The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

Adam thought about Robyn nonstop all week, and every week for three weeks straight. Big love and his OCD made that pretty much inevitable. If he were an artist, he would have drawn her. If he were a writer, he would have written about her. If he were allowed a smartphone or even a regular PC, he would have scrolled and dug and searched. But he wasn’t so he didn’t and he didn’t so he couldn’t.

Adam had gotten into a bit of a thing last year, scrolling endlessly for hours, counting the blinks of the cursor, images, words, the letter m, among other things. It took longer and longer for it to feel “just right.” Therefore, change of meds and no more personal devices. Now he just thought. They couldn’t take away his thoughts, though most of the time he wished they could.

Adam thought about her smile, her voice, her legs, her black hair, and her sky-blue eyes. It was a checklist: eyes, legs, smile, voice, legs, hair, eyes…He thought about her so much that he’d been semi-mute during the last two Groups. Both sessions were painful, except for the looking at-her part. And he wasn’t the only awkward one. Four sessions in and everyone still seemed weirdly shy or something. So far, Group had all the esteem-building properties of your first middle-school dance-the one that was held in the small gym. Wolverine was the only one who consistently stepped up to the plate. Problem was, he stayed there and emitted a full-on masculinity vibe while that almost one hundred superbly conditioned young male athletes die every single year from hidden cardiovascular diseases like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? I’m sure I should be on some kind of diuretic.” He just had to be crazier than Adam. Unfortunately, Wolverine also moved and looked like the hockey player he’d been before he’d convinced himself that the off-gassing in the ice rink would kill him. Worse yet, Adam was convinced that Robyn was in Wolverine’s sightline. Even worse, he was tall.