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Description
I read a story once about a man who had six PhD's in six different fields. I don't remember what fields they were, but I was impressed - that much I remember. As I read on, it became clear that the reason he found so much success was his severe OCD. He was so consumed by the disorder that he read each page of each textbook hundreds of times. And I remember thinking it was crazy, insane, psychotic. But I guess it worked for him. So I forgot about the man with the six PhD's and the torturous perfectionism that some call "disorder."

Until I Met Candyce Karolyn Ethanson.

It was fourth grade and I called her names behind her back because she had to get on the swings so many times in a row that she never even swung. Before she could get on the swing well enough, recess was over. She cried when our teacher pried her from the swing-set, not allowing the repetition to continue. Then we went back inside for class and I remember seeing blood on her fingernails from where they were buried in her left forearm, her self-inflicted punishment for being defeated by the swingset. I thought it was crazy, insane, psychotic, and, unlike the man with six PhD's, it didn't work for her. So I forgot all about the girl with the bloody fingernails and the swingset she couldn't conquer.

Until my seventh grade math teacher called attendance, "Candyce?"

"Candyce Karolyn Ethanson," a voice cooed from my right. Her voice didn't boom or squeak or quiver. It was just a voice. "Here," she finished with a graceful smile.

"Would you like to be called Candyce or Candy or something else?"

"Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson," she reiterated, seemingly out of obsessive habit. "Just call me my full name."

And so for the rest of that seventh grade year, Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson's hands twitched and scratched her words into her homework, thinning the paper and leaving ghosts of her words on the desk beneath.

"Candyce Karolyn Ethanson," she muttered whenever she wasn't writing and rewriting and erasing and rewriting her algebra assignments, "Candyce Karolyn Ethanson." Sometimes I would forget that it was a name, since she would hum it all day long, like a song that was stuck in her head.

One day, I asked her why she continued to say it; she told me she had to make sure she wouldn't forget her own name. There's no valid argument to counter a fear of forgetfulness, so I shrugged and let her be. After a while, I stopped noticing and her personality grew on me like a fern. We became friends, Candyce Karolyn Ethanson and I. Some days, she was better than others. Some days I wanted Candyce to smile because she was so beautiful, her peculiarities forgotten. Other days I wanted nothing to do with her.

I could tell it was her jacket by the worn elastic on the sleeves, because Candyce Karolyn Ethanson liked to fiddle her palms along the wrists of the coat, feeling every stitch. I knew the movement all too well. Her knuckles, of curse, rubbed against the cotton uncomfortably but she couldn't bear the bony joint of her wrist to be exposed. And polyester was even worse, so we tried to avoid it all costs. I knew that.

Taking the distressed jacket over my shoulder, I walked from the school and down the hill to the park that Candyce liked best. The grass was always well-trimmed around the trees.

I could tell she'd been there already for a few hours because she was already settled at the foot of a tree, reading a book as she twiddled each page between her fingers. She was calm and only occasionally whispered her name to herself, more out of habit than necessity.

It was a good day, today.

"Ditching again, Candyce Karolyn Ethanson? Jesus, you're gonna flunk if you're not careful," I say, throwing the abused jacket into her lap. She folded it once, unfolded it, then folded it again.

Returning to her eyes to the page, she raised the cover to me. "Tolkein teaches me more about European History than Mr. Henry ever could."

I laughed and told her to put on the damn jacket. It's cold out.

Some days, it's easy to forget about it. But she tugged on her coat for the third time and I saw her left arm. It's easy to tell that it's her arm by the scratches. She bore the little crescent-shaped scars on her forearm, constant reminders of when paranoia stains her fingernails red.

And her over-lotioned hands, which I could tell were hers, began to stress the ends of the sleeves. I knew all too well the way she treated those hands...

By the time I had reached the age of makeovers and manicures, Candyce and I had engaged in indefinite friendship. Excited to have a day of girly indulgence, I had bought (with my own lawn-mowing money) cuticle clippers, nail polish, cotton swabs...

But she cut her nails over and over because she couldn't get it right, until they were nothing but slivers. Drops of blood stained my carpet from her screaming wicks. She started crying and told me not to worry, she could fix it. She painted over the blood, but couldn't get that right either. Eventually, I had to dump out the bottle of alcohol so she wouldn't use any more. She cut her cuticles shorter and shorter until a good few layers of skin had been ripped from all ten of her fingers, and I sobbed and sobbed that my spa day was ruined. I screamed about the all the blood on my carpet until my mother had to drag Candyce home. Candyce kept aplogizing but she couldn't seem to say it right, so she just wailed, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Hey, maybe you should wear the coat, huh?" Candyce smirked as I shivered at the breif memory. She tugged on the sleeves.

