Authors: Isobel Irons
I nod, knowing she’s probably right. I’ve always known that waiting it out usually makes people change their opinion, or fill in the blanks. That’s why I bite my tongue, to keep the frenzy of thoughts from overflowing into my mouth and spoiling the cool, collected image.
But even though I was going to break things off anyway, even though I’m pretty sure I’d already decided to let Tash go, because that’s what’s best for her…I can’t remember the moment I told her the truth. I can’t remember how I told her, or what her face looked like. And imagining watching her heart break is almost as torturous as knowing I’m the one who did it.
“Can I hear the message?”
My mom stops in the doorway. I realize it’s been so long since I said anything, she probably thought I was falling asleep. Her face is sympathetic, worried.
“No, I’m sorry. I had a feeling you were going to ask, but…in the end, I decided listening to it would do you more harm than good. You don’t need that kind of negativity right now. Let’s just focus on getting you better, okay? Then maybe you can write her a letter or something, and say goodbye properly.”
Properly. Right
.
Because that’s the first word I think of when I think of Tash—proper.
I lie back against the pillows, exhausted. “Okay, Mom.”
Of course, she’s right. Calling Tash right now would only make things harder, for both of us. She’s a great OCD wingman, my mom.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. They say it’s a quote from Albert Einstein, or sometimes Mark Twain. Someone really forward-thinking and prosaic. But as usual, they’re wrong. That inaccurate and extremely unhelpful definition of insanity—which has since been abandoned by the medical community, since no one could really find a living, breathing example of what the antonymous sane person looked like—was first published in a Narcotics Anonymous manual in 1981. I looked it up once, after a kid in my fifth grade science class said that if I was really OCD, that would make me insane.
I think about that, replaying the entire conversation in my head, as I pop another Zoloft. The irony doesn’t escape me, just like I can’t to escape it. Narcotics Anonymous, for people who take too many pills on purpose.
I think I’ve had about twice my normal daily dose by now. Maybe more. Maybe less, though, since I’m not really sure how many days it’s been since I left my bedroom. I know I’ve showered at least twice in the last couple of hours. No matter how many pills I take, I can’t seem to stop thinking about all the germs I might have picked up when I was in the hospital. It’s not that I care about getting sick, because I don’t. I just know that if I do have something, Gen will be the first to get it. She’ll be the first to die.
Then, my mom will get it. Then my dad. It doesn’t matter whether or not I die, then. Because I’ll already have lost everything I ever cared about. Then the OCD will have finally won.
All my life, I’ve been going back and forth between fighting this battle and pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s kind of a miracle I never gave up before now. The OCD always takes everything I love, and leaves the rest, almost like it knows. I used to love pizza when I was a kid. I used to love summer, and ice cream cones, and swimming. Now I can’t get near a swimming pool, or the lake, without hallucinating bacteria—actual, visible bacteria—in the water. I imagine it creeping into my nose and mouth, burrowing down underneath my fingernails, until I’m permanently contaminated, and no amount of showering or scrubbing can make me clean again.
But that wasn’t what I should’ve been afraid of. I realize that now. I’ve always been contaminated. The bacteria is invisible—or maybe it isn’t really bacteria at all. Maybe it’s just this unquantifiable illness that only shows itself fully in my own mind. My infection has no symptoms I can prove, and no cure. But that doesn’t mean it’s not contagious. Maybe that’s why I never wanted to tell anyone. Not because I thought they wouldn’t believe me, but because I was afraid they would. Like that kid in my science class who didn’t want to sit by me anymore, after I told him. They’d all see me for what I really was, on the inside: a freak.
Ab-normal. Un-clean. In-sane.
That’s the real definition of insanity, I’ve decided. Not doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, but believing you’re capable of becoming something you’re not. Like a fish who truly believes he can breathe out of water, if he just tries hard enough. If he can just get far enough away from the water, then maybe he can adapt. Maybe he can change.
