OBSESSIVE (The Issues Series)

by Isobel Irons

  About an hour later, Mayor Patrick finally shows up. That’s what I’ve started calling him in my head, as kind of a compromise. Even though he’s been nothing but nice, I can’t really overhaul a lifetime of being trained by my dad to respect any and all authority types.

  “Good morning, kids!” He smiles at us, and I fight the urge to stand up and salute him. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

  “Oh definitely,” Melody says, before I can answer. “We deleted about a hundred different junk emails, and Grant made a rainbow.”

  She points at my notes, and I feel my face start to heat up. I should have just done them in black, then taken the notes home with me and copied and color coded them later, like I used to do in school. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget that people are always watching, always judging.

  I won’t make that mistake again, at least not around Melody. I smile and give a half-hearted laugh, like what she just said was some kind of inside joke, between the two of us. “She’s a great trainer.”

  The mayor looks slightly confused, but he doesn’t pursue the subject. “Alright then, well why don’t you show him how to work the coffee machine next, Mel? I’m feeling a little beat up after Joe Baxter ran me ragged all over the green.”

  “Sure thing, Daddy.”

  The second Mayor Patrick disappears down the hallway, I stand up. “Do you mind if I use the restroom?”

  “Sure, just don’t take too long. My dad gets pretty cranky when he doesn’t get his coffee.”

  “Where is it?”

  Melody gestures off in the direction of the mayor’s office. “You can use the private one if you want. It’s the last door on the left, right before my dad’s office.”

  I thank her, even though it pains me, and make for sanctuary as fast as I can. When I’m finally by myself in the tiny, but thankfully clean bathroom, I rip off my tie. My face feels feverish, and my hands are shaking. It’s got to be withdrawal from the meds, because it can’t be over something as stupid as the mayor’s bratty daughter making fun of me in front of her dad for the second time in two days.

  Suddenly, I’m overcome with sweat-related paranoia. I look in the mirror, raising my arms, expecting to see giant tacos of sweat starting to form. But there’s nothing there. Still, just in case, I strip off my shirt and hang it carefully across the back of the stall, then wash my hands and arms and splash cold water on my face. I know I’m ritualizing, that I’m freaking out, that I’m seconds away from going off the rails, but I can’t seem to stop washing. I have no idea how long I’ve been in the bathroom, but I know it’s too long to be normal. Someone is going to notice. If not Mayor Patrick, then definitely Melody. I was an idiot to think I could pretend. She’s been watching me like a hawk since I got here, just waiting for me to screw up. Hoping for me to screw up, more like it.

  Get a grip, Grant. No one is out to get you. Nothing bad is going to happen. It’s all in your head. You’re stronger than this. You’re better than this. Or at least, you should be.

  Somehow, I manage to pull myself together enough to dry off and put my shirt back on. I carefully tuck it in, making sure it looks exactly the way it did when I came in. I replace my tie the same way, but this time I can’t bring myself to get excited about the thought of taking it off.

  The next six and a half hours seem to stretch in front of me like an endless desert. I don’t know how I’m going to survive, not with a red-headed vulture circling my every move. Maybe I can make myself throw up and pretend to have food poisoning. Then I can go home, take my meds, and start again fresh tomorrow.

  Just thinking it makes me feel weak and pathetic. It makes me hate myself. Which makes me angry. Which somehow, ironically, makes me feel less afraid.

  I muster up the courage to leave the bathroom and go back to the front office. Melody stares me down from her usual spot at the desk, arms crossed. “Took you long enough.”

  “Sorry.” I search for a good excuse, but she doesn’t wait for one.

  “Anyway, I went ahead and made coffee—by myself—so you’ll just have to figure out how to do it on your own tomorrow. Right now I need you to change the toner in the copy machine, and then you can start alphabetizing the archives. Do you think you can manage?”

  You mean, can I handle working by myself, in the sweet bliss of silence, away from you?

  I smile. “Absolutely.”

