I snorted. “I love how you volunteer your husband for things. Is that a married couples rule?”
“Only if it’s the wife doing the volunteering,” she replied, plopping back down on the couch and handing me the beer. “Okay. Go ahead and let it all out.”
On cue, I burst into tears while I sipped my beer. I only spluttered and coughed a handful of times, dotting my shirt with dark brown liquid. Somehow I was able to squash OCD voice who worried that the stains wouldn’t come out in the wash.
“It’s so unfair!” I wailed.
“Honey, Brian was a bit of a jerk. I mean, obviously. He broke up with you. That’s jerkish,” Erica said soothingly.
The breakup was completely my fault, and Erica knew it. But that’s the great thing about girlfriends—they feed us bullshit lies about ourselves so that we can shirk responsibility for our actions. A girl can be a complete psycho in the relationship, and her best friend will find some excuse for blaming the guy. Not that I was a psycho, but my tics were a problem.
“I’m not talking about Brian!” I cried. I glimpsed Little Noah and Annie. I’d forgotten they were still at the kitchen table. They took absolutely no notice of me, still crunching their carrots and dipping in turn. “M-my con . . . dition!” I stuttered.
“Sweetie, look at yourself. You’re making great progress. You grabbed the door handle yesterday, Bailey! That’s amazing!”
I snorted disdainfully. “If I have to have a mental disorder, couldn’t I have gotten one that people actually take seriously?”
Erica sighed and muttered, “Here we go again.”
“I’m serious, Erica! I mean, bipolar? People take that shit seriously. They may walk on eggshells around you, but they take it seriously. And there are drugs to help manage it.”
Erica nodded automatically. She’d heard this a trillion times.
“Or schizophrenia? Um, hello? There are places where you can actually go and live and rest and have people take care of all fifteen of you twenty-four seven.”
Erica cracked a smile. “You wanna go live in a psych ward?”
“I’m just saying it’d be nice to have the option,” I replied. I tipped my beer and discovered all the contents had disappeared. “There are no places for people who have OCD to go. No medicine that really helps.”
“What about that anti-depressant you’ve been taking?”
I stared at my friend. “Seriously?”
“I thought it was helping some.”
“My tapping tic is back,” I confessed.
“Oh God. I thought you’d conquered that one,” Erica said.
I shifted on the couch. “I had. That was until I failed at opening the door early yesterday. My anxiety just exploded, and I found myself tapping my pens all day while I worked.”
“Did you just hear the way you said that?” Erica asked.
“Huh?”
“‘I found myself tapping,’” she quoted.
I blinked at her.
“Passive, Bailey. Passive voice. You’re not taking responsibility—”
“Shutty,” I snapped.
“Hey, I’m not Dr. Gordon over here, but you told me to call you out when you start playing victim to your disorder,” Erica pointed out.
I scowled and nodded reluctantly.
“Aaaaand,” Erica went on, “you also told me to cut you off when you start comparing mental disorders.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But you don’t understand what I’m dealing with. It’s a joke. No one takes OCD seriously. Half the fucking world thinks it’s OCD. ‘OMG, I, like, have to eat all the yellow M&Ms first out of the bag. I’m so OCD.’ Yeah, no. You’re not OCD.”
Erica chuckled.
“They have no idea the self-hatred. They have no idea that most of the time we think something horrible will happen if we don’t perform a tic! We don’t wanna operate this way. It’s not funny, but everyone thinks it is. We’re weird and quirky. Laughable.”
“Your condition isn’t laughable to me,” Erica said softly.
We were silent for a moment. I traced the bottle rim with my forefinger and thought about Brian.
“It wasn’t laughable to Brian either,” I admitted. “He really did try to stick it out. I mean, a proposal? That’s the furthest I’ve ever gotten.”
Erica plucked the beer bottle from my hand and placed it on the coffee table. She turned her head in the direction of the kitchen when she heard her children’s voices. They were climbing off their chairs. Snack time was over.
“I’m glad you didn’t marry him, Bailey,” Erica whispered in my ear. “He wasn’t right for you.”
“But he made it the longest,” I said, feeling my eyes well again.
“And there’s someone else who will beat him. Someone better. Someone who will stay.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Forever.”
I smiled sadly and watched the kids march into the living room.
“Who wants cuddles?” Erica asked them. “Because I think I need them. I know Bailey needs them.”
Annie pounced on me in a flash, wrapping her plush baby arms around my neck, raining salty hummus kisses on my cheek. She sat in my lap all afternoon, falling asleep after ten minutes. Little Noah lay on the couch with his head cradled in Erica’s lap.
“So this is why you had kids,” I whispered.
“You better believe it,” Erica replied. She stroked her son’s hair and listened to his shallow breathing. “Their bodies are so tiny. I love listening to them sleep because their breathing is so faint. Not like my husband.” She grimaced. “Not loud and deep with the grunting and the groaning.”
I chuckled.
“And the snorting and the gargling,” she went on.
“Gargling, huh?”
“Yeah. When they get that phlegm in their throats and sort of choke on it?”
I stifled a howl.
“A man sleeping is just about as disgusting as a fart,” Erica said.
I guffawed, then slapped a hand over my mouth when Annie shifted on my lap.
“You’re too hard on him,” I said softly. “You’re bossy and impossible, and he’s gonna divorce you eventually.”
Erica shrugged. “I’d never let him.”
I smiled then jerked my head at the sound of the front door. Noah trudged in with bags of groceries in his arms.