I smiled and helped her up, muttering a "shut up" or "screw you" or "up yours" as we walked to the car.

And Candyce Karolyn Ethanson was the loudest singer I ever knew. As I drove her back to her house, she rolled down the windows despite the frigidity and sang down the road like some goddamn 1980's chick flick. No matter how many eyerolls I gave her, she was inexhaustible.

I dropped her off at her house and watched from my car as she opened the garage door, closed it, open, close, opened and walked inside. And I drove away.

I could tell it was her book by the thinning front cover, most likely opened and closed and turned and opened again several times before she began reading.

As I walked down to the park with the nice grass, I heard a rushed, "CandyceKarolynEthanson, CandyceKarolynEthanson, CandyceKarolynEthanson," before I even saw her. Desperate and frantic.

It was a bad day, today.

"Tolkein's not teaching you anything if you leave it in class," I chimed cheerfully.

She looked up at me in acknowledgment from her twitchy perch on the ground but said nothing in response. She picked up the book and flipped through pages over and over. I didn't dare laugh at how ridiculous she looked - I'd outgrown the embarrassment years ago. She closed her eyes but her pupils were restless in her head, scouring the inside of her eyelids, following the veins like an embryonic cat about to pounce.

"Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson. Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson."

It was a very bad day, today.

She didn't sing on the way home, she just sat there with her hand digging into her left arm in the same places her scars were inscribed. I tried not to notice, knowing all too well the consequences of interfering. Half-way home I risked giving her a panic attack for the sake of her left arm. I reached over to her, trying to guide her hand to grasp something other than her own flesh. "Here, let me..."

"No! Stop!" she yelled, digging her stubby fingernails deeper into her tender forearm.

"Candyce, I'm trying to help you!"

"CANDYCE KAROLYN ETHANSON!!" she screamed out the window. "Say it right! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

She exclaimed nonsense hysterically as I frantically tried to calm her down without pulling over. In the panic, she nicked the door handle and flew tumbling out onto the fast-moving asphalt below.

I don't remember braking or running but next thing I know, I'm screaming her name and wailing as I pick her up off the ground, her whole face a giant skinned mess like her fingernails and cuticles were, years ago.

She was shocked and dazed but I heard her ask me what her name was. She'd forgotten.

This time, it was me who repeated, "Candyce. Karolyn. Ethanson." to keep myself calm on the blurry, heavy ride back to her house. I had to make sure she didn't forget.

Eventually, Mrs. Ethanson calmed me down enough to send me home, but I didn't sleep.

The next day, she wasn't at school so I ditched class to stop by her house. "That's a good way to flunk high school," I could hear her voice say. It didn't boom or squeak or quiver. Just a voice. Just a voice.

Her parents were at work, but I knew where all the spare keys were. I ran to her room. I knocked. I opened...

and I closed. Opened. Closed.

I've heard that you pick up habits from the people you spend the most time with, but I didn't know disorders were contagious.

I took a deep breath, growing the courage to walk in. I took a deep breath.

People think that OCD means cleanliness; organization. But her room was a war zone. I stepped over and around broken things and scattered laundry like it was a minefield.

Only a few steps in, and I had already mis-stepped. Boom.

I could tell it was her bottle of pills because of how the prescription sticker had lost it adhesive from being torn off and stuck back on so many times.

It takes 700 milligrams of Trazodone to stop your heart.

Candyce Karolyn Ethanson swallowed 2,000.

The preacher began, "Candyce was a beautiful young woman..." and I instinctively began murmuring her full name. Mrs. Ethanson, to my right, overheard me and began to weep. I sat, bitterly correcting him each time he said her incomplete name until the ceremony ended, blurry and dissatisfying. It felt like injustice.

Even as they shoveled dirt over her grave I wanted to dig it up and put it back and dig it up and bury her again. There's no one on earth who could have filled that hole well enough.

Candyce Karolyn Ethanson could've had seven PhD's. She was brilliant.

My sleeves were deformed by the time I got home. My right forearm was developing scars of its own. And I couldn't stop saying her name. I just didn't want to forget it.

