by Isobel Irons
OBSESSIVE
An Issues Series Novel
Isobel Irons
Copyright Isobel Irons 2014
http://isobelirons.com
CONTENTS
An Introduction by Isobel Irons
PART I: PERFECT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART II: FUNCTIONAL
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
PART III: MOST LIKELY TO…
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PART IV: CRASH & BURN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART V: KNOW IT ALL
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
APPENDIX
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Where the Hell is Margot?
Educate Yourself About OCD
From Prince to Beast: Unraveling Mr. Perfect and the Happily Ever After
An Introduction by Isobel Irons
“In real life, Prince Charming would’ve had some skeletons in his closet. Possibly even some evil ex-girlfriends. …Or ex-boyfriends. No judgment, but that guy’s boots were pretty damn shiny.” – Tash Bohner, PROMISCUOUS (Deleted Scenes)
When I first published PROMISCUOUS, it occurred to me that a lot of women were going to see Grant as this kind of magical, ideal creature—like the Holy Grail of fictional [non-vampire] high school boyfriends. And in a way, he is pretty damn close to perfect. He’s exactly the kind of guy a girl like Tash would dream about meeting, and if he somehow happened to fall in love with her too, it would seem like kind of a miracle.
But that’s where the problem starts happening. Because finding someone who’s willing to love you for who you truly are is pretty damn miraculous as it is. That’s when “damaged” girls like Tash and I start looking for those skeletons. Sure, he seems perfect, and to all outward appearances he’s totally devoted to you, but let’s see if we can’t test that theory, shall we? ‘Will you still love me when I’m old and insane, and smell like eggs?’ Or, ‘Will you still think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world, after I’ve popped out a couple of kids and you hire a hot new secretary who’s ten years younger?’ Why wait to find out, when you can start asking these theoretical questions now? Or better yet, let’s find sneaky ways to test for the latent secretary weakness or geriatric bailing gene now, while we’re young. (You’re laughing, but I know a lot of girls who are guilty of this mentality.) And guess what? Chances are, your guy hasn’t thought about these things yet, so he likely doesn’t even know the answers to your questions about diapers and office affairs.
Contrary to popular belief, ‘I love you’ is not a happily ever after. It’s more like a secret password that gets you into the final round of the emotional Hunger Games. And if you survive that experience, you get to learn a lot about each other, and hopefully stay together. If not, you get to learn a lot about yourself.
So here it comes, the usual warning. Some of you might hate this book. Among the more common bits of feedback I got from my OBSESSIVE beta readers were things like: "what's up with Grant?" and, "poor Grant!" Like when he would freak out or make bad choices, the readers didn't understand how that could happen to someone like him. Or they automatically assumed it wasn't his fault. Because, to all appearances, in PROMISCUOUS Grant was this charming prince who swept in and tried to rescue Tash, (even when she didn't think she needed to be rescued).
Grant was the "good guy," and Tash was the “damaged girl” who just needed to learn how to let someone love her. Right?
When I cast around for a fairy tale to use in writing Grant's story, I immediately thought of Beauty and the Beast, because it's always been one of my favorites. But much as I did with PROMISCUOUS, when I used the more grotesque and gritty version of Aschenputtel, instead of the fluffier Cinderella, I wanted to follow this story back to its source. Which is how I stumbled upon a very loose translation of the original French tale, La Belle et La Bete by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. This version, even more so than the Disney-fied one with its cuddly-looking Beast and drool-worthy library, was right up my alley. It involved numerous plot twists, at least two back stories that were dark as fuck, and tons of feminist subtext and literary angst. And the best part was, the story wasn’t at all about how Belle needed to learn how to look past the Beast’s exterior and love him for who he truly was. It was all about how the Beast learned to transform himself, by finding out who he truly was.
Armed with this dark and badass tale, I began to tell the story of Grant Blue—mythical creature of high school perfection that he seemed—and his inevitable, psychological unraveling.
I promise, I didn't do this because I'm a douche bag who likes to plunge my readers into despair. In fact, the more I started to think about all the Grant types I've ever known, it's actually kind of a miracle it didn't happen sooner. Like Grant, I started to question…well, everything.
How can someone stand the pressure of all that perfection? What happens when you raise a kid to believe that he can do no wrong...until he starts to actually believe that he's not allowed to do wrong? Or make any mistakes at all? Or be a goddamn human being every once in a while? Sure, telling our girls they have to be pretty and skinny and smart and chaste and sexy at the same time...that's pretty fucked up. But isn't telling our boys that they have to be strong and funny and brave and wealthy and dependable and stoic almost as bad? Why isn't it okay for guys to freak out about their hair, or cry in front of others? Why is it “metro” to tell your friends you love them? Forget about the whole OCD thing for a second. How is a straight guy supposed to walk the line in these metrosexual times, and somehow discover the perfect medium between mango-scented hair gel and homophobia? Between talking about his feelings and getting called a whiny little bitch?
