OCD Love Story

OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu

Book: OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu Read Free Book Online
Authors: Corey Ann Haydu
Ads: Link
are in Lisha’s car, hanging from her mirror. We decided they’re good luck, though so far nothing too exciting has happened in either of our cars. Besides, I think Lisha just being in my life is good luck. Really.
    I keep a minilibrary of my favorite books in the backseat, just in case I’m caught without anything to do, or if Lisha’s running late to meet me. There’s a hardcover of poems by Mary Oliver, this poet who writes about nature. It was a gift. To be honest it’s something Kurt owned and gave to me a few weeks before he dumped me. The spine is broken so it automatically opens up to his favorite poems. I try not to think too much about why they were his favorites. And more books too: old-school favorites like Judy Blume. The Fountainhead , which is my favorite book of all time. I can open any of them up to any page and get lost for twenty minutes or an hour, depending on what the situation requires. Add a couple ofblankets, and my car would be just as fantastic as my bedroom.
    It’s not a short drive to where they live. We make our way through crowded rush hour traffic from the suburbs into the city. I have to drive fast to keep up with their zippy VW, so my heart’s pounding. I hate driving fast. I try to be a hawk, watching for pedestrians and oncoming traffic with the full knowledge that if I’m not careful, I could hurt someone. I find that if I blink my headlights in warning every so often I can deal with the windier roads, the merges, the heart-pounding intersections. So that’s what I do, all the way from Lexington to a high-rise on the waterfront. We are somewhere between the old-school Italian charm of the North End and the tourist trap that is Faneuil Hall. I pull over across the street. Austin and Sylvia park somewhere around the block but quickly get back to the entrance of their urban palace. It is all windows, all silver and mirrored facades. It’s not the kind of place where people actually live, not really, and maybe that’s why they’re so miserable that they have to go to therapy multiple times a week like me.
    How could you live somewhere so icy cold and imposing, so clearly in conflict with the rest of the city, the rest of the human population, and stay in love? As far as I can tell, love takes place in townhouses and cozy cottages and cramped studio apartments and rundown guest houses. This place might as well be an office building or a spaceship.
    Austin clasps the doorman’s shoulder on his way in. Sylvia doesn’t make eye contact and there’s no hesitation when she enters. Nowhere else she wants to be but in her glass apartment high above anything resembling real, feeling, troubling, exhilarating life .
    I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get that.
    Maybe I don’t need to try on her skin to get how she feels after all.
    I stay in my car. I don’t drive away immediately because I don’t want to see Austin and Sylvia’s building vanishing in my rearview mirror. I stay because I’m holding out for the possibility that Austin has forgotten something important in his car and will run back out and I’ll get a final glimpse of his string-bean body and the way his feet pound clownishly against the pavement.
    I’m half right.
    It is not Austin who appears a few minutes later back on the pavement, but Sylvia. She has changed her coat to something warm and full of down and has added a ridiculous Russian fur hat to her ensemble. It’s cooled down, even inside the car. I’ve turned it off to distract from my strange waiting game and though the windows are zipped up tight there’s no real fight against the last puffs of winter.
    Sylvia leans against their building, and like some old-school movie star she has a cigarette case and a silver lighter and an air of certainty about her importance in the world.She matters. Watching her is like watching a dancer, but it’s not enough, the

Similar Books

The Wagered Widow

Patricia Veryan

Feisty

MacKenzie McKade

Wake to Darkness

MAGGIE SHAYNE

Bizarre History

Joe Rhatigan

Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance

Samantha Westlake

Hotel For Dogs

Lois Duncan