by Isobel Irons
“Basically, what you’d do is identify a certain situation in which you’d usually feel the need to give in to a compulsion, like if your hand touches a doorknob. What would you usually do in that situation?”
I realize she’s manipulating me, but I don’t have a choice. If I want to figure out the answer to this problem, I need to know the formula. I need to see the whole picture.
“I’d wash my hands, or use hand sanitizer. Or I’d count.”
“Okay, so imagine what would happen if you didn’t do those things, if you didn’t follow through on your usual ritual. What’s your worst case scenario?”
I shrug again. “I don’t know. Something bad will happen.”
Jeanne shakes her head. “For the reprogramming to work, you need to be specific. What exactly will happen?”
This time, I’m telling the truth. I don’t really know, because usually I’m so focused on trying not to think about it. On trying to avoid going down that path, for fear where it might lead.
“I guess…I guess it’s different, every time.” I rub my hands on my knees, trying to dry off the sweat. “Sometimes it’s germs that lead to disease, but sometimes it’s other stuff. Stuff that doesn’t make sense, because it’s not connected at all. Like, if I don’t keep both hands on the wheel when I’m driving, my parents might fight and get a divorce.”
I feel stupid even saying it, because I know how ridiculous it sounds. It’s not OCD unless you know you’re crazy, I remind myself. Like that helps.
“I know it might not seem like it, Grant, but those fears are really common. Everyone has them. The only difference between you and me is that I don’t feel responsible if these things happen.” Jeanne smiles. “Okay, well that’s not completely true. If I took my hands off the steering wheel and got in a crash and then someone got hurt, I might feel responsible. But your OCD takes that part of you, that rational, compassionate part that doesn’t want to hurt anyone or anything—even by accident—and it takes it a step too far.”
I nod, even though I don’t really agree. It’s not that I don’t understand what she’s saying, it’s just that I don’t think normal people worry about the same kind of things I do. Because unlike me, they have the ability to turn it off, to make themselves not care. Even about the little things. Especially about the little things, the things I can’t seem to stop caring about. And no matter how much I try or how bad I want to stop caring, I can’t.
“But what if something bad does happen? Am I just supposed to tell myself it’s not my fault?”
“That’s the point, it sounds like you’re not even letting yourself get that far. You’re stuck in a preventative mindset. What you should be thinking isn’t ‘what if,’ it’s ‘what will I do if?’”
What will I do? I stop tapping with my fingers, and start tapping with my foot, instead. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe you can’t control your fears, but you can choose whether or not they affect the way you act. Pushing them away doesn’t help, but examining them more closely might. The reason cognitive reprogramming works is that it forces you to take those fears and pursue them to their ultimate, irrational conclusion. It’s like turning on the light when you’re afraid of the dark. If you follow the fear all the way to its conclusion, instead of avoiding it, maybe the fears will lose some of their power over you. Maybe they won’t. The point is, at least you’ll know what you’re giving up so much of your life for, right?”
Giving up my life? For some reason, her choice of words makes me incredibly angry. Like I’m just sitting back and waving as my best years pass me by, like I’m just passively avoiding a confrontation with my OCD, meanwhile it’s blatantly stealing my life away, and laughing in my face.
Then again, maybe she’s right. Maybe I am.
Maybe I’ve been letting myself feel helpless, and worried, and afraid all this time, when I should have been getting angry instead.
So my life is a series of fight or flight moments. What am I going to do about it?
I know what my dad would say. He’d tell me to stand up for myself, and face my fears. Stop running, stop hiding. Be a man.
I leave Jeanne’s office feeling more motivated than I have in a long time. I take that feeling and wrap it around myself like a blanket, like the Superman cape I used to run around in as a kid. Maybe I can learn to stop thinking, and just do, for once.
So all throughout the day, through every minute of my internship, I force myself to chase the fear. To follow it down the rabbit hole to its darkest conclusion. When Melody makes a particularly snarky comment about the way I highlight a mailing list, and I picture myself hitting her in the head with a stapler, I let myself enjoy the image. I imagine myself in prison. My parents spent all their life savings on my defense, but it didn’t help. What am I going to do? Probably get shanked. But maybe I’ll get a tattoo and start my own gang. We’ll be the cleanest and most well-behaved convicts ever. I’m pretty sure Tash would come visit me, even if I was a convicted murderer.
Throughout the day, the scenarios only become more ridiculous.
When Melody makes me go through the office refrigerator and throw away a bunch of moldy takeout boxes, I imagine myself contracting bubonic plague. I get black, pus-filled spots all over my body, and no one I know will come near me. But I can still Skype with Tash from my quarantined hospital room, so that’s something. At least I can die knowing that she’ll be okay. Unless I don’t realize I have the plague yet, and I kiss her, and she gets it too. And then I give it to my parents, and my dad spreads it all over the hospital, and half the population of the U.S. gets taken out in a horrible epidemic. And they have to rename it the Blue Plague, after me.
So yeah, that would really suck. But at least people would remember me.