The point I’m making here is this: men are just as fucked-up, insecure, neurotic and emotional as we are, ladies. They’re just not usually as good at embracing their neuroses, or articulating their issues. And it’s not like we’re doing that great of a job of encouraging them to open up, as their sisters, their wives, their girlfriends—as a society. “Rub some dirt on it,” we say. “Be a man.”
But what is a man?
That’s why I wrote this book the way I did, with a shitload of internal exposition. (Sorry, English majors.) The truth is, Grant probably wouldn’t talk about his feelings this much in real life, or even think about them all that much. Because, fictional or not, he’s a dude.
Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus…I call bullshit on that. We’re all living on this earth together, as earthlings. That makes us the same, on the most basic level of functionality. We all want to be loved, and feel safe. We just happen to rank those needs, and communicate them, a little bit differently.
So why not cut each other some fucking slack?
Nobody’s perfect. Not even made up people, who were originally written to be perfect. Life is a big old surprise party full of issues and secrets. I’m just saying.
Now then, let’s get back to our fictional love story.
“Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.” – Ovid, Metamorphoses
PART I: PERFECT
Tash likes to call me Mr. Perfect.
She thinks it’s funny, watchi
ng me blush when she says it. She has no idea I’m blushing because I’m embarrassed, because every time she calls me perfect, I count the letters. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. Seven letters. The number of days in the week. Seven is the first integer reciprocal with infinitely repeating sexagesimal representation. And then, because I’m a guy, I think of sex.
S-E-X. Three letters. Three is a prime number. If I step into an elevator with three people in it, something bad will happen. Like the elevator might malfunction and plummet to the bottom of the shaft. Three: the number of months Tash and I have been ‘together.’ But we still haven’t had sex.
And it’s not because Tash thinks she’s not good enough for me, or because she’s upset about her best friend Margot being shipped off to ‘Reverse Fat Camp’ this summer. It’s not even because she thinks my mom hates her ‘sassy, trailer trash guts.’
No, it’s because of me. It’s 100% my fault. Because every time she calls me Mr. Perfect, it’s a lie. I’m not perfect. I’m a walking malfunction. And more than anything, I’m scared. All the time. I’m scared to let Tash find out just how perfect I’m not, because then something bad will happen.
CHAPTER ONE
JUNE
I’ve always hated summer.
The irregular schedule and lack of structure makes me feel adrift, like that movie Tash made me watch last week about astronauts who get detached from their shuttle and float off into space.
Ninety-one minutes of terrified flailing in an airless abyss, and a brand new nightmare to keep me awake through the boredom. At least Castaway had that volleyball for comic relief. But then, nobody really watches Castaway to watch it, do they? I might not be a player like my friend Matt, but even I know what a ‘makeout movie’ is.
Now that I think about it, that might be why Tash wanted to watch the space movie in the first place. And I, total malfunction of a human being that I am, spent the entire movie wondering about space survival, instead of making out with the funniest, hottest and most down-to-earth girl on earth.
It’s no wonder I’m sitting in therapy right now, instead of getting a tan at the lake with friends I haven’t seen since graduation two weeks ago, or doing any other normal, summery teenage things.
Because I am abnormal. Dysfunctional, on a basic cellular level. Broken.
“Have you been keeping up with your journal?” Jeanne, my therapist, stares at me patiently over the thick rims of her bright blue glasses. I get the feeling she’s been doing that for a while, just staring at me and waiting for me to say something. As usual, I’ve been getting lost in my headspace, drifting off into gray matter, oblivious to my actual surroundings.
“Yeah,” I nod. “Not as much as I did during school, though.”
She smiles. “That’s right, I completely forgot! Wow, this year has flown by. How does it feel to be a graduate?”
How does it feel? I clear my throat. It feels like my space shuttle just blew up, and I’m drifting around, wondering when my oxygen supply is going to run out.
“Good,” I tell her. “It’s uh, it’s good to be done with high school.”
Jeanne cocks her head, eyeing me speculatively. “Just good?”
I squirm in my seat, careful not to touch the bare skin of my forearms to the leather armrests, which countless crazy people have undoubtedly come into contact with in the recent past. Another reason to hate summer: people think it’s weird when you wear long-sleeved shirts, and gloves are unheard of in June, unless you’re working outside. What else does she want me to say? It’s not like this is a new thing, me being taciturn. She’s basically a spy for my dad, to make sure I’m taking my meds, because of our deal. Because weekly therapy and meds are ‘necessary evils,’ in his words. We both know it. So why does she insist on pretending she cares about what I’m thinking?
If my dad gets his way, I’m staring down the barrel of ten more years of school, followed by residency, then 80 hours or more a week of surgeries, scrubbing in and cutting people open. I nod again.
“Really good.”
