Page 15 of Devoted

Zeke

you have OCD?

I froze. Shit, hadn’t I mentioned that before? It wasn’t something I hid. I might have been able to mask it pretty well, but I wasn’t ashamed of it. Unfortunately, it was as much a part of me as my green eyes and dark, unruly hair.

I swallowed hard, my hands hovering an inch above the keyboard. Would Zeke freak out? Would he decide I was too difficult to be friends with, the same way everyone else did?

We hadn’t been talking long, but it’d hurt if that happened. He’d given me a dose of happiness I hadn’t been expecting, and now I was oddly dependant on it.

Steeling my spine, I typed out my response, hitting send before I could change my mind.

Sam

yep. diagnosed at 24

That had been a fucking trip in itself. Up until a decade ago, I’d truly believed that I was insane, and it was only a matter of time before someone else realised and locked me up in a psych ward.

When a doctor had first mentioned OCD, I’d laughed. Like, full-on laughed in his face. I wasn’t obsessively clean. I didn’t get upset if something wasn’t perfectly centred or at a right angle. There was no way I had OCD.

That had been the day I’d learned just how fucked up the media’s portrayal of OCD truly was. It wasn’t a personality quirk. It wasn’t something cute that kept your space neat.

It was the name of the nightmare that had dogged me for as long as I could remember.

To my surprise, the little dot that showed Zeke was online didn’t vanish. Barely a second passed before another message popped up from him.

Zeke

I don’t really know a lot about OCD

A smile lifted my lips. Huh, looked like he wasn’t running just yet.

Sam

most people don’t, tbh. it’s very different to how it’s portrayed in the media

Zeke

I can imagine. most things are. The media never seems to change, even with passing decades.

My brows twitched.Passing decades?

Sam

are you a history/sociology buff?

Zeke

umm…kinda I guess. Goes hand in hand with what I do.

I could ask him what he did, right? He knew about my job. It was polite, not overstepping. Online friends exchanged this sort of information all the time.

‘Why does it matter? You just told him you have OCD, for fuck’s sake. If there’s a line, you’ve gone way past it already. He’s probably never going to talk to you again after this anyway.’

Honestly, would love to be able to make one simple decision without questioning every fucking angle.

Taking a deep breath before typing a reply.

Sam

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