  An hour later, Melody comes to find me in the archives. I’ve already gotten through three of the filing cabinets, and sustained only a couple of small paper cuts in the process. It burns like hell when I use the hand sanitizer, but I consider it a small price to pay for personal liberty.

  “I’m taking my lunch hour now,” she says. “You can take yours after you bring the recycling bins down to the loading dock.”

  “There’s a loading dock?”

  “Uh huh,” she says, already turning to leave. “Just take the freight elevator and press ‘B’ for basement.”

  Great, the freight elevator. Which leads to a dark, moldy basement. Full of trash.

  But I’m hungry, and I’ve decided not to let Melody win, so I roll my sleeves up even further and prepare to go into battle. I psych myself out with stupid mantras for a few more seconds, then I trek into the front office.

  But when I round the corner by Melody’s desk, I freeze in my tracks. What I’m seeing can’t be real. It has to be a mirage. Wishes don’t really come true, especially when you’re too stressed to make them.

  I take another cautious step forward. “Tash?”

  Looking totally out of place in her cutoff jean shorts and see-through t-shirt, the blonde goddess turns toward me. “Hey, there you are! I was worried I’d missed you.”

  My eyes sweep the office, but Melody is nowhere in sight. It’s a miracle. My chest feels like a hot air balloon as I move toward my beautiful, amazing girlfriend, pulling her into my arms. Tash laughs, holding her arms out awkwardly at her sides, a milkshake in each hand.

  “Rough day, huh?”

  “No, it’s going great,” I lie. Then I kiss her. “I’m just really glad you’re here.”

  I kiss her again. Everything is suddenly better.

  “Listen,” she says, pulling away to look over her shoulder, even though no one else is in sight. “I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything, but I didn’t know if you were going to get a break ever, so I thought I’d bring you one of your disgusting PBJ smoothies and find out if you’re free after work.”

  I’m distracted by the fact that I can see red strings around her neck, trailing down to dip into her low-cut shirt. It’s a swimsuit, I realize. I’ve never seen her in one before. It shouldn’t seem like such a big deal, after last night, but it does. I suddenly wish I wasn’t working, so I could take her to the lake.

  “Did you go swimming?”

  “What?” Tash looks down at herself, confused. “Oh. No, I was laying out on my roof this morning. Yo, eyes up here, Frodo. Did you even hear what I said?”

  My senses are buzzing. I can’t wait to get her alone. “Yes, I did. And I do get a lunch break, but I have to take the recycling bins downstairs, first. Can you wait for me? It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

  “Recycling bins?” Tash’s forehead wrinkles in concern. “I thought you’d be doing more, like…I don’t know…interny stuff.”

  I thought the same, but I don’t say it out loud. Instead, I smile, like it’s a big joke. Because it kind of is.

  “As it turns out, the word ‘intern’ is pretty much code for ‘modern-day slave.’” I grab the handle of the recycling bin and tilt it onto its wheels. It’s heavier than it looks. I frown, realizing I’m going to have to make two trips. “But it’s all good.”

  “Here,” Tash puts the cups down on Melody’s desk. “Let me help you. That way you don’t have to ride the elevator alone.”

  I’m not sure if she knows that she just saved me from a trip to hell, but even if she doesn’t, I love her. That’s it.
It’s settled. I freaking love this girl. There’s just no other word for it.

  Together, we drag the giant rubber trash bins down the hall and into the world’s cleanest freight elevator, and as it turns out, it’s not so bad. I realize I could’ve survived it on my own, but having Tash there cracking jokes and stealing kisses just makes everything feel so much more…doable. And even when it’s not, she seems to understand. Like how she automatically reaches past me to push the elevator button, and sneaks a kiss at the same time. Or when we come back from the basement and she asks for some of my hand sanitizer, and then squeezes some into my hands, too, like it’s an afterthought.

  I honestly don’t know how she does it, but she almost makes me feel…normal.

  The question is, can I find a way to feel like this all the time, even when she’s not around? Or is Tash going to become my new obsession, something I can’t function without? It’s messed up, the way my OCD likes to take good things and twist them like that. But as we take our milkshakes and drive to the park, I can’t help thinking it.

