks ridiculous sitting in a little plastic chair that’s meant for a five-year-old. He keeps shifting his weight and crossing his legs to try to get comfortable. Finally he turns the chair around and rests his arms on the back. That seems to work better.
“Chuck, are you listening to what Dr. Srinivasan is saying?”
Not really.
Me, Mom, and Dad are sitting in Dr. S.’s office for an “emergency” meeting about my “condition.” Apparently, it’s been called so hastily that there wasn’t even enough time to get an extra chair for my dad, so he just grabbed a kiddy one from the waiting room.
Since I went off the Lexapro, I’ve still been seeing Dr. S. every week, though I mostly keep quiet—just like in our very first session. At home, Mom and Dad have been keeping increasingly close tabs on me, namely asking “How are you feeling?” on a nearly hourly basis.
“Chuck?” Mom says again.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m listening,” I say.
“We’re all worried about you. Dr. Srinivasan really feels like you should go back on the medication.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Chuck, you’ve been moping around the house for weeks. I think you’re depressed. Ray, what do you think?”
Dad shrugs. “He seems pretty depressed to me.”
Thanks for that profound second opinion, Dad. It’s just so hard to take him seriously while he’s sitting in that little chair.
“Chuck,” Dr. S. says, “have you been experiencing mood swings? Have you been feeling generally down lately?”
“Not really,” I mutter.
Is it a lie? I don’t even know. I feel like shit. I have nothing to look forward to. But when did I ever not feel this way?
“Mrs. Taylor, this is a completely normal reaction to Chuck’s discontinuation of the Lexapro?”
“I don’t know, is it?” Mom responds.
I chuckle. Then I laugh—like really laugh. I think it’s the first time I’ve actually laughed out loud since … since reminiscing with Steve and Kanha at the deli. Mom, Dad, and Dr. S. all look at me, puzzled.
“That wasn’t a question, Mom,” I snicker.
“What?” she says.
I laugh again.
Mom and Dad obviously haven’t spent as much time talking to Dr. S. as I have. Mom doesn’t realize Dr. S. wasn’t asking her if I’m having a normal reaction, she was telling her.
“Nothing, forget it,” I say.
Just demonstrating that I still have the ability to laugh seems to cut the tension in the room, at least for the moment.
“Chuck,” Dr. S. says, “I understand you’ve had a difficult few months. But you’ve also had a great deal of success, yes? It would be a shame to throw it all away.”
“Chuck,” Mom adds, “you’re going away to college soon and we’re not gonna … well, be able to keep as close an eye on you anymore. We just want to make sure you’re okay before you leave.”
“Chuck,” Dad chimes in, “all we’re saying is that—”
“Enough!” I yell, startling everyone. “I’m fine! Yeah, maybe I’m a little depressed. Who wouldn’t be? My sorta kinda girlfriend broke up with me. My best friend hates me. High school is ending. It is what it is. I don’t like the way the Lexapro makes me feel and I don’t like CBT and I don’t like coming here. I just don’t wanna do it anymore. But I’ll be okay. I promise.”
Everyone else in the room trades doubtful glances.
I turn to my parents. “Can we just leave?” I plead.
I look at Dr. S., then quickly look away. I feel like I’ve let her down. But really I just want to go home.
She smiles at me reassuringly. “Remember, Chuck, whether or not you get better is up to you.”
I think it’s the most declarative statement she’s ever made.
Then, for good measure, she adds: “Yes?”
I’m vegging out on the couch in the living room, watching TV. It feels good to be doing absolutely nothing (though “good” is a relative term these days). As if on cue, Beth, the devil’s spawn herself, appears and sits down next to me on the couch.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Beth shrugs. “Mom says you haven’t been feeling well.”
“Yeah well Mom says a lot of stuff.”
We both sit quietly for a while.
“Wait a minute,” I say, turning to Beth. “Did Mom send you to check up on me?”
“I don’t know.”
Beth is a worse liar than I am.
“You can report back to Mom that I’m fine.”
“Actually,” Beth says after pausing, “there’s also something I wanted to tell you.”
“If you broke my laptop again I’m gonna seriously kill you,” I say.
“I didn’t break your stupid laptop. I wanted to tell you that I’m going on the camping trip tomorrow.”
“What?” I say, annoyed and disbelieving.
“I’m going to Senior Weekend,” Beth repeats.
“What do you mean you’re going to Senior Weekend?”
“Parker asked me to go with him so I’m going.”
“But it’s Senior Weekend! This isn’t like prom. You’re not allowed to go.”
“Who says?”
It’s that cavalier attitude that I secretly envy in Beth. She just doesn’t give a fuck.