By the time 5:00 PM rolls around, I’ve imagined a whole bunch of really terrible, really elaborate consequences to my actions. But somehow, the practice has made it harder for me to ritualize, because I’m distracted by the details. As I leave my internship without once having done a sneaky full-body wash, it hits me: I’ve basically spent the entire day doing the OCD equivalent of ‘Scared Straight.’
The problem is, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Am I getting better, numbing myself to the fear? Or am I just letting it run rampant, like a virus in my brain?
There’s really no way of knowing, until I eventually snap.
CHAPTER NINE
After work, I go to drive home and end up at Tash’s house instead. We don’t have plans, and she’s probably not expecting me, but I was so focused on white-knuckling the steering wheel and keeping the bottom of my left foot glued to the floor that I guess my subconscious took over. I’m not surprised. It’s getting to a point where, when I wake up in the morning, she’s the first person I want to see.
I park across the street and go up to the house, making sure to give a wide berth to the one-eyed cat licking itself on the driveway. It looks like it’s got at least half a dozen diseases. Though some part of me realizes that it’d probably be good for me to imagine petting it, I can’t quite bring myself to take that kind of risk. Even thinking about it could give me rabies.
When I knock on the door, there’s the sound of shuffling from inside. I’m guessing Tash probably just got out of the shower, or she’s changing, since she just got off of work a little before I did. Of course, that brings up a mental image of her standing in her room, wearing nothing but a towel. Then later, on the couch. I can feel myself blushing, just thinking about it.
The door swings open, and it’s like someone has thrown a bucket of cold water in my face.
“Oh. Hi Mrs. Bohner,” I take a step back, feeling suddenly awkward. I’ve only met her in passing a few times. Once when I came to pick up Tash for a date, and once I saw her taking out the trash in the morning when we were on our way to school.
“If you’re looking for Tash, she’s not home.” Unlike her daughter, Tash’s mom is short and small boned, with curly brown
hair. But she seems to share a similar ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude.
“Oh.” Okay…what now? I look around, trying to figure out what to say next, and that’s when I notice that she’s wearing a lot of makeup and this really low-cut, tight black tank top with the word ‘Buck’s’ printed across it. The other times I’ve seen her, she’s always been wearing very little makeup, and conservative business attire. Like, mom clothes. This is very, very different. Even more disturbing is the little black nametag, which reads ‘Shelly.’
Didn’t Tash say her mom’s name was Sharon?
I know there’s something else I’m supposed to say, but the wrongness of the situation has caught the attention of my OCD and now I’m fascinated. When it comes to polite conversation, I’m drawing a blank.
“Can I help you with anything else?” Sharon—or Shelly—purses her lips, and for the first time I’m struck by her resemblance to Tash. It’s all in the annoyed facial expression, apparently.
“Sorry. I just…” I force myself to meet her eyes, to stop analyzing every little detail of her appearance like a total freak. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Sometime after I leave for work.” She shrugs. “She left about a half hour ago to take Nana and Dottie to bingo at the community center. That’s all I know.”
“Great,” I say, much too quickly. Too eagerly. Never mind that I have no clue where that is. I consider asking her, but then I realize I can just google it and stop bothering her. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” With that, she turns and slams the door behind her, practically in my face.
I secretly feel a little bit vindicated, as weird as it seems. Because Tash is always saying how she worries that my parents secretly hate her, and I know they don’t. But if her mom hates me, then maybe we’ll finally be even. Or, at least, in Tash’s mind. As far as I’m concerned, we always have been.
Turning around, I go back to my car and grab my iPhone off of the hands-free holder. I’m halfway through a search query for the Carterville Community Center—because Guthrie is too small to have one—when I see Tash’s mom leave the trailer. She’s carrying one of those huge purses that could hold anything from a chainsaw to a lifetime supply of illegal drugs, and for some reason the way she moves puts me on high-alert. She looks nervous, surreptitious. Like she’s doing something she shouldn’t be.
A part of me wants to follow her, but then I realize that would be crazy behavior. Plus, if she catches me, she’ll definitely hate me. So instead, I make a mental note to bring it up with Tash later. Maybe she already knows what’s going on. Maybe that’s one of the reasons her and her mom are always fighting.
When I get to the community center, I see Tash’s car parked at the side of the building. It’s one of those repurposed churches that looks like it’s seen better days—much better days. In fact, the closer I get, the more I realize that the building is pretty much the textbook definition of ‘shady.’
I get out of the door and lock it—just once this time, but I push the button extra hard for good measure—then I go up the cracked cement stairs to the entrance. The doors are carved wood, and look kind of heavy. They have round handles, the kind that leave no hope of nudging them open with an elbow or a shoulder. Gritting my teeth, I let myself inside.
The lobby is covered in stained brown carpet, and since I’m working on letting my fears run amok, I just go ahead and assume they’re blood stains from a mass murder. I head toward a set of open double doors that lead into a large, dimly-lit gymnasium with a bunch of tables set up at one end. A woman’s voice drones numbers through a karaoke machine.
“B-51. B-51. B-51. …N-27. N-27? N-27.”
