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“You’re like…a lot,” Macklin’s lab partner says mildly. Her face is somewhat pinched, looking a bit uncomfortable.
Macklin hunches her shoulders without meaning to, stopping her leg from bouncing. “Sorry.” She makes her voice quieter, less booming, less shaky, less…everything, maybe.
Jenna, her partner, closes her laptop. She stuffs it into her bag with a touch too much force. “We’ll meet up this week sometime.” She doesn’t even bother responding to Macklin’s apology.
Macklin nods silently. And then, “See you then.” Jenna clears her throat and stands up from the concrete table the two of them have been sitting at for the past hour and a half. Macklin watches her saunter away, clenching and unclenching her fists at her side, like she’s flustered.
Macklin didn’t think she was all that bad with Jenna. Sure, she has a lot of nervous energy, and she knows she can be sort of annoying sometimes with the leg-bouncing and finger-tapping, but she didn’t realize it was so bad.
Not a moment later, a body drops into the space Jenna left. When Macklin looks up from her notes—where she’d been trying to burn holes through them with her eyes—she sees her beautiful, sunshine-incarnate boyfriend.
Her face splits into a smile. “You came.”
Will grins, leaning his elbows on the table. “I promised you ice cream.”
Macklin groans dramatically. “I like you so much.”
His grin brightens, and he stands, reaching out a hand to help her pack up.
Here’s the thing: they’ve only been dating for a few weeks. They went on a few dates before they were together, and then they made things official on their fourth date. It was like they were—are—cut from the same cloth. They get along really well, they make each other laugh, they share the same humor, etc. They match, is the point.
But sometimes, Macklin gets caught up in saying the big L word. She doesn’t want to say it yet, but it just almost…slips out sometimes. Especially when Will does something sweet, and all Macklin wants to do is drop to her bony knees and tell him how much she loves him with a fantastic blowjob.
But it's fine! Macklin has no qualms about letting this play out the way it's supposed to.
Or, well.
She has some qualms, because she likes to be in control of things—thanks, OCD—and this is one thing that bothers her.
Anyway.
“Come on,” Will says, taking her bony hand in his and leading her to the parking lot. Macklin follows him easily, lacing their fingers together. “We’ll stop for ice cream, and then go to mine for a nap?”
Macklin nods absently, counting the steps that take them to his car. “Absolutely.” She pushes her curly hair away from her face and leans a bit more into Will’s side, her hand spasming in his grip.
Will makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat and doesn't comment on her hand. Instead, he leads her to the passenger side of the car, unlocks it, and ushers her inside.
56 steps from the courtyard to the car.
Macklin lets him close the door once she's comfortable. She buckles her seatbelt and sits back, waiting for Will to climb into the driver’s seat and start the car. When he does, after putting on his own seat belt, he immediately reaches over and places a big hand on her thigh.
She doesn't realize she starts bouncing her knee. Will doesn't comment on it. He simply holds on for the ride to the ice cream shop.
In theory, Macklin knows she can't control everything.
In theory, she's aware that the only thing she can control is herself, her emotions, and how she reacts to things.
But ‘theory’ can suck her fucking asshole.
Macklin mostly drives everywhere herself—if Will isn't driving, anyway—so she can be in control of the vehicle. She cooks all of her food, but she will eat at a restaurant, only if she's eaten there before. She counts her steps from point A to point B all the time, because for some reason, her brain needs to know the exact distance. In the mornings, she can only take her daily medicine after eating something—she saw an article once that said taking medicine on an empty stomach can rot the stomach lining, and ever since then, she's been terrified. If anyone around her takes medication, she has to wash her hands—she's allergic to Advil.
Point is, Macklin does what she can to stay in control.
Yes, she has diagnosed OCD and anxiety, but she's been working on the compulsions.
On a random Thursday in October, Macklin has a panic attack.
It's a rough one, brought on because someone in her biology class took a pill for some reason, and she couldn't leave to go wash her hands. She'd been stewing in the anxiety until class was over.
As soon as the professor let them go, she raced out the door—she packed up ten minutes before—and sprinted to the bathroom. Macklin scrubbed at her hands and arms until they were red, and then her neck and face, smearing her makeup. She raced to the stall and threw up in the toilet. She didn't know if she got all of the germs off, couldn't pinpoint exactly where she'd been contaminated.
As quietly as she could muster, she had a panic attack in the stall, hunched over and gasping for breath.
That brings us to now, with her phone cradled in her shaky hands. The panic has worn away, just a slight simmer under her raw skin.
Her phone dings with a text, momentarily taking her mind off the anxiety.
Will 🤍
Professor run late?
Macklin exhales raggedly. She texts back slowly.