“There’s no way Mom and Dad are gonna let you go,” I say confidently.
“They already said I could.”
“Are you kidding? How?”
“I told them it’s a school event and there are gonna be adults there and all my friends are going.”
“But none of that’s true, Beth!”
“Well, duh.” She rolls her eyes.
An evil genius, that’s what my sister is.
As I’m attempting to process everything, I have a thought that makes me shudder.
“Wait … you’re gonna share a tent with Parker Goldberg?”
“No,” she says. “What do you think, I’m some kind of slut?”
“I borrowed a tent from the Greulichs,” Beth says. “They have all kinds of crap in their garage.”
I think about our elderly next-door neighbors. All they ever seem to do is sit outside their house, forcing me to wave whenever I come home. Who knows what they have in that garage.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m going,” she adds.
The fact that my sophomore sister is going to Senior Weekend—but I’m not—is so annoying, so outrageous, so unfair that I don’t even know what to do with myself. I imagine Beth getting eaten by a bear in the woods. Literally being torn limb from limb while she screams.
Suddenly, there’s a huge thunderclap outside. The lights flicker and me and Beth jump. That shitty weather is finally here. I can’t help but feel bad about Beth and the bear, and knock on my knee accordingly.
“So how come Steve doesn’t pick you up for school anymore?” Beth asks, deftly yet painfully changing the subject.
I was sitting on the couch, minding my own business, and now Beth reminds me that I’m the only senior taking the bus in the history of high school. Thanks, thanks a lot.
“I don’t know; he just doesn’t.”
“Do you, like, want me to ask Parker if he can take you? He has room.”
There’s no prize, no plaque, no announcement, no fanfare. However, I’m fully aware that this moment, this very second, is the new exact low point of my life.
“No, Beth,” I say through gritted teeth, “I don’t want you to ask Parker if he can give me a ride to school.”
“Okay,” she says, standing up and evidently deciding her sisterly duties have been fulfilled for the year. “Well, I tried.”
She bounds out of the room, oblivious as ever.
There’s another enormous thunderclap, and now the rain is starting to fall.
I can’t sleep.
I’ve checked the stove, I’ve peed a million times, I’ve rubbed one out, but I still can’t sleep. This is the biggest thunderstorm I’ve ever heard and rain is pounding on the roof. But that’s not what’s keeping me up. My mind is just racing.
I decide to flip on the TV. Usually watching TV doesn’t help me fall asleep, but I’m willing to try anything. I flip through the channels, but it’s the middle of the night and nothing is on. To make matters worse, some of the stations are all fuzzy, probably because of the storm.
I stop on Skinemax. Much to my surprise, it’s coming in completely clear. Ironically, the storm seems to have unblocked it. It’s my lucky night (yes, this is now what I consider “luck”). I have no idea what corny movie I’m watching, so I press the Info button on the remote. On-screen it reads:
Sensual Moon IV (premiere)—The forbidden tale of a man with mysterious, erotic powers. Rated TV-MA. Contains nudity and explicit sexual activity.
Sensual Moon IV? Man, they really must be churning these movies out because I’ve still never seen II or III. I’m about to grab my phone from my nightstand and text Steve to make sure he knows it’s on, but then I remember we don’t talk anymore. It really sucks. I’m sure he’s watching anyway, but that’s little consolation.
I settle in to watch as the rain intensifies. Like the first film I saw in this epic saga, Sensual Moon IV is basically about a guy who gets laid a lot, and features tons of gratuitous nudity. As near as I can tell in this one, the main character’s “mysterious, erotic power” is that he can blow women’s clothes clean off with just one touch. In the very first scene, a real estate lady is showing him around a mansion. He touches her sleeve and suddenly her clothes fly off and she’s completely naked.
Let’s just say I never make it past the first scene. I turn the TV off and turn the light on my nightstand on. I open the drawer and take out my beat-off sheet. It’s time to record my second wank of the night. As I make the tally, I notice the bottle of Lexapro that’s still in the drawer. It’s almost completely full since I had just gotten the prescription refilled before I decided to stop taking it. I look at the bottle and then at the pathetic sheet in my hand filled with tallies. I look at the bottle, then back at the sheet. Bottle then sheet, bottle then sheet, bottle then sheet. Then I do something completely unexpected. Something that only crosses my consciousness for a brief second, but that I decide to act on before it’s too late.
I rip up the sheet.
I take that growing stack of Post-it notes and rip it to shreds. I tear them and I tear them until each piece is too small to tear again. I tear them until I can’t tell which tally is which. I tear them until there’s no way I can ever tape them back together again.