Short answers are the key to getting through the next 37 minutes unscathed. Short answers are safe, even if they tend to piss off people who like to read a lot of emotions into your response. They call it sharing, but it’s more like oversharing. Like opening up a vein and just letting the thoughts pour out until everyone is uncomfortable. Verbal diarrhea—it’s a perfectly disgusting phrase to describe how awkward a situation can become when people share too much, too easily.
“Are you enjoying summer break so far?”
Thirty-five minutes left now. “Sure. What little is left of it.”
I smile, to soften the truth I never meant to say out loud. Tash must be rubbing off on me. Jeanne looks confused for a split-second, but then she consults her notes and remembers, smiling when she’s back in control of the conversation.
“That’s right, your dad said you’d been accepted to the summer anatomy program at Duke. You must be so excited.”
I keep my face blank, but a muscle twitches in my jaw, as my anxiety level jumps from a four to a five. Jeanne is a spy, so I’ll tell her what she—and by extension, my dad—wants to hear.
“Yeah, super excited. It’s a really great opportunity.”
Jeanne’s expression says she wants more. “Are you nervous at all?”
“Nervous?” I blink, and silently start counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven….
An unbidden slide show of disturbing images flashes through my head. Dead bodies. Cold skin. Metal slicing through flesh. My palms are starting to sweat, and I want to put my hands in my pockets, for safe keeping. But I’m sitting down, so instead I rest them on my knees. I’m always hyper-aware of where my hands are. It’s one of my ‘tendencies,’ as Dad likes to call them. So much nicer sounding than ‘obsessions,’ or ‘compulsions.’ Or, as Jeanne calls them, ‘rituals.’ Like I’m addicted to sacrificing wildlife for pagan mating rites, or something. Not just washing my hands or counting.
“Just excited.”
When I was a kid, we went on this father-son hunting trip, my dad and me. When we were building a fire by the lake, this fisherman cut his hand open with a knife. My dad had an emergency kit with him, so he sutured the guy’s hand, right there by the lake. He made me hold the flashlight for him, so he could see what he was doing. I can still remember watching the skin pull away from the fisherman’s hand, tugged from the flesh with every stitch—flesh I could clearly see, exposed. F-L-E-S-H. Five letters.
I was five or six at the time, I think. I can’t really remember. Man, I hate that word, flesh.
“Grant?”
Jeanne is looking at me expectantly again, waiting for another short answer to another question I zoned out and missed.
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked if you’ve had any more attacks since the last time we talked.”
Of course I have. But I’m not telling her that. First of all, because she doesn’t really care. She’s only being paid to ask these questions. My 50 minute ‘sharing’ session is almost up, and unlike my dad, Jeanne gets paid no matter what. Even if she doesn’t ‘fix’ me. Even if I walk out of here every time every bit as broken as I was when I walked in, she gets paid.
Maybe I should become a psychiatrist, instead of a surgeon. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
But then hey, no flesh to deal with. Bonus, as Tash would say.
I still haven’t answered Jeanne’s question, but she’s got to be getting used to that by now. We’ve been doing this one-sided dance for almost eleven months. Forty-four 50 minute sessions of pointless Q&A, 19 prescription refills—including two changes in medication and dosage, because of negative side-effects—and if I’d been keeping track, which I now realize I should have been, probably about 2,000,000 shrugs on my part, followed by the word ‘good,’ or ‘fine.’
I shrug again, number 2,000,001.
“No, it’s been a while since I’ve had any attacks.”
“That’s great, Grant.” Jeanne smiles
again, her face encouraging, like she believes my lie and is proud of me. Or maybe she’s just happy that the hour is up, like I am. “I guess the medication is working, then.”
I don’t answer. If by ‘working,’ she means that the pills keep me from feeling normal human emotions, like fear, or pain, or happiness, or lust…then yeah, I guess they are.
CHAPTER TWO
After I leave the psychiatrist’s office, I have to pick up my little sister Genevieve from piano lessons. Over the summer, Gen practices on the grand piano in the auditorium at school. It feels weird driving into the Guthrie High parking lot. It’s the same as it’s always been, yet so different. The potholes remind me of the surface of the moon. I wait in the car, listening to a CD Tash made for me. It’s full of songs from her favorite movies, and I smile when I listen to it, even though I don’t really like most of the songs all that much. When she gave it to me, she had this really serious look on her face.
“This is the modern equivalent of a mix tape,” she said. “Believe me when I say that this is an epic gesture on my part.”
As the next song comes on, (“No Sleep Tonight” by some band called The Faders) I see Gen coming out of the side door of the auditorium. I honk, and she jumps, then gives me this evil glare that strangely reminds me of Tash.
Then again, there’s not a lot happening that doesn’t remind me of Tash, these days.
Gen opens the passenger side door and climbs in, holding her music folder in her mouth while she does up her seatbelt. I fight the urge to cringe, but then I remind myself that she doesn’t have the same contamination fears I do. She looks sideways at me, like she knows what I’m thinking, then opens her mouth, letting the folder fall into her lap. Loose sheet music flutters to the floor.
