OCD Love Story (25 page)

“I thought you'd want to meet Beck,” I say.

“Yeah, I figured that was him. Some of the other dancers saw, you know? Saw you guys sitting there after the curtain call while he sweated it out or whatever. He looks like . . . like . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever,” Lisha says. “I mean, he's
huge
. And kinda sweaty.” She's scooting me toward the exit, ushering me out while keeping her arms around me.

“Whoa, what? He doesn't . . .
what
?”

“I didn't say it was okay for you to bring him! This is my world, my place where I'm not a huge freak, and you brought . . . I mean, come on, Bea! It's not okay. I'm sorry, maybe it's bitchy, but he seems weird. People are definitely weirded out.”

“What are you talking about?” I'm getting close to screaming now. I can't keep the words in, can't keep the volume down.

“Oh my God,
shhh
.” Lisha practically spits in my ear. “Look, just—I can meet you later at the diner or something. Just—why don't you guys go and I'll meet you later and we'll talk about it.” Lisha is biting the lipstick right off her lips. I get that I can't be superpicky about friends when I'm this much of a weirdo. And I get that Lish is really good to me and usually pretty fun and like 110 percent not full of shit. I mean, I probably don't deserve her.

But.

This is one big, powerful punch because what I've been worrying about is actually true: The tables have turned. I'm the crazy friend and Lisha is doing me a favor by sticking by me. She's right there, whispering into my ear and pressing up against me while she force-walks me to the exit. And she's looking around nervously for Beck like one moment in his presence could ruin everything. Like he's the worst thing she can imagine.

Thought I don't want to be thinking: The bobby pins in Lisha's hair are maybe pointy enough, maybe strong enough to break skin. Her. Skin.

I take a few steps back from her.

I don't want to hurt her. This is not a big deal. But then Beck emerges from the bathroom really quickly, which must mean he rushed his rituals to get out here and meet Lish. And that kills me in a total, heart-squashing way. He's trying to be just that littlest bit more normal, and meanwhile I'm blowing it all apart with my bitchy friend and, let's face it, my secret stalker identity.

This whole evening is turning so quickly from twinkling brand-new bliss to disaster.

Carrying all of these thoughts is downright
heavy
. I know I should take Beck's hand right this second and walk him out of the danger zone and try to just be good and understanding of everyone, of both these people who have been so good to me. Beck can see, I think, what's happening. Lisha's ballerina
friends are flitting around and some almost attractive guy I think she likes is approaching us and her parents are waving at us and I can see her nose wrinkling at Beck, at the way his skin is dry and flaky, at the strange proportions of his body, at every funny little movement he makes.

I don't like seeing him through her eyes. I don't like seeing
me
though her eyes. She grips my elbow, her nails pinching the thin skin at the joint. I can feel her flush through her hands to my skin, it's that strong. Beck and I are that embarrassing.

“Oh my God, get him out of here please,” Lisha says in a stage whisper that definitely reaches Beck's ears. And I should hug him and get him safe. I should even maybe slap Lisha or yell at her or apologize on her behalf. If I were a good person, a person capable of making her own decisions, I would do one of those things. But I am not that person, and all I can think in the midst of this humiliation is that I haven't done enough checking today. Something terrible is going to happen.

I meet Beck's eyes for just long enough to give him a strained, face-twisting grimace.

And then I run out of there.

I KEPT IT CALM FOR
so long around beck, but in this moment, the one where he's supposed to meet my friend and he needs me as a buffer and he's tried to curb the very compulsions that make him who he is . . . this is when I leave. I hike up Beck's pants so I don't trip over them on my spastic run out the door.

All these hours I've been spending going totally gooey and sweet over Beck I should have been paying attention to the important things. I need to check my notes on Austin and Sylvia. I should be sequestering myself in a room full of soft blankets and no knives. Every moment I spent kissing Beck in his car and pushing close to him were moments I should have been spending on my other tasks.

Dr. Pat says you can only repress things for so long, and I think this is what she meant.

I get right out of there and run back to school and get in my car. When two insane compulsions are battling each other out, you never know which one is going to win. I very badly
need to see Austin and make sure he's okay, and I very badly do
not
want to drive that car and wreak havoc on the streets of suburban Boston.

Fuck it. Austin wins this time.

I take back roads and get out of my car no less than four times to make sure nothing is wrong with the engine, the wheels, the windshield wipers. I walk in circles around the stupid Volvo, looking for scratches or blood or smoke. I'm sweaty from the run, weepy from the terrible decisions I'm making, and so angry with Lisha and myself and Dr. Pat that a few times I just let out a scream in the confines of my car. It is a harrowing, two-hour trip.

The three-hundred-pound Anxiety Man is sitting on my chest again, compressing my lungs and making it hard to breathe.

The drizzle doesn't start until the moment I park my car in the lot near Austin's. For a half second this seems like a miracle of enormous proportions, proof that I am meant to be here, checking on them. But the relief is painfully brief; I realize I'll eventually have to get home, and even if it stops raining by the time I'm ready to leave, the roads will be slick with the remnants of the drizzle.

And this time I can't call Lisha to pick me up.

There isn't room in my raging brain to really feel the sadness of that fact.