But people don’t change. If there’s one thing I know with absolute certainty, it’s that. They might be able to fake it for a while, but they can’t really be anything other than what they were meant to be. Wishing doesn’t change molecules, or biological facts. Hoping doesn’t mean it’ll happen.
The first time I saw my face in the bathroom mirror, I was glad. The scar running through my eyebrow, combined with the dead look in my eyes, makes me look kind of dangerous. Unstable. Not at all like the dependable, safe high school valedictorian everyone thought I was.
For endless multiples of seconds, minutes and hours I sit alone in the dark, too angry to talk to anyone. Too afraid to move. Too tired to care. I ritualize on auto-pilot, reorganizing my closet from top to bottom. I count everything, then I count it again. I only eat because my mom brings food up to my room, all wrapped up in plastic the way I like it.
Actually I hate it. I hate the way the plastic forks always break. I hate how pathetic and weak they are. I hate how I can’t even eat like a man, like an adult. How at 18 fucking years old, I still need my mommy to do my laundry and feed me breakfast, lunch and dinner. How I probably always will.
To be honest, I kind of hate my mom for putting up with me. For just quietly going along with it all, like somehow this is normal. Like it’s excusable. Like having a son like me doesn’t make her life about a thousand times harder than it has to be.
But then again, she can’t change the fact that I’m her son. Any more than I can change the fact that this is my life now. This was always what my life was going to be.
Maybe deep down, she always knew. Maybe they both did, my mom and my dad. Maybe that’s why they’re so good at taking everything in stride, because even though they talk about this glorious future I’m supposed to have, in real life they were planning for me to fail. They knew I’d never go to college, or get a real job, or get married, or grow up.
The realization settles into my subconscious and claws its way down, until I can’t remember if I figured it out on my own or someone told me. Most of the time, I’m too drugged up to care. It’s better this way, I tell myself. I’ll just stay quarantined, away from people who don’t understand.
As I get older, it will probably become harder to hide how pathetic I am, so I’ll probably just stop leaving the house. I’ll stay in my room and watch internet porn until it drowns out the images of Tash that keep running through my head. She’s not always naked, so that’s something. Sometimes she’s smiling and laughing, other times she’s yelling.
Sometimes, I fall asleep dreaming about her and wake up screaming. Because in my dreams, she was in the car with me. In my dreams, we were fighting and I forgot to tap my left foot every time we passed a street sign. And that’s why I lost her. That’s why she died.
Maybe I’m dead too, now that I think about it. Maybe we both died that day. Maybe it’s like that movie she made me watch, with Bruce Willis and that little kid who could see dead people. I hope I didn’t ruin it for you, but then again I’m crazy, so why are you listening to me in the first place?
Why are any of you still listening? Why are you reading this? Don’t you understand that my story is over? Nothing important could possibly happen to me now.
And now I’m talking to an imaginary audience, as if someone out there actually gives a damn. That’s what crazy people do, isn’t it? We talk to people who aren’t there, and imagine everyone is watching us, all the time. That everyone cares what we’re thinking and doing, when in reality they don’t.
It’s liberating to finally figure that out, but also kind of depressing.
One day, I hear paper rustling under my bedroom door. It could be morning, or it could be the middle of the night. It doesn’t really matter.
After lying in bed a while longer, and imagining the worst, I heave myself out of bed. My muscles are still sore from the accident. Or maybe they’ve started to atrophy, since I haven’t exercised in God Knows how long.
The paper is crinkled, but pristine white. It looks like someone pulled it straight from my dad’s copy machine, but they didn’t want to wait for it to eject all the way. It takes me a few seconds to figure out who wrote it, because it’s typed, but since there are only three other people in the house and no one else calls me “Grunt,” I figure out pretty quickly that the letter is from my little sister.
Dear Grunt
, it says.
Mom made me promise not to bother you, because you’re going through a hard time right now. But there’s something I think you need to know. I wrote down what Tash’s message said, before Mom deleted it. I wanted to ask you about it, but then you drove into a truck.
