Page 4 of Call You Mine
I give in to the compulsion again, but it takes me three full rounds and having to count out loud for the last one, before the anxiety finally subsides enough and I feel some relief.
Exhaling, I open my eyes to the neatly lined houses reflecting the soft glow of the streetlights. My mind is quiet for a few beats as the heaviness in my chest lightens.
Then, without warning, my mind fixates on something else.Again.
It’s irrational and illogical.
But I can’t help it.
My therapist would remind me of the fifteen-minute rule—an Exposure and Response Prevention technique she’s had me doing since the fire eight months ago, when it became a full-time job to keep my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder under control.
I’m supposed to delay performing the compulsion to teach my brain that the obsessive thoughts will go away on their own. It’s supposed to help build my confidence and show me thatIhave control over my responses, not my OCD.
But this urge is too overpowering.
It always is.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
I stop, inhaling a shaky breath. My whole body is rigid, but not from the cold.
I’m fighting with myself, knowing that the counting is just a manifestation of my mental illness, but needing to do it anyway.
I’m about to take another step when my phone rings from my purse, and my stomach drops.
A phone call in the middle of the night is never good.
CHAPTER 2
ANDERSON
I let outa groan loud enough to wake my whole neighborhood as I press the heels of my palms into my eyes hard enough to see stars.
She left.
Again.
This is the fifty-fourth—yes, I’ve kept count—night Ava and I have spent together in the last eight months, and they all end like this.
Or, at least a variation of this.
Me, alone.
Sometimes I don’t hear her sneak out of bed—I just wake up the next morning, and she’s gone.
Other times, I roll over in the middle of the night, reaching for her while I’m still half-asleep, finding my bed empty and cold, like she only existed in my dreams.
The worst was the first night she came over after our one and only date at the drive-in theater last summer. I asked if she wanted to stay the night, and she looked at me like I’d just asked her to spend her Saturday at the DMV with me.
She was already up and getting dressed before I could even take back the words.
I remember just sitting there on the edge of the bed, sheets twisted around my waist, watching her move around my room like she was late for something. Pulling her jeans on, tugging her shirt over her head, gathering her long, auburn hair into a quick ponytail on the top of her head like it was routine.
