Chapter 53 – OCD

Nef’s POV


The life of a hockey player is routine and regimented. During training camp there is a routine from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. What they eat is planned out by trainers and nutritionists. Their workout plans are carefully scripted by strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers. I learned all of this last season. I loved the routine and familiarity that came with it. It was constant and steady. Even with the insanity that was last season and the compressed schedule there was a certain level of predictability that satisfied my OCD nature.
During the season I became used to it. It was a part of Sasha and not only what he did but who he was. During the time we spent together over the summer I had gotten used to other behaviors. Now I had to get reacquainted myself to hockey season Sasha and he had to get used to all my little things again.

Sasha had learned most of my quirks over the first few months of our relationship: my need for neatness and order, the thing with colors and numbers, etc. He made fun of me to no end but he was actually really good with putting up with them. Within the first few days he had gotten back to DC we went to the grocery store because he had zero food in his house. When we got back and were putting things away I decided to take the fridge while Sasha stocked the pantry. There is an order to the fridge and the freezer. Everything has a place and it should be there.

“What are you doing?” I heard Sasha ask.

“Putting stuff away.” I had done the fridge first. Milk, eggs, juice on the middle shelf, smaller things on the top shelf (e.g. yogurt, etc), fruit in the left bin and vegetables in the right bin, lunch meat, cheese, and bacon in the draw, and bottles arranged on the door from largest to smallest. This was of course after I had scrubbed the entire thing inside and out.

The freezer was next. It was arranged by type of meat and by size. Altogether it took me about 20 minutes. Then I went to the pantry and saw that he’d just thrown things any and everywhere there was space.

“Come out of the pantry,” he said. “It fine the way it is.”

False! I spent another 15 minutes organizing the pantry roping him in to lifting the heavier things like the cases of Gatorade and soda. Once everything was organized to satisfaction I went to the counter to begin prep for dinner. Sasha and I were cooking together. Well Sasha said that he was going to try and cook for me. He had been practicing and learning new things so that he could make dinner for me. I was in the kitchen just in case anything went wrong.

“Crazy,” he muttered under his breath.

I hip checked him as he walked by to grab a knife from the silverware draw. I sat at the island counter eating chocolate M&Ms. I’d ripped the bag open and had poured the contents on a paper towel. He was standing on the other side chopping peppers, garlic, and fresh rosemary. I ate the M&Ms the same way I always do. I arranged them by color: as close to ROY G BIV as I could get. M&M really need to make indigo and violet colored pieces. I hated the light blue pieces. They did not fit nicely into my rainbow. I pushed them off to the side and only kept the dark blue pieces. The chocolate pieces were at the bottom as a base. I took out all the odd number pieces. I don’t like odd numbers. Everything has to be even and symmetrical.
Sasha watched me as I arranged the M&Ms and laughed at me. He shook his head but he was used to it. They first time he’d seen me do thing he just watched me for the entire 15 minutes it took me to eat the candies.

“What do you do with the ones you don’t eat?” he asked. I had left out all the odd numbered pieces.

“I throw them out. They’re odd numbers and I can’t eat them.”

He looked at me like I was nuts, completely whacko insane. That’s when I had gotten the bright idea to give him all the odd number and light blue pieces. So now without fail when there is an odd number piece of food I give it to Sasha.

“Open,” I said leaning across the counter to pop the candy into his mouth.

He obediently opened his mouth and I fed him the candies as he cooked dinner. He made Govyadina V'smetane, which is pretty much Russian for steak in a sour cream and cheese sauce, with sautéed peppers and asparagus. It was actually really good.

“This is good,” I said. “Who taught you how to make this?”

“Lana. She tell me that I should cook for you sometimes. She say women like that type of thing.”

And we do. It’s sweet and thoughtful. After dinner we sat together or the couch going over his schedule for the season. Compared to last season this one would be so much better. There was no major outside tournament so there was no compressed schedule. We wouldn’t have to go weeks without seeing each other.

“And the night before home games you can sleep at home, in your bed,” I said. We’d had this rule that we wouldn’t be together the night before home games. That rule hadn’t lasted. It got to the point where if we didn’t see each other then we wouldn’t have seen each other at all.

“Yes, with you here,” Sasha replied. “We not go back to that rule. It silly. I can be with you and still play well.”




Sasha’s POV


My girlfriend is weird. No really, I mean it. When we came back from the grocery store she spent 20 minutes arranging the food in the fridge and then another 15 minutes rearranging the pantry that I had already stocked. I hadn’t done it as neatly as she would have. I put the food on the shelf. That’s all that needs to be done.

“Everything has a proper place,” she said.

That’s not the kicker though. The kicker was watching her eat colored candy. She sat at the island counter while I was cooking dinner (Lana had taught me a few recipes over the summer), eating a bag of M&Ms. She arranged them by color and then only ate up to an even number. She didn’t eat the light blue ones because they didn’t fit into her color pattern and she didn’t eat any odd number ones. For example if there were 13 brown M&Ms she would only eat up to the number 12. She would then pop the 13th one into my mouth. She did that with everything. If I put 7 pieces of asparagus on her plate she would eat 6 pieces and give the 7th one to me. If I wasn’t around she threw it out. She even did it with the number of bite she took and the number of pieces she cut her food into.

“I don’t like odd numbers.”

“So if I change my number to…27 what would happen?”

“I’d break up with you!” she joked.

“Crazy. You are crazy.”

I love her anyway. After dinner we sat together on the couch going over the schedule for the season. We already knew when games were – that had been released in June. I had gotten the actual player schedule that had times and dates and times for travel arrangements and all that stuff. We would get to see each other more this season compared to last season.

“So my mom wants you to come over for dinner. It’s been a while since they’ve seen you,” Nef told me.

Whenever Nef was home I spoke to her mom or one of her brothers on the phone. They approved of us being together and as a result wanted to get closer and get to know me. I’d met them at Christmas dinner last year and I had gone to her parents’ anniversary party but I hadn’t actual just gone to hang out with them the way Nef had done with my family.

“Sure, how about this weekend?”

“That’ll work. I’ll let my mom know that you’re coming.”

“Does your dad still hate me?” I hadn’t really spoken to him in a long time.

“Yup, even more so after the whole Nadiya thing.”

“You tell him?” I asked. Shit, this cannot be good.

“No, I told my mom. She told him. You know my mom can’t keep a secret.” That’s very true. Nefetiri can’t keep anything from her husband…or anyone else for that matter. She’s just one of those types of people that can’t keep secrets, no matter how hard they try.

Was it too much to hope that we could put this whole incident behind us? Really, I never wanted to speak of it again. After much talking and deliberation Nef and I had moved past it. I only spoke to Nadiya when absolutely necessary – and that was not often. Now that I was back in DC I could forget all about her. Now I had to work my way back into her family’s good graces.