Description
I read a story once about a man who had six PhD's in six different fields. I don't remember what fields they were, but I was impressed - that much I remember. As I read on, it became clear that the reason he found so much success was his severe OCD. He was so consumed by the disorder that he read each page of each textbook hundreds of times. And I remember thinking it was crazy, insane, psychotic. But I guess it worked for him. So I forgot about the man with the six PhD's and the torturous perfectionism that some call "disorder."

Until I Met Candyce Karolyn Ethanson.

It was fourth grade and I called her names behind her back because she had to get on the swings so many times in a row that she never even swung. Before she could get on the swing well enough, recess was over. She cried when our teacher pried her from the swing-set, not allowing the repetition to continue. Then we went back inside for class and I remember seeing blood on her fingernails from where they were buried in her left forearm, her self-inflicted punishment for being defeated by the swingset. I thought it was crazy, insane, psychotic, and, unlike the man with six PhD's, it didn't work for her. So I forgot all about the girl with the bloody fingernails and the swingset she couldn't conquer.

Until my seventh grade math teacher called attendance, "Candyce?"

"Candyce Karolyn Ethanson," a voice cooed from my right. Her voice didn't boom or squeak or quiver. It was just a voice. "Here," she finished with a graceful smile.

"Would you like to be called Candyce or Candy or something else?"

"Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson," she reiterated, seemingly out of obsessive habit. "Just call me my full name."

And so for the rest of that seventh grade year, Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson's hands twitched and scratched her words into her homework, thinning the paper and leaving ghosts of her words on the desk beneath.

"Candyce Karolyn Ethanson," she muttered whenever she wasn't writing and rewriting and erasing and rewriting her algebra assignments, "Candyce Karolyn Ethanson." Sometimes I would forget that it was a name, since she would hum it all day long, like a song that was stuck in her head.

One day, I asked her why she continued to say it; she told me she had to make sure she wouldn't forget her own name. There's no valid argument to counter a fear of forgetfulness, so I shrugged and let her be. After a while, I stopped noticing and her personality grew on me like a fern. We became friends, Candyce Karolyn Ethanson and I. Some days, she was better than others. Some days I wanted Candyce to smile because she was so beautiful, her peculiarities forgotten. Other days I wanted nothing to do with her.

I could tell it was her jacket by the worn elastic on the sleeves, because Candyce Karolyn Ethanson liked to fiddle her palms along the wrists of the coat, feeling every stitch. I knew the movement all too well. Her knuckles, of curse, rubbed against the cotton uncomfortably but she couldn't bear the bony joint of her wrist to be exposed. And polyester was even worse, so we tried to avoid it all costs. I knew that.

Taking the distressed jacket over my shoulder, I walked from the school and down the hill to the park that Candyce liked best. The grass was always well-trimmed around the trees.

I could tell she'd been there already for a few hours because she was already settled at the foot of a tree, reading a book as she twiddled each page between her fingers. She was calm and only occasionally whispered her name to herself, more out of habit than necessity.

It was a good day, today.

"Ditching again, Candyce Karolyn Ethanson? Jesus, you're gonna flunk if you're not careful," I say, throwing the abused jacket into her lap. She folded it once, unfolded it, then folded it again.

Returning to her eyes to the page, she raised the cover to me. "Tolkein teaches me more about European History than Mr. Henry ever could."

I laughed and told her to put on the damn jacket. It's cold out.

Some days, it's easy to forget about it. But she tugged on her coat for the third time and I saw her left arm. It's easy to tell that it's her arm by the scratches. She bore the little crescent-shaped scars on her forearm, constant reminders of when paranoia stains her fingernails red.

And her over-lotioned hands, which I could tell were hers, began to stress the ends of the sleeves. I knew all too well the way she treated those hands...

By the time I had reached the age of makeovers and manicures, Candyce and I had engaged in indefinite friendship. Excited to have a day of girly indulgence, I had bought (with my own lawn-mowing money) cuticle clippers, nail polish, cotton swabs...

But she cut her nails over and over because she couldn't get it right, until they were nothing but slivers. Drops of blood stained my carpet from her screaming wicks. She started crying and told me not to worry, she could fix it. She painted over the blood, but couldn't get that right either. Eventually, I had to dump out the bottle of alcohol so she wouldn't use any more. She cut her cuticles shorter and shorter until a good few layers of skin had been ripped from all ten of her fingers, and I sobbed and sobbed that my spa day was ruined. I screamed about the all the blood on my carpet until my mother had to drag Candyce home. Candyce kept aplogizing but she couldn't seem to say it right, so she just wailed, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Hey, maybe you should wear the coat, huh?" Candyce smirked as I shivered at the breif memory. She tugged on the sleeves.

