Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Where you trying to go? I could get used to being woken up like this.”
I rubbed my nose with his. “When I was a little girl, whenever my sisters and I wouldn’t confess to doing something wrong, my mom would promise no punishment for telling the truth and say, ‘Honesty is always rewarded.’ Then when we came clean for whatever we were hiding, she’d give us a lollipop or something as a reward.”
“Oh yeah? You saying you’re going to give me a lollipop for dumping my depressing truth on you?”
I pulled back enough so he could see my sinister smile. “Close. I was thinking you’d be the lollipop. I’ll go to my appointments; you go to your hotel, take a hot shower, and climb into bed naked. I’ll wake you with your honesty reward.”
* * *
Minnie was my last appointment for the day. It wasn’t professional to have favorite patients, but I’d come to visit her even if I didn’t get paid.
She stared at the elevator panel with stress lines etched all over her face as she waited for the car to arrive. She’d only checked the door lock three times before I urged her to walk to the elevator. Not checking the fourth time was killing her. Obsessive-compulsive behavior isn’t about not being able to resist the compulsion. It’s about the inability to stop thinking about the compulsion when you do resist it. She hadn’t needed to check that the door was locked a fourth time, but she was unable to stop thinking about checking it now. I attempted to distract her while we waited for her slow-as-shit elevator.
“So … Hunter is back.”
That did the trick. At least temporarily.
“Oh? I knew he’d come to his senses.”
I smiled. “That makes one of us.”
The elevator doors opened, and I had to put my hand on her shoulder to guide her to step inside. It wasn’t easy for her to leave the floor. But today we were going to go down to the lobby, step off the elevator, and wait for a new one before coming back up to check that the door was locked again. Breaking the pattern a little each week was working, albeit slowly.
“You were right, by the way. He had a secret he was trying to protect me from. He’s got a health condition. Well, it’s complicated, but he was afraid to get involved with me and drag me into what could amount to some rough years, medically.”
Minnie was quiet as we stepped off the elevator and waited for the next one to arrive. I knew from prior experience that focusing was difficult for her until she was on the upswing, heading back toward the relief of her stress. Today it was stepping into the elevator that alleviated some of her anxiety, knowing she’d soon be able to touch that door handle again.
Once the elevator doors closed, she let out an audible exhale and spoke. “Thirty years ago, when I was dealing with my condition alone, I pushed people away because I didn’t want them to try to make me stop what I was doing. I knew people would try to help me, but that would mean having to stop checking things, and, of course, that thought alone caused me stress. So I pushed people away rather than face my fears.”
I nodded. “I guess that’s what Hunter had been doing all these years. He didn’t get tested for a long time because he didn’t want to have to deal with the results. It was easier to push people away than be pressured to get the tests done when he wasn’t ready.”
The elevator doors opened on Minnie’s floor. She booked out and down the hall, which made me smile. Baby steps. I watched from the elevator bank as she checked the handle one more time and then walked back toward me. Her face showed marked relief.
I pressed the down button. “You good?”
She nodded. “Next stop Puff and Stuff.” Today we were running errands. While that sounded easy, it entailed working on a number of compulsions. In the cab, she would need to check the door lock four times, at the store there would be four segments of counting her change. I had a small plan for a break in each one. But for now, she was focused. We stepped onto the elevator together and resumed chatting as if an obsessive compulsion hadn’t just interrupted us.
“The only people I’ve kept in my life for the last thirty years are people who would accept me the way I am and not try to change how I wanted to live. I think you know how many people that amounts to.”
Minnie had one remaining sister and her mother. No friends or coworkers. She’d alienated the entire world so she wouldn’t be bugged to stop her obsessions. But since her mother was getting up in age and her sister had married and moved down to Georgia, she’d realized she was alone most days. That’s what drove her to finally seek therapy. She wanted to be able to have people in her life and choose them over her disease.