“You see, before I tell you what happened…” I turn to him. “I need to tell you about myself first.”
His big brown eyes are glued to me and nothing short of a natural disaster could rip them away.
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been strange. When other small children were perfectly happy playing around chaos, I needed order. Do you know a lot of toddlers who need to organize their toys by color and size?”
A smile traces his lips.
“My older sister, Sacha, used to always mess with me. She’d constantly destroy the hard work I’d put in organizing my toys just so. I’d throw a fit every time. And of course, my mother always took her side.”
“Sounds like a dream… a kid who likes order.”
I shake my head. “No, trust me… it’s not. I’d throw fits all the time, at home, at school. I can’t count how many times my mom was called to my school. I was just a kid when my principal suggested that she might want to take me to see a specialist.”
“Wow,” he says softly, still riveted.
“I was also quite obsessive. When I liked something, I really liked it.”
And I’m still that way today.
“I was obsessed with Legos for the longest time, then it was Barbies, collecting clothing and dressing all twenty or so of them.” I smile at him and he grins. “You and I would have gotten along famously. Why didn’t we know each other back then?” I joke.
“Yes, the world is not right,” he says. “We should have metyearsago.”
A frenzy of butterflies at the pit of my stomach takes me by surprise.
“Uh…” I go on, a little flustered. “Anyway… my evil sister would get to them and take off all their clothing.”
“She didn’t.” He feigns complete outrage. “What a bitch.”
I laugh out loud, knowing he’s joking. “Yeah, she was actually. She’s all right today. I mean… I can stand her, but we’re not close at all.”
He nods.
“You keep distracting me.”
He grins playfully. “Sorry… go on.”
“Then I was obsessed with beanie babies,” I tell him. “I wanted them all. It was quite costly for my parents but they loved to spoil my sisters and I.”
“Nice.”
“Anyway… I ended up being diagnosed with OCD, general anxiety and ADD. I was introduced to a cocktail of medications, and haven’t looked back since. I’m still on medication.”
His smile fades. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s good that you can get the help you need. I wish my brother could have too.”
Silence fills the small space between us, and it’s not uncomfortable at all. It feels right.
Finally, I break the silence when I get to the part I’ve been avoiding. “And this brings me back to that horrible day at the Griffins’ pool. The towels were a mess that day. They were clean but folded without care, some clearly just shoved in. I couldn’t stand it. Whoever had stuffed them in there had done a horrible job, and I couldn’t stand the sight of them — it actually made my body tense. So of course, I set out to fold them properly and organize them by color, like I’d done quite a few times before. The older kids were taking swimming lessons and were already pretty good swimmers, and Charlotte, the little one, couldn’t swim yet, but she always wore water wings, and her siblings were with her. It wasn’t the first time I’d looked away for a few seconds.”
Joel’s demeanor completely changes — he knows exactly where this is going. There’s such sorrow and sympathy in his kind eyes, it almost breaks me. I can’t look at him. I just can’t.
22
Istudy the Menu board on the wall again.
Mango.
“Well, turns out that Charlotte had gone to the washroom. Her older sister told us after the fact. She must have taken off her water wings because she wasn’t wearing them when I found her in the pool.”