I sit on the edge of my bed, holding the tiny scraps of paper in my trembling hands. Seventeen months of “work” literally torn to shreds. I expect to feel regret or anxiety. But I don’t. Instead, I feel … liberated. I feel encouraged. I feel emboldened.
As the rain continues to hammer down on the roof above me, I consider my options: I can remain a slave to my bizarre compulsions forever, or I can sack up and actually do something about it. I can be a better friend to Steve, I can win Amy back, and I can show everyone I’ve changed. But I can’t half-ass it. I need to go for broke.
There’s just no way I can leave high school like the doormat I was when I started. I can’t let the girl of my dreams and my best friend in the world just move on without me. And I sure as hell can’t stay home jerking off and counting it while life goes on without me.
I don’t know if it’s the insomnia or the loneliness or the frustration or what. But something just flips in my brain, like the neuron that connected my red Cons to anger. Maybe it’s that I’ve got nothing to lose. But whatever it is, right here and now, with my boxers still around my ankles, I decide that I have one last chance to prove everyone wrong. I may be strange, but I’m no loser. I can handle whatever the world throws at me. I know I can; I have to.
My name is Chuck. I’m seventeen years old. And OCD be damned, I’m going camping.
The Greulichs’ garage is damp and musty and I’m trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. They do have a lot of camping gear, though most of it looks like it hasn’t been used since the Greulichs were my age, which was possibly over a hundred years ago. They’re also standing over me, creeping me out. I grab a tent, a sleeping bag, some other random shit, then wave halfheartedly and haul ass outta there.
The afternoon air is cool as I walk the twenty or so feet back to my house. It just stopped raining a little while ago but it’s still misty out. Doesn’t matter; I’m determined. I’m going on this trip no matter what. There’s no turning back.
I get home and spread everything out on the floor in my bedroom. I’m just starting to pack when Mom comes in. I told Beth this morning that I was going (and that I’d drive myself, thank you very much), but I haven’t told Mom and Dad. This is gonna be interesting.
“Beth tells me you’re going on the camping trip,” Mom says.
“Yup.”
“You? You’re going camping?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s fine for Beth to go but not me?”
I briefly consider blowing up Beth’s spot and telling Mom that it’s not a school-sanctioned trip and no adults are gonna be there. But I decide it’s not worth the hassle.
“Well,” Mom says, briefly stymied by my challenge, “Beth doesn’t have a problem with … you know…”
“Grass? Bugs? Dirt?” I ask.
“Exactly.”
“I know, Mom. But I have to do this. I’ll be okay.”
“I’m sure you will be, but I just don’t know why you want to put yourself through this.”
“This thing is a big deal. Everyone from school is gonna be there.”
“Is this about Amy and Steve?”
Mom: always right.
“Yeah it’s about Amy and Steve. I want to hang out with them.”
“But I thought they weren’t talking to you.”
“And how is not going gonna fix that?”
Mom senses we’ve hit a wall and it’s time to change tactics.
“Dad is gonna be home soon. I’m sure he’ll want to say goodbye.”
I give up trying to roll the sleeping bag up nicely and just start jamming it into its sack.
“Mom, I’m gonna be back tomorrow, he doesn’t need to say goodbye.”
Nice try, though.
“Chuck,” Mom says, crossing her arms, “you’re behaving erratically. It’s making me nervous.”
“Mom, I’m actually behaving the opposite of erratic. I’m behaving normal. This is what kids do. They go camping with everyone else. Why can’t I just be normal for once?”
“Because you aren’t normal, sweetheart.”
I look at her, a little offended.
“Not in a bad way,” she continues. “You’re an incredible son. But you’re just different.”
I know what Mom is trying to say. OCD kids who stop taking their meds shouldn’t run to do the one thing that sets them off the most. But she doesn’t understand that I know what I’m doing.
“Mom, do you want your ‘incredible son’ to be holed up inside for the rest of his life? I need to get out. Besides, the campsite is only like two miles away. Nothing is gonna happen.”
This argument fails to dispel the worried look on her face.
“I’m gonna call Dad again,” she says, and hurries out of the room.
She can call Dad all she wants, but nothing is gonna stop me today.
I continue searching my room, making sure I’ve got everything I need. I come across the bottle of Lexapro and decide to pack it. I figure if things get really messy it won’t hurt to take one. I also find a flashlight as well as a travel bottle of hand sanitizer—perfect for the crazy person on the go.
I hear a honk and look out my bedroom window. I spy Beth getting into Parker’s truck and them taking off together. I picture my classmates driving to the campgrounds from all around town—cars full of anticipation and beer. I look at the sky. The sun is just beginning to peek out from behind the clouds.