I lean against the building, smoking. This obsession with
Sylvia and Austin is doing a number on my lungs. I can feel my body craving the smoke, the inhales, the give in my head and my body when it gets a hit of nicotine. The doorman eyes me a little. I'd forgotten about what I'm wearing, and the simple, obvious fact that nothing about the farmer-meets-prep-school-meets-asexual-hobo look is helping me blend in here. The bottom of Beck's pants are wet with rainwater now, and my chunky sweater has a hole in the sleeve that I hadn't noticed before, and a stain on the collar. My ringlets are turning to frizz in the rain; I haven't bothered with an umbrella or even a hoodie.

I take just a few drags of the first cigarette before squashing it under my foot and starting over. The only part of smoking I actually like is that first burst of light and the moment before the inhale. I like the certainty of that beginning, saying to the world,
I will be standing out here calming myself down for the next five minutes and I don't care if you know it.

When I've snuffed out a second and third one too, I know I'm looking even more suspicious. It's not like there's some
NO LOITERING
sign or anything, but I guess the rule is implied, because as my fingers turn blue and freezing from the cold, the doorman saunters right up to me and raises his eyebrows. It's the look someone gives you when they're taking pity.

He's not much older than me, with short, gelled hair and a wrinkled uniform. I try a bright smile for about half a second before I decide I'm too tired to flirt. With the last cigarette
rubbed into the pavement I revert right back into a ball of nerves.

Since my talk with Austin it's even sketchier than usual for me to be hanging around his building. I definitely should not, under any circumstances, be here.

“I'm hoping that's your last cigarette,” the doorman says.

“Gross habit, right?” I say, gesturing to the pile of butts at my feet.

“You waiting for someone?” he says. There's no smile, no apologetic undertone. I must look really bad right now. I mean, worse than I thought.

“Yeah.”

“Someone in the building?”

“Uh-huh.” I decide to don an attitude. It's a tactic I got from my mom. I once asked her how she earns the respect of all the seriously tough dudes she's in charge of. And she said she just acts like she belongs, acts like she came from some city way tougher than they did, and then they give her respect.

Normally, I'd go for that effect with a quick costume change: leather, studded belt, dark eyeliner. But I don't have that option right now. I stand up a little straighter and try to imagine how I'd feel if I were wearing that fabulous, vintage, black leather jacket I saw in the window of the best store ever, All Used Up. I cross my arms over my chest.

“I'm going to have to ask who you're waiting for,” the doorman says. The whole conversation is taking way too long for him.

“Sylvia, up on the sixth floor.”

“She's not home.”

“Yeah.”

I hoped saying as little as possible might either buy me time or get him to offer up information on his own, but instead he tilts his head down like I'm even smaller than I actually am, and stares at me until I speak again.

“I, um, left my keys? To my house? At their apartment. By accident.” I clear my throat and shift my hips to give off more certainty. With lying being so one hundred percent new to me, I don't think I'm doing
so
terribly.

“Uh-huh,” he says, not budging.

“I know, I'm a total idiot, but I really need to get them. Can I just run up and—”

“You understand my job is to keep people
out
, right? Not to help people get in?” he says, crossing his arms over his large chest.

“Right. Yeah,” I say. I just need some sign of them, some way to check on them. I'm obviously not getting in, so I try something else.

“They said they'd be around today . . . do you know when they'll be back?” I bat my eyes. “Or maybe you know where they went . . . ?” God. Now I wish I were wearing a nice Greenough Girls' Academy sweatshirt and one of those lame ribbons lacrosse players wear in their hair. Something to give me that casual innocence people respond so well to.

“What's your game? You trying to distract me? You think I don't know these games?” He's getting testy, bristling and letting his muscles bulge, letting his size intimidate me. Of course I like his size, his imposing body. Makes him seem safer, harder for me to harm. “Don't play me,” he says.

“Maybe I could go find them if they're in the neighborhood . . . ”

I used to think of people with OCD as so organized, so anal, that they couldn't possibly be spontaneous. But the worse my disorder gets, the more likely I am to fly by the seat of my pants.

When you get down to it, it's all about priorities. And it is obviously not my priority to be normal, right now. I've completely lost this guy and he's stepping in closer to me. He's about to get pissed for real.

“They won't be back tonight. I don't like whatever it is you're trying to pull here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

I swallow. It's a particular kind of brick wall in the conversation that I'm coming up against. One more idea.

“I'm sorry, of course. But I can't . . . I am not in a good state to drive. I need to call someone. I'm underage. If I could just sit in the lobby . . . You could keep an eye on me . . . ?” If I'm not going to see Sylvia and Austin and I'm not going to see their apartment, I need to at least get a good look at the lush lobby of their building. If I do that, maybe it will be
enough to sustain me for a few days. I need
something
. I let my eyes tear up a little.

“Aw, man, don't do that,” the huge guy says, and unwinds his arms from the pretzel they've been in. I wipe away a tear, and he's done for. It's the biggest cliché ever, but he softens. With a huge sigh he nods and points to an armchair right in his eyesight.

“Make the call. Then skedaddle,” he says. I try hard not to laugh at the word “skedaddle.” Then I scan the room for information and make a mental list that as soon as I'm back in my car I'll transfer into a written list:

Antique chandeliers

One dark purple wall

Cheesy/cheap black-and-white photography

Mirrored coffee table

The fleur-de-lis armchair I'm sitting in.

I need a notebook in a really intense way.

“You call your ride yet?” the doorman says. He sees the crazy in me. A total stranger and he sees the part of me I've been working so, so hard to cover up. I feel practically naked. He's got a hand on his belt and I see it's covering some kind of pager, like he's poised to call 911 or something. There's a horrible sickening feeling at being this exposed. At a stranger seeing up close and personal how messy I am.