This Is How I Love, Despite My OCD

The first time I saw her, everything in my head went quiet.

All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared. When you have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.

Even in bed I’m thinking: Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips, or the eyelash on her cheek. I knew I had to talk to her.

I asked her out sixteen times in thirty seconds. She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt so right, so I had to keep going. On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or fucking talking to her, but she loved it.

She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday.

She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk. When we moved together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times. I’d always watch her mouth when she talked – when she talked – when she talked; when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.

At night she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off, and on, and off, and on, and off.

She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her. Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was just making her late for work.

When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking. When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line. She told me that I was taking up too much of her time. Last week, she started sleeping at her Mother’s place. She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but how can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her?