“Because I’ve made my own opinions about you, and I won’t let other’s change them.”
He sighed again, shaking his head as if I was woefully na?ve. “We’re not talking about liking dogs over cats or hating vegetarians. We’re talking about murder.”
“I know.”
“Then stop being so young and romantic.”
My spine tensed. “I’m not. I haven’t felt young in decades, and I stopped being romantic the day I was strangled only to be brought back to life.” I crossed my arms. “Instead of putting words in my mouth and telling me how I should feel, tell me. I’ll form my own opinions without the manipulation of others.”
He chuckled sadly. “And have you hate me, too? I don’t think so.” His eyes lingered on my lips before tearing away and focusing on the carpet again. “Go to bed, Pim.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I cocked my chin. “Talk to me. Then I’ll do whatever you want.”
His eyes darkened slowly, threateningly. “Anything?”
My heart shook its head wildly, reminding me that that look meant sex and all things I wanted to run from. But if my body was the price for Elder’s secrets, then so be it. I was stronger now. I could gift him that. After all, I’d been willing to barter a blowjob for his protection.
Was this any different?
Weren’t all relationships based on reciprocal giving and taking? We gave out of love and took out of selfishness. It was symbiotic.
“Yes, anything.” I held his stare, falling deeper and deeper into their black depths.
I waited for him to kiss me, scold me, tell me I wasn’t ready and order me to leave.
Instead, his lips quirked with a sinister glint. “So be it.” Climbing off the bed, he moved toward the desk where scrolls of blueprints and pencils littered the surface. Pulling out the office chair, he wheeled it closer to the bed then sat with his legs spread and fingers steepled between them.
I didn’t let the fact he had to face me rather than sit beside me bother me. If that made it easier for him, I was glad.
I waited for him to say something. I shifted on his bed, wondering if I should be the one to start whatever confession he’d air.
The space between us thickened until it moved like fog, painting his elegant bedroom in so many unknown, clouded things.
Finally, he said, “I’m OCD. Always have been; always will be.”
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
A condition I’d done studies on in my classes for my degree. Symptoms and solutions labelled textbook cruel rather than personally discussed. Elder was many things, but OCD?
I couldn’t diagnose it.
Back in high school, I’d known a boy with it. He’d been dosed on pharmaceutical medicine that turned him into a zombie and didn’t participate in class, or, if he didn’t take the tablets designed to make his life easier, he would wash his hands until they were raw. He’d leap up after the teacher had finished writing an assignment on the whiteboard and copy it word for word seven times over.
Every week, some new tale circulated about him: he’d gone through each classroom and stacked workbooks in colour coordination. He’d painted the jungle gym in the playground bright green because he said the sun faded browns weren’t right. He couldn’t stand people eating from mismatched lunch boxes and avoided the school cafeteria at all costs.
He suffered.
Yet I hadn’t seen Elder do any of those things. I hadn’t seen him lock and relock a door countless times. I hadn’t seen him count under his breath or do a task repetitively because the coding in his brain skipped occasionally.
He had no flaws, only sheer focus on perfectionism. His yacht, his cello, himself.
He followed my train of thought, enlightening me without me asking. “OCD comes in different packages. Some you’re aware of, others you’re not.”
“What do you suffer with?”
“Mostly I can ignore the tics of repetition. I can ignore the allure of having to be overly clean or panic about every microbe. I’m more of a selective obsessive.” He pulled a piece of lint off his jeans, flicking it to the floor. “I find something I like, and I have no choice but to master it. I forget about everything else. The world no longer exists. Nothing does apart from that one thing.”
His eyes clouded, remembering things, bringing them back to life by discussing them. “It started young. Legos to start then other toys. I’d play with them once, and then I couldn’t stop until I’d built every design, solved every clue, figured out every solution. My brother’s origami book took me all night to master, and after that, I went through our local library on how to get better, more intricate. I folded and folded until I could fold one handed and half asleep. My parents worried about me. Okaasan tried to stop me, but Otōsan knew it was pointless. He understood my issues even though he didn’t suffer the same. He did have an addiction, though—his violin.”
Elder’s voice turned inward. “When he introduced me to music and took me to my first cello lesson on my eighth birthday, it was as if the loudness in my brain quietened. While my mind had the notes and my fingers had the chords, I was empty inside…completely free.”
My eyes drifted to his fingers where they twitched as if he played an invisible cello.
He continued, “It quickly went from comfort to need. There was no other way for me. I had to play. It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t a need, or thrill, or any normal word to describe why a musician has to play his instrument. It was an all-driving curse.”
He looked up, his eyes once again black with rageful passion. “I couldn’t stop. At home, away from my tutor’s cello, I’d slip into repetitive complications. I drove my mother mad rearranging the cutlery drawer, the pantry, the laundry. Nothing was safe, and everything had to be in threes. My brain latched onto whatever new flavour it wanted, and until it decided it had had enough, it was all I could talk and think about. We had no money to buy a cello, but my father saw how it helped me an hour a week at my lessons. How something like music could give me an outlet to master but be so complicated I could never be truly satisfied. The one thing that had unlimited potential to keep me within boundaries and stay healthy.”
He shuddered as awful memories replaced the nice. “He went against my mother and borrowed money from people you should never borrow money from. He was so proud that night, giving me a beaten up second-hand cello. And I’d never loved him more or been so fucking grateful that he understood.”