Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

I blew out a breath as she crossed over to where she was standing, showing her—but hiding it from Mace—how nervous I was.

Reaching out, she squeezed my hand. “It’ll all be okay. Let’s get it over and done with.”

“Like ripping off a Band-Aid,” I muttered, following behind her as she walked into her room of torture and hell.

I was expecting medieval instruments of torture on the walls and pictures of people with needles stuck through various parts of their bodies, but instead, I was met by the most beautiful and tranquil space I’d ever seen. Hell, she even had a diffuser letting off some sort of sandalwood and lavender scent into the place.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, spinning around in a circle. “I need you to come and decorate my bedroom. This shit is outstanding.”

Esmerelda huffed out a laugh as she washed and dried her hands before pointing me toward the bed in the middle of the space, one that was covered in pink paper, not the standard sterile blue or white.

“This is my Zen place. My home’s a riot of colors and decorative shit, but in here, I can switch off and find tranquility before I go back home to the crazy.”

Now that I could understand and sympathize with. My workspace was the same, but my OCD meant that things were scattered slightly at home.

It might seem weird to other people that someone with any degree of OCD wasn’t ultra-organized in their home, but my therapist explained it as: no condition was stereotypical. People assumed OCD meant rigid organization, but it was actually someone needing control over things in a way that they understood. It could be in life, it could be in a relationship, it could be with organization, and it could even be with routine.

Mine fell under routine, but in areas I couldn’t control completely. Like at work, I had to have order, so I kept my station obsessively organized. My home was the same, but it was in a system that worked for me, not the typical order people assumed I’d have. So long as everything was clean and I knew it was clean, I was okay with it like that.

A perfect example of my OCD in my home was that I had small piles of things in different places that I was going to need and didn’t want to go hunting and sorting through stuff for. I maintained control over it. I also had a schedule that I kept to, a rigid routine for work, and if I needed to go against it, I had to prepare myself because I didn’t deal well with the uncertainty that came with that.

My routine and schedule were solid and gave me secure boundaries. Having to change my day to do something else went outside of them, so I’d be left feeling uncertain, and that’s when the anxiety hit. I’d learned to cope with that, though, because you often had to change things as an adult. I was used to it now.

It was simple as that. Some people couldn’t work it into their lives, but I’d had it for long enough that I didn’t fight against it. Instead, I worked with it. Sometimes it wasn't possible, and the anxiety kicked in, but on the whole, I was okay and didn’t put myself into a ‘category’ anymore. Many people did, though, and that was where they were comfortable. Me? I was happier just working with it and refused to let it rule my life.

Wasn’t life hard enough as it was?

Anyway, my refusal to let it rule my life was why I was standing here, instead of running limescale remover through my washing machine and dishwasher, like I did every third Sunday.

“Lie down, and let’s get this over with before you bolt,” Relly snickered, pointing again at the bed.

With a sigh, I did just that and lay there running through some of the worries I had about what I was getting done—ones other than the glaringly obvious worry of a needle going through a sensitive part of my body.

I’d, fortunately, had my monthly waxing appointment, so I was smooth and wouldn’t scar Relly for life. I figured she’d gotten to where she had in life, why ruin it for her now?

I also had cotton underwear, which was still pretty but soft and plain in case it rubbed on it afterward. It also didn’t make it look like I was coming onto Relly or putting shit on to look appealing—not that she’d think that. I think.

“All right,” she said brightly, wheeling over a table that I couldn’t bring myself to look at.

Hell, it was a piercing, not open-heart surgery. How much scary shit could be on it? Then again, if I caught sight of the needle, I’d likely break a leg trying to get out of here.