“A gorgeously kind, wonderfully gentle, and unfailingly compassionate depiction of OCD...bursting with light.” — Ashley Woodfolk, critically acclaimed author of NOTHING BURNS AS BRIGHT AS YOU
Exploring the harsh reality of OCD and violent intrusive thoughts in stunning, lyrical writing, this novel-in-verse conjures a haunting yet hopeful portrait of a girl on the edge. From the author of Dear Medusa, which New York Times bestselling author Samira Ahmed called “a fierce and brightly burning feminist roar.”
Ariel is afraid of her own mind. She already feels like she is too big, too queer, too rough to live up to her parents' exacting expectations, or to fit into what the world expects of a “good girl.” And as violent fantasies she can’t control take over every aspect of her life, she is convinced something much deeper is wrong with her. Ever since her older sister escaped to college, Ariel isn't sure if her careful rituals and practiced distance will be enough to keep those around her safe anymore.
Then a summer job at a carnival brings new friends into Ariel’s fractured world , and she finds herself questioning her desire to keep everyone out—of her head and her heart. But if they knew what she was really thinking, they would run in the other direction—right? Instead, with help and support, Ariel discovers a future where she can be at home in her mind and body, and for the first time learns there’s a name for what she struggles with—Obsessive Compulsive Disorder—and that she’s not broken, and not alone.
Release date:
March 12, 2024
Publisher:
Labyrinth Road
Print pages:
464
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I have to. Every time I leave the kitchen whether I’m going in or out of the house.
It’s a rule written in blood.
This morning, like every morning, I stare down at the collection of kitchen knives in the drawer by the stove.
There are ten of them, one for each finger, short and long, serrated and not,
silver silver silver
I know them all well.
This is the rule: in order to stop myself from driving one of them into my father’s chest
I must open the drawers—the silent kind that don’t slam—and tap each blade with one finger, six times for each knife:
tap tap tap tap tap tap
I have to concentrate. Each tap measured, firm. On the third knife, the fifth tap is too soft.
I start over.
Two more times until I get it right and all the scales growing inside me soften back into flesh and smooth wet organs.
Only then can I go to the front door.
Everyone is safe. For now.
I’m going to try one more time. The bus stop is where I used to think my best thoughts— maybe because there, the world is as noisy as the inside of my head:
clangor and clamor and squeaking brakes people nodding to music and each other, coming and going.
I can wear headphones with no music and no one knows any different— if my head twitches or my neck bends they all think MUSIC. That girl is into her music.
On the bus, I can make myself small
all 5′11″ of me balled against the smudged window.
I am part of the scenery—we all are.
I haven’t tried in one week because it already happened once and I wanted to give it time, maybe let it fade.
Today it’s not rush hour. Today the rush is less rushing— an old woman and her shopping bag two young guys with backpacks
and me.
A bus is coming but it’s not ours and the old woman has old woman eyes so she can’t see that it’s the 44 not the 14 so she’s stepping forward to the curb expectantly and the bus isn’t slowing down
and then it happens.
I’m pushing her. My muscles seize— something green and scaly nestled between ropes of my intestine coming awake and thrashing its tail.
screech of the bus sickening thud of steel against eighty-year-old bones shopping bag catches the wind sweeps out into the street a single apple rolls toward the sewer and at first I’m running away then, when my lungs shout, walking. Four blocks away I finally look back.
The 14 is pulling up and one of the guys with backpacks holds the woman’s shopping bag while she climbs slowly on board. The insistent beeping of the bus’s kneel ricochets down the block.
When the bus catches up to me, the wind from it blowing by throws my hair in a cyclone.
Three miles to go.
Other buses will come but they’re not an option anymore.
In the pit of my stomach the crocodile is awake and by now I know that the only way to keep everyone safe is by making sure the beast has lots of space.
Meeting Leah should feel like comfort— a friendship sprouted on a school bus in fourth grade, both of us small (even me, then) with big voices, yelling at a boy who emptied his pencil sharpener down the back of a girl’s shirt.
Neither of us was afraid to use the word fuck and when neither of us got in trouble, it felt like we were charmed, that we had charmed each other.
Leah’s voice has grown and grown: president of the Jewish Student Union, co-chair of the Young Chemists Society.
I asked her on Halloween if she’d outgrown me.
You can’t outgrow what you’re made for, she’d said, but it didn’t feel like an answer, and lately it feels like even if she’s not outgrowing me,
then maybe the tree of her is merely growing in another direction, like the peace lily in my mom’s office always arching toward the window.
Leah has a boyfriend—Cesar— with a smile like that: like the sun. I don’t blame her for leaning into him when lately everything about me is mist.
It’s June but Leah wants hot chocolate and these are the things I love about her, but when I sink down across from her I almost forget to smile.
Across the street, a cat stares at itself in a store window, lashing its tail, suspicious of its own reflection.
I feel the same way and this is why:
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