“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” I asked, tone flat.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” He smiled when I hesitated.
“Cute,” he mimicked me. Or at least I thought he meant to mimic me. But there was a bit of softness in his tone that hinted at something honest.
“Okay, but it was only for like two years in elementary,” I defended. “The rest of the time I wanted to be an acrobat.”
“You were terrified of hurdles that one time Coach Connor asked you to try out for the track team,” David noted. “You refused to do the high jump.”
I frowned, surprised he remembered. “You were there?”
“I was on the team, Yara.”
“No, I know that,” I said. “I meant at that practice. I hardly ever remember you being around.”
“You’re not that observant, no,” he said as if I’d given him something to agree with.
My jaw clenched, but I continued. “Tell me about your folks.”
When putting this list together, I realized I hadn’t known a thing about David’s parents. There had been some drama with him in his freshman year that led his parents to come on campus to pick him up. I didn’t remember actually seeing them, though. They were like the teacher in Charlie Brown, headless and speaking fluent gibberish.
“Next question,” he said.
I sighed. “David?—”
“Next question,” he said more sternly.
I studied him, seeing hardness return to his eyes. This wasn’t a door I should even pretend to reach for and open.
“Fine,” I said in a low voice. “What do I say if someone brings it up?”
“You’re more creative than you think.” He took a couple more sips of his water.
Surely, I knew who his parents were at some point. Or someone from school had to. I made a mental list of people I was still in contact with from our high school and considered messaging the one with the most discretion.
“These questions are very… surface level,” he broke the silence.
“Isn’t the surface all that we could explore in the…” I made a show of looking at my watch. “An hour and a half since we started dating?”
“Just thought you’d have more hard-hitters.”
“Like?”
“Like my obvious OCD and your potential OCD,” he said. “We, for once, could be a matching set.”
I frowned. The plan had been to gloss over my most secret issue completely in exchange for the easier ones. I’d rather talk about my poor art skills and my dreams of working somewhere with casual Mondays and a bring-your-dog-to-workpolicy. Even my lack of a love life could be on the table—it was a bland meal, but we could pick at it, nonetheless. The calories were still there. Besides, David usually derived pleasure from shoving food around his plate with no real goal other than to see how it’d hold up.
“Would you like to share your gritty details, or shall I go first?” I asked. When he gestured to me, my stomach turned. I shut my laptop and set it to the side.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said after a couple of minutes of silence.
“I’m getting there,” I said. “Sorry, it’s taking me a bit to gather my thoughts on something I haven’t even spoken about with a therapist.”
His smile faded. “You don’t actually have to tell me anything. I mostly?—”
“I don’t realize I’m doing it most of the time,” I interrupted. Truth was, no matter how dark and scary this part of me felt, I did want to show it to someone. Then I could make them agree I was some odd, twisted thing that needed to be looked at and fixed. I didn’t always plan to hide the picking. My family believed I stopped doing it after the school counselor in middle school sat me down and said, “You should stop. You’re messing up your beautiful hair.” After that, I pretended that the pursuit of beauty was enough for me. It had been for a while. But that was before the accident restarted the cycle.
Who better to tell than the guy who could only stand me in bite-sized pieces? David’s judgment would wash right over me because I’d developed skin that was repellent to his particular brand of analysis.