This is what Tash does for fun?
I start to head inside, but someone clears their throat behind me. I turn to see Melody sitting behind a folding card table, tucked behind a huge potted tree. Great.
“What are you doing here, Grant?”
I immediately put my hands in my pockets, like that will protect me from her evil ginger wrath.
“Nothing much. Just getting ready to play some bingo. What are you doing here?”
Melody rolls her eyes. “Oh, you know, just my father-mandated community service. He says it looks great on college applications, but I don’t really think selling bingo cards and raffle tickets in this dump once a month is going to get me a congressional seat. Do you?”
“Uh…maybe?”
She smiles, shaking her head. “You really don’t know how to flirt at all, do you?”
Is that what she thinks we’ve been doing? A cold trickle of fear runs up the back of my neck. Dear God, it’s so much worse than I imagined.
“I have a girlfriend,” I say, much too quickly. “I mean…. Sorry and everything, but…yeah.”
Melody just laughs. “Maybe you do. Who cares?” She leans forward on her elbows, pressing her chest together. She’s still wearing the same sweater she had on earlier, but it’s a lot more…unbuttoned now. “So, are you going to buy a bingo card?”
I look down at the table, avoiding the sight of her pale skin and openly challenging smile. The cards are the reusable kind, colored paper that’s been laminated and used probably a hundred different times over, by who knows how many old people with various deadly diseases. My skin crawls.
“Uh…I’m not sure if I’ll actually play. I’m supposed to meet someone here.”
“Sorry,” she shakes her head. “But you can’t go inside without buying a card. Those are the rules.”
I doubt that very much. But it’s not worth picking a fight with the mayor’s daughter over.
“Okay, well maybe I can just say hi to my girlfriend then. You might have seen her. She’s tall, blonde, looks like a Victoria’s Secret model?”
Alright, so maybe that was a little bit mean.
But instead of getting annoyed, like I wanted her to, Melody just laughs. “Nope, I haven’t seen anyone like that around.”
Right. Of course not. Because she probably thinks I’m lying, to try and make her jealous or something.
“She would’ve been with two old ladies.”
Melody stops smiling, and her eyes go wide. “You mean, the trashy one with the bad attitude? Yeah, they had to ask her to leave. She was drunk, and disorderly.”
Oh, no.
“Oh, well that can’t be the girl I’m looking for, then. Sorry.”
I turn around and leave as fast as I can. When I get to the parking lot, Tash’s car is gone. It’s one of those rare occasions where swearing seems like the right thing to do. I curse a black streak as I unlock my car and start the engine. If I hurry, maybe I can catch her. Offer to drive them all home so Tash doesn’t drive drunk all the way back to Guthrie.
After quickly sanitizing my hands, I pull up the most direct possible route to Lazy Acres Trailer Park, hoping against hope that’s the way Tash decides to take. I figure they’ll head straight home, because where else would an 18-year-old girl take two old ladies at this time of night? Denny’s? As I drive, I keep my eyes trained on the side of the road, bracing myself for any signs of an accident.
Please. Please let Melody be lying. Please let Tash be okay.
I’ve been so focused on trying to numb myself to my fears, on trying to mentally beat my OCD into submission, that I let the situation with Tash fall through the cracks. I never even bothered to explain myself last night, figuring it’d be easier to just pretend like nothing had happened. But I could tell she was upset. I was just too busy worrying about my own issues.
If she dies, I’ll never forgive myself. I can’t lose her. Not now. Not when I’m so close to cracking this equation.
When I get to Tash’s neighborhood, I go straight to Margot’s trailer. I pull up in front of the pinwheel-covered rock garden, just in time to see Tash helping Nana out of the car. I breathe deeply, telling myself it’s all going to be okay. No one died. At least that’s something. Then I get out of my car and cross the street.
“Tash?”
Her voice sounds really clear, but kind of irate. I hover by the open door of her car, trying to decide what she wants me to say. Something is wrong between us, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. Maybe because there are too many options to choose from.
As I stand there in the dark, frozen with indecision, a small, reedy voice says, “Well, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me out of this thing?”
I’m startled when I realize the voice is coming from the car. I bend down to see the older of the two ladies, Margot’s great aunt Dottie, sitting patiently in the back seat.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
Feeling a little out of my depth, I open the door and reach in to take her hand. For someone so skinny and frail-looking, she’s got a strong grip. I pull her gently toward the edge of the seat, helping her put her orthopedic shoes on the pavement.
“Now, go get my wheelchair out of the back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I hurry to do what she says, worried that if I take too long, she’ll try to walk on her own and fall. At her age, she could break a hip, and it would be all my fault.
I unfold the wheelchair, thankful for my dad and him forcing me to take volunteer shifts in the ER last summer, so at least I know how to work one. I help the old lady into the seat and push her carefully up the ramp into the trailer. Inside, she tells me to help move her from the wheelchair into her armchair, and I do. At this point, I’m feeling kind of proud of myself, because I’m too busy trying not to accidentally break all of her bones to worry about sick old people germs.