  If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. You can have too much of a good thing. All good things must come to an end. …And other such depressing platitudes, by people who think like me.

  ###

  Somehow, with Tash’s encouragement, I manage to go back to city hall and make it through the rest of the day unscathed—except for a few more paper cuts.

  After I go home and shower, I change and pick up Tash for dinner and a movie. We go to my favorite French restaurant—but really, it’s the only restaurant I can go to, because the owners are my neighbors and they know about my OCD. Tash doesn’t comment when the waiter brings my water in a disposable plastic cup with a lid on it, while everyone else gets a real glass.

  At the movie theater, Tash and I hold hands the entire time, and it doesn’t bother me, because it’s her hand. The movie is something ridiculous about sharks and tornadoes, but Tash is so into it, I laugh along with her. When the movie is over, we wait a few minutes and then file out of the dark theater along with everyone else, going toward the light like a flock of very orderly mosquitos.

  But just before we make it through the door, Tash stops walking so abruptly that I bump into her, and the lady walking behind me bumps into me.

  “Sorry,” I say, to both of them. Even though it’s technically not my fault. I put my arm around Tash, thinking maybe she’s just having a clumsy moment or her foot slid out of her shoe or something. It happens. “Hey, what’s the hold up?”

  She doesn’t budge. Her face tells me something is seriously wrong. I follow her gaze to the other side of the hallway, where another theater is spilling out its audience through another doorway.

  “Tash, what’s going—” And that’s when I see Trent Gibson. Standing just a few feet away from us, with two of his friends. He’s laughing, loudly, and I know I’ll never forget the sound of that laugh. I can only imagine how Tash is feeling, knowing that he’s walking around and laughing still.

  My hands clench into fists. I don’t even try to control the wave of hatred that crashes through me. Normally, I’d be the calm one. I’d pull Tash gently in the other direction, muttering something along the lines of, ‘He’s not worth it.’ And he isn’t. Deep down, I know that.

  But tonight, my brain isn’t in a position to process such an unexpected meeting with the person I’ve imagined murdering, literally thousands of times.

  So instead of walking away, I let go of Tash and move toward Trent, ignoring his friends—who are each at least as tall and strong as I am—and haul back, punching him as hard as I can. His friends watch in surprise as I head butt him in the face, then kick him in the gut. When he falls to his knees, I keep kicking him, ignoring his cries of pain. But even that isn’t enough. As a growing crowd watches, I pick up a trash can and start hitting him with it, over and over until his bones crack. Someone calls the police, because they show up, guns drawn. They yell at me to stop, but I don’t. I can’t. Tash tries to pull me away, but I’m so bent on killing Trent Gibson that I don’t let her. The police open fire. Tash and I both fall to the ground, dead.

  Tonight, my brain is especially creative. Which is why I stand, frozen on the spot, every muscle in my body clenched, as I fight to keep the images in my mind from becoming reality.

  Even though the scenario my OCD has invented is something that would only ever happen in a Tarantino movie, I can’t stop picturing it. Can’t stop believing that somehow, deep down, this is what I really want to happen. Otherwise, why would I let myself think it?

  “Grant,” Tash’s voice is quiet, calm, unlike her. “Grant, it’s okay. Come on, let’s go.”

  That’s when I realize that part of my sick vision was real. People really are looking at me like I’m deranged, even if I’m not currently pummeling Trent. My breath is coming in short, loud gasps. I’m having a panic attack in the middle of a crowded theater. Ironically, that’s also a nightmare I frequently have.

  “I’m sorry.” I’m shaking my head, trying to clear it, failing. My eyes dart around, looking for Trent, but he’s gone. It’s not enough to calm my racing heart, but it’s enough to get me moving. I follow Tash out the side exit, across the parking lot, into the car.

  By the time we get inside, the anxiety has melted away, leaving only shame.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell her, for probably the hundredth time. “I didn’t handle that very well.”

  It’s the understatement of the century.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So Grant, how have you been?”

