Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern Read Free Book Online Page B

blaming himself for her condition? Was she saying all this because it probably was his fault? “Look, I’ll admit the book was interesting and it had some things I recognized, but I’m not anything like those people. I’m not about to start taking medication or go to some doctor and tell him all this stuff.”
    “IF YOU DON’T WANT HELP, WHY DID YOU TELL ME?”
    “Because I know you. And I like you.” He didn’t say: And I thought I was responsible for all your problems.
    “WHY DID YOU APPLY FOR THIS JOB?”
    “Because I wanted it. I thought helping someone else might take me out of my own head for a while.”
    Amy’s head bent down as she typed for a minute. Then she rethought what she’d written, pushed delete, and typed something else. “THAT’S EXACTLY HOW I FEEL.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    F OR A MY, BEING FRIENDS with Matthew felt like being on a roller coaster. He was so many things: handsome (far handsomer than he had any idea of, with beautiful blue eyes and a wonderful smile), smart, funny, and surprisingly gallant. He was her only peer helper who stayed with her after school to wait for her mother’s car to pull up. The only one who carried her backpack to the trunk and knew how to fold her walker flat with two moves. More often than not, he held open the car door, and recently he had begun a heart-stopping new flourish: buckling her seat belt around her. He’d done it twice now, which meant twice his curly hair was bent over her waist while one hand touched her hip in search of the buckle.
    “There we go!” he’d said last time, smiling and a little breathless when the job was done.
    He had no idea how wonderful he was. How his hands were so beautiful she could hardly look at them. How his truest smile was crooked and lifted higher on the left side than the right, which made her feel like he might understand her better, her hemiplegic face that was all crooked half smiles, too.
    But it couldn’t be denied. He was also slightly crazy.
    Maybe more than slightly.
    Reading the book she’d found at the library convinced her of two things: (1) It was a pretty serious disorder, and (2) Matthew definitely had it.
    The case studies in that book had people whose whole lives got destroyed by compulsive obsessions. Lawyers who lost their jobs because they couldn’t stop taking showers. Teachers who left classrooms unattended to run home and check their stoves. On one level, Amy was grateful for this side of Matthew. Without it, she knew he never would have been her peer helper. He’d been normal once, with friends in the smart crowd who went to dances and after-school activities planned by committees. She’d never done any of that, but she remembered seeing Matthew at tables in middle school, selling raffle tickets and carnations. Now she’d learned he wasn’t kidding that first day he worked with her. He said hello to no one. He spent passing periods in the hallway too busy tapping lockers and whispering to himself to notice the people who tried to say hi or catch his eye.
    Except the days he was with her.
    It was electrifying the way he watched her so carefully that he forgot himself. He didn’t mumble or tap. Mostly he didn’t do anything strange; instead, he focused on details. He fixed a loose screw on the handle of her walker. He found better straws in the cafeteria for drinking her Boost shake. He thought about her and a million tiny ways he might make her life easier. How could she not love him?
    Because she did, she saw: he didn’t want to talk about OCD.
    It made his fingers twitch and his eyes flick nervously around the room. It made sweat break out on his upper lip. Instead of talking about it, she asked him if he would mind joining an after-school club with her that met twice a week. The others couldn’t stay after school, but Matthew, with no sports, no other jobs, and no place he had to be, could.
    The day of the first meeting, they walked together to the yearbook room.
    “You’re really