JaThea/RaStro One Shots (Lesbian Story)

A Life With You

This story is inspired of a kid named Ari Schultz, of my brother, of the bizarre warp that of the OCD, and of the magic the rhythm of words can bring to people.

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“Babe? Ready?” Jade asked for the twelfth time as she waits for me outside our room.

Her hair neatly clipped on one side, her hands gloved, and her trench coat completely buttoned down. I smiled and nodded as an affirmation and she proceeds to turn off the lights counting all five of them before making sure all the windows are locked, counting all six of them. I followed her out of our apartment as she turned to finally lock the door eighteen times.

Jade was clinically diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder just last year. But she’s been showing signs of it way back when we’re still in college. You see Jade and I are roommates before. She was from Australia; she scored a full scholarship through an essay-writing contest about the importance of combating against cyber-bullying, teenage depression and suicide. She ended up studying psychology while I pursued my dream of being a lawyer. At first I thought she was just a plain clean & control-freak, our room was always so clean and in order that I get used to cleaning and organizing my own things just so I could avoid an argument with her or worse her doing the cleaning and organizing of my things for me.

Jade and I didn’t hit it off quickly, we have our own separate lives, her interviewing people for her case studies while I was reading tons of very thick books, we have different set of friends, and we dated different sets of people. Our only interaction were the occasional opening the door for each other when either of us forgot our keys, occasional His and Hellos when we cross each other’s paths in the university, and the occasional requests and offers of getting takeout dinners.

Our lives changed the week before our graduation, Jade walked up to me and asked me if I want us to live together in a very platonic way, she says she feels safe with me, that she’s comfortable having me around and knowing she doesn’t have anyone here in California because her whole family stays in Australia, it felt more like a good deed for me so I agreed.
We started dating six years ago; we were out celebrating her passing the licensure exam to become a psychometrician when Jade suddenly isn’t just a roommate to me, when her laughter doesn’t sound like someone having asthma attacks anymore, when her voice doesn’t sound like an alarm tone to my six in the morning sleepy soul. When Jade suddenly stopped just being Jade.

We were in some poetry slam contest six years ago, the event’s theme was about mental-health awareness, and the guest spoken word artist once suffered with OCD himself in his younger years. We were there at the back Jade suddenly held my hand a little too tightly, just something she never did before; the artist explained the piece he was about to perform before he started.

The first time I saw her,
Everything in my head went quiet
All the tics, all the constantly refreshing
Images just disappeared
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,
You don’t really get quiet moments.

I was watching Jade in my peripherals and there were actual tears on the brink of her eyes.

Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could
Think about was the hairpin curve of her
Lips…

I continued watching Jade until I was only looking at her with the artist’s words on the background of my hearing.

Or the eyelash on her cheek –
The eyelash on her cheek –
The eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds
She said yes after the third one, but non of them
Felt right, so I had to keep going.