  The clock on Jeanne’s desk is turned around today, so I can’t see the time. But I can hear it ticking. I count the ticks, adding up the seconds until I get to the minute, and continuing the running tally in my head. Three minutes and 27 seconds, three minutes and 28 seconds…three-twenty-nine, three-thirty….

  “Great.” It might be the biggest lie I’ve told all week.

  “That’s good. So, on a scale from one to ten, where would you rate your anxiety today?”

  My head is pounding, my nerves are raw, and I haven’t slept in two days. Last night, I spent hours going through my closet, looking for a homework assignment from my freshman English class, because I couldn’t remember what grade I’d gotten on my essay about Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Then, after I’d found it, I stayed up the rest of the night reorganizing my notebooks, just to make sure they were still in chronological order. God forbid the admissions department from Stanford should lose one of my transcripts, and I can’t find the paper that proves I got a 98% on my final essay for a class I took four years ago, or back that up with the notes I took leading up to the assignment.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe… a five?”

  My hands are clammy, sweaty and itchy, all at the same time. How is that even possible?

  “And how is the new dosage plan working out for you? Are you seeing any side-effects this time? Insomnia? Mood swings?”

  “No.”

  There has to be a way I can figure this out on my own, without having to tell my dad about the medication. He always grills me, every time my prescription gets changed. Then, he goes off on a research binge to make sure the studies support whatever I’m thinking and feeling. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t usually know what I’m thinking and feeling, because I can’t tell him. If I tell him, I stop being his son. I become his patient. I’ve made that mistake before, and it took me almost ten years to earn back his respect. He just now starting letting me make my own decisions again, like quitting the course at Duke. What would he say if he knew I’d stopped taking my meds, that I’d been lying to him about everything? He’d never trust me again.

  “Didn’t you say something about mental exercises, or something?”

  “Yes, I do remember mentioning that,” Jeanne says, after a moment. “The mind over matter approach. Are you saying you’d like to try something like that?”

  I shrug, like it’s not important to me. “Sure, why not?
”

  All my life, I’ve hated my OCD. But I’ve also kind of secretly loved it. Like a complex equation I get to solve on a daily basis, all these rules I have to find my way around. Every situation is a new problem, and I’m the constant variable. Solve for Grant. Find a way to make it work.

  But it never really works, because in the end I’m only functional under controlled circumstances. Not in the real world. Not in the world Tash lives in, or my dad, or future potential employers. I try to imagine living in a dorm room, having a roommate, getting married, having kids, but I can’t. Not the way things are now.

  “What do I need to do?”

  “Well, it’s not really something you do, per se.” Jeanne seems uncomfortable, but maybe that’s because this is the most proactive I’ve ever been about my treatment plan. Usually I just shrug and go with it, or at least I pretend to. “It’s more about changing the way you think. Every patient’s process is different, because every person with a mental disorder has a different set of processes they need to rewrite. It’s like training your brain to respond differently, teaching yourself how to override your first instincts. In order to figure out how to face your fears, we need to bring them to the surface and figure out exactly what they are. Have you been keeping up with your journals?”

  “Yes,” I lie. Okay, so the first step is to go back and back-fill my journals with all of the intrusive thoughts I’ve been having. That shouldn’t be a problem. I remember them vividly.

  “Can you…” I start tapping my fingers on my knee, trying to keep my mind on the task at hand: becoming normal, no matter what it takes. “Can you give me an example of how it’s supposed to work?”

  “Hmm, let’s see….” Jeanne starts tapping her pen, and I count the taps, synchronizing my finger taps to her thoughtful movement. For some reason, it’s okay for Jeanne to do this, but when I do it, it’s a compulsion. When Tash wants to sanitize her hands, it’s because she’s skeeved out by the germs in the basement, like any normal person would be. But when I do it, it’s a compulsion. Suddenly, I’m struck by how unfair it all is. How being tagged in first grade was nothing compared to this label I have, this disorder—this disease—that has taken everything about me and twisted it into something to be ashamed of. So I’m meticulous, and organized, and clean. Since when are those problems to have?