I shake my head at Gen’s blunt way of putting things, unlike my parents who keep skirting around what happened. Then I keep reading, because I’m a glutton for punishment, and I want to know what Tash’s message said. Even if it doesn’t matter anymore.
YOU TOLD ME I DESERVED BETTER
.
It’s written in all caps, probably so I’ll know that Tash was yelling. Or maybe that’s just Gen adding emphasis. Either way, I can practically hear the hurt in her voice, like she’s standing in the room with me.
YOU PROMISED TO TELL ME THE TRUTH. I GUESS BETTER IS RELATIVE THOUGH, RIGHT? SO IS TRUTH, WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT.
That much is debatable. I frown, and keep reading.
SO MAYBE THE TRUTH IS, YOU ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT ME. MAYBE I SHOULD JUST GO DOWN TO CITY HALL AND TELL that’s when Mom stopped the message.
In my drug haze, I have to read that last part twice before I realize it’s Gen again, telling me that’s all she got. But even then, it doesn’t make sense. Why would Tash be saying that I was the one who was better off without her, when it’s obviously the other way around? I’m pretty sure I would’ve at least told her that much. Even if I left out the reasons why.
I was in the living room watching my show, and the ER called asking for Dad. Mom started crying. She said she knew something was wrong when you didn’t answer your cell. I told her they had the wrong guy, because my big brother would never be stupid enough to get in an accident. But then again, I also thought my big brother was nice, because he used to pick me up from piano practice and take me to get ice cream.
There’s a knot in my stomach, and it keeps growing with every word. I swallow and keep reading, knowing I’m not going to like what comes next. But I deserve it, that much I am sure of.
My real brother fixes things. He doesn’t break them. He solves problems, and he teaches me how to ignore the mean things people say about me at school. If he could make friends, I could too. If he could be normal, I could be normal, too. He never made me feel like a freak, even though I know I’m not the same as everyone else. He’s different than other people too, but I like him that way. He’s strong, and brave, and smarter than anyone else I know. And I really miss him.
So could you please ask my real brother to come back and fix whatever he broke? Because I’d really like to go get some ice cream.
Love, Gen
The knot spreads to my chest, and tightens until I can’t breathe. It’s not fear this time, or even anger, but guilt. I told myself I wasn’t hurting anyone, taking myself away from it all. But what if Gen starts to think it’s okay for her to do the same? What if she starts pulling away from people, and not talking, like she did when she was a kid? People won’t understand. They’ll treat her differently. High school will be hell for her.
Unless I can find a way to fix this. Maybe I can help her understand that she doesn’t have to end up like me. Maybe I can even do it from the safety of my own room.
Pulling myself up off the floor, I go to my closet and get out my laptop, and every psychology book I can find. I start by looking up case studies on people with Asperger’s, to see if there’s any kind of special programs for high school kids on the autism spectrum. Hours later, I somehow find myself stuck in a YouTube video wormhole. I think it started with an educational video about the difference between mental illnesses and social disorders, and then somehow I ended up watching a twelve episode reality TV show about kids from all over the world who go to this special therapy camp—kind of like the one Margot is at now, only exclusively for OCD kids.
I thought I would be freaked out by seeing other people like me, or finding out how bad it can get, but instead I’m kind of fascinated by it all. Who knew there were so many different variations of the same disorder? Each person’s compulsions are completely personalized, and yet so many of the things they say remind me of what it feels like to be me. Every time someone asks them to explain what they’re feeling, they always have them describe it like it’s real. Instead of saying they’re imagining things, or they know it’s fake, everything is dealt with like it’s an actual possibility. The therapist on the show is nothing like Jeanne. He doesn’t try to explain away the intrusive thoughts, or tell the kids who are like me that it’s all in their heads. Instead, he makes them pretend it’s not. That everything is real.
And then he teaches them how to keep going, anyway.
They say kids today are too easily swayed by what they see on TV. And I guess they’re right. Because watching that stupid reality show, for the first time I started to wonder if maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’m not contaminated for life. Maybe there can be a cure, after all.