Page 128 of Paradise Descent

I’d never realized it till now, but I had it so easy. I could just live without struggling with everything in the world around me.

“Can I ask a stupid hypothetical?”

“Sure.”

“If there was an apocalypse and you couldn’t do all those things…would you just shut down?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t have a problem. In fact, I do better in crisis situations than ordinary life. I think that’s what makes me a good Brenin.”

“That…that doesn’t make sense.”

He shrugged. “No. It doesn’t, but there’s a lot of things about having these diagnoses that don’t make sense.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I kept quiet.

He released a short breath. “I had a lot of problems with impulse control when I was younger, I was very disorganized, struggled with regulating myself, but I’m a lot better with those things now.”

“You’re very disciplined,” I murmured.

“I have to be,” he said firmly.

“I’m sorry.”

He frowned. “For what?”

I stroked down his thigh to his knee. “I’m just sorry that all these things that come so easily to others are such a struggle for you. I wish I could fix it for you.”

His jaw worked. “It’s the OCD that gets me. That shit can get dark.”

“What…what do you mean?”

“I struggle a lot with obsessive thoughts about violence,” he admitted. “Not committing it, but of it happening to the people I love. I check the doors, the windows, I sleep with a gun by my bed. But when I go to sleep at night sometimes I have to fight these images of horrible things happening to you.”

I slid closer to him, running my fingers up his spine. Kneading the muscles of his neck.

“I’m safe, Merrick,” I whispered.

“I know that here,” he said, touching his temple. “But I don’t believe it here.” He touched his chest.

“Am I the only one who worries you?”

He shook his head. “I have trackers on Daphne and Ophelia’s phones, as well as Yale and Caden’s. Don’t worry, they consented to it.”

I chewed my mouth until that metallic taste blossomed on my tongue.

“The cleaning thing…I thought you just liked things being clean,” I said, feeling stupid.

“It’s more to do with contamination,” he said. “What if I make you coffee and the pot is dirty and you get mold poisoning and die?”

“Um…Merrick, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I know that in my head,” he said. “But there’s always that torturous, tiny possibility that I’ll gamble on everything being alright and lose.”

I gazed up at him, my chest aching. “I’m sorry this is a struggle for you, Merrick,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to say the thing that I want to say.”

“Just say it.”

I chewed my lip, blood like metal in the back of my throat.

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