I smiled and helped her up, muttering a "shut up" or "screw you" or "up yours" as we walked to the car.

And Candyce Karolyn Ethanson was the loudest singer I ever knew. As I drove her back to her house, she rolled down the windows despite the frigidity and sang down the road like some goddamn 1980's chick flick. No matter how many eyerolls I gave her, she was inexhaustible.

I dropped her off at her house and watched from my car as she opened the garage door, closed it, open, close, opened and walked inside. And I drove away.

I could tell it was her book by the thinning front cover, most likely opened and closed and turned and opened again several times before she began reading.

As I walked down to the park with the nice grass, I heard a rushed, "CandyceKarolynEthanson, CandyceKarolynEthanson, CandyceKarolynEthanson," before I even saw her. Desperate and frantic.

It was a bad day, today.

"Tolkein's not teaching you anything if you leave it in class," I chimed cheerfully.

She looked up at me in acknowledgment from her twitchy perch on the ground but said nothing in response. She picked up the book and flipped through pages over and over. I didn't dare laugh at how ridiculous she looked - I'd outgrown the embarrassment years ago. She closed her eyes but her pupils were restless in her head, scouring the inside of her eyelids, following the veins like an embryonic cat about to pounce.

"Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson. Candyce-Karolyn-Ethanson."

It was a very bad day, today.

She didn't sing on the way home, she just sat there with her hand digging into her left arm in the same places her scars were inscribed. I tried not to notice, knowing all too well the consequences of interfering. Half-way home I risked giving her a panic attack for the sake of her left arm. I reached over to her, trying to guide her hand to grasp something other than her own flesh. "Here, let me..."

"No! Stop!" she yelled, digging her stubby fingernails deeper into her tender forearm.

"Candyce, I'm trying to help you!"

"CANDYCE KAROLYN ETHANSON!!" she screamed out the window. "Say it right! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

She exclaimed nonsense hysterically as I frantically tried to calm her down without pulling over. In the panic, she nicked the door handle and flew tumbling out onto the fast-moving asphalt below.

I don't remember braking or running but next thing I know, I'm screaming her name and wailing as I pick her up off the ground, her whole face a giant skinned mess like her fingernails and cuticles were, years ago.

She was shocked and dazed but I heard her ask me what her name was. She'd forgotten.

This time, it was me who repeated, "Candyce. Karolyn. Ethanson." to keep myself calm on the blurry, heavy ride back to her house. I had to make sure she didn't forget.

Eventually, Mrs. Ethanson calmed me down enough to send me home, but I didn't sleep.

The next day, she wasn't at school so I ditched class to stop by her house. "That's a good way to flunk high school," I could hear her voice say. It didn't boom or squeak or quiver. Just a voice. Just a voice.

Her parents were at work, but I knew where all the spare keys were. I ran to her room. I knocked. I opened...

and I closed. Opened. Closed.

I've heard that you pick up habits from the people you spend the most time with, but I didn't know disorders were contagious.

I took a deep breath, growing the courage to walk in. I took a deep breath.

People think that OCD means cleanliness; organization. But her room was a war zone. I stepped over and around broken things and scattered laundry like it was a minefield.

Only a few steps in, and I had already mis-stepped. Boom.

I could tell it was her bottle of pills because of how the prescription sticker had lost it adhesive from being torn off and stuck back on so many times.

It takes 700 milligrams of Trazodone to stop your heart.

Candyce Karolyn Ethanson swallowed 2,000.

The preacher began, "Candyce was a beautiful young woman..." and I instinctively began murmuring her full name. Mrs. Ethanson, to my right, overheard me and began to weep. I sat, bitterly correcting him each time he said her incomplete name until the ceremony ended, blurry and dissatisfying. It felt like injustice.

Even as they shoveled dirt over her grave I wanted to dig it up and put it back and dig it up and bury her again. There's no one on earth who could have filled that hole well enough.

Candyce Karolyn Ethanson could've had seven PhD's. She was brilliant.

My sleeves were deformed by the time I got home. My right forearm was developing scars of its own. And I couldn't stop saying her name. I just didn't want to forget it.