Me
Panic attack. I'm in the bathroom stall on the third floor rn
Three dots pop up on the screen to show he's typing, but they disappear quickly. Macklin locks her phone and puts it down beside her, face up. Will doesn't respond.
But three minutes later, the bathroom door opens. Macklin tenses until she sees Will’s shoes from under the stall door.
“Mack?”
Macklin leans up and unlocks the stall, letting it fall open.
Will makes a sad face when he sees her, but he doesn't make a comment about her appearance. Instead, he crouches down and doesn't touch her. He knows touch could only overstimulate her more. “Do you feel better?” He asks.
“Sort of,” Macklin answers. She takes stock of her body. “Really tired.”
Will nods, completely understanding. “Can you walk to my car?”
Macklin knows she can walk, but she appreciates the sentiment that Will wants to make sure. “Help me up,” she says, uncurling from her position. Will immediately stands to help her up on unsteady legs.
They didn't go numb today, but her hands did, and the muscles are starting to ache.
“Do your hands hurt?” He wonders when she rubs at her palms idly.
“Yeah,” she tells him. “But I didn't pass out, so.”
Will looks immensely pleased with this. “Progress. That’s good.”
Macklin grins for the first time in about two hours. “Progress,” she agrees. Without having to ask, Will leans down and grabs her bag, slipping it over his shoulder.
“Ready? We'll go to mine for a snack and a nap,” he says. “Naps and food are essential.”
Macklin nods and takes his offered hand, Will leading them out of the bathroom.
So yeah, ‘theory’ can suck her ass.
“I need food,” Ekky says as he crashes into Macklin’s apartment, slinging his backpack down on the floor near the door.
Macklin, who'd been napping on her couch, startles so badly she screams as she wakes up.
“Fuck, Mack,” Ekky laughs. “Relax, it's me.”
“Fuck you!” She yells, flustered and half asleep. Ekky laughs at her again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Ekky collapses on the couch with a sigh. “Will said you weren't doing anything. I came over to finish homework.”
She huffs and scrubs both hands over her face. “And no one thought to ask me? What if I had plans?” Ekky gives her a Look. She sighs. “Yeah, okay, fair.”
Not a moment later, another body is bursting through the front door, another backpack hitting the floor. “Dude, practice kicked my ass today,” Collin groans. He makes it to the living room and snorts at the scene. Ekky, spread out on one end of the couch. Macklin, curled in a flustered ball on the other end. “Party over here, huh?”
Macklin groans, still trying to wake up properly. She checks her phone for the time: 5:39. Fuck. She has a paper due at midnight that still needs some final touches. “If you both promise to do your own homework and chill, I will let you stay,” she tells her friends sagely. “I have a paper to finish, and then I’ll make dinner.”
Collin makes a dubious noise. “Since when do you cook?”
“Seconded,” says Ekky.
Macklin breathes in very deeply and lets it out slowly. She doesn’t exactly know how to tell them about the cooking thing right now. Doesn’t know if she has the patience. “Fine. I’ll make Will get us something.” There’s an Italian place that Macklin loves, knows there’s no risk of contamination. She has a classmate who works there and has raved about how clean it is for weeks.
Collin’s face lights up with devious glee. “Oh, Will is going to get us dinner,” he croons. “How sweet of him!”
“Fuck off,” Macklin gripes, climbing up from the couch. Her hands are starting to get a little spazzy, so she clenches her fists. It’s not like her friends aren’t used to her quirks, but she still likes to protect them from it if she can. “I’ll be in my room.”
She leaves before they can tease her more.
In her room, Macklin sits down on the edge of her bed, pulling up Will’s contact. She presses the call button and waits.
“Mackie,” Will answers after two rings. “Are you okay?”
Macklin smiles. She knows it’s soft. “Yeah. Just wanted to hear your voice.”
Will makes a pleased sound at this. “You're sweet.”
“Do you have dinner plans?” she asks, deciding to get right to the point. “Collin and Ekky are here, and I thought, maybe, you could pick something up.”
“Not cooking tonight?” he wonders because he notices things. Macklin loves him so fucking much.
“I haven’t told them about me cooking,” she says quietly, making sure her brothers won’t hear her. “I don’t feel like explaining it all.”
Will replies, “Yeah, I'll pick up something. Where from?”
And that’s another thing she loves about him—Will doesn’t press for answers. With her friends, they’d needle at her until she completely broke down, spilling everything even if she wasn’t ready. But Will just…takes her word for it. If she says she doesn’t want to do something, he won’t ask why a thousand times. If she says she wants to cook for fear of contamination, he’ll sit at the table and watch her work.
Macklin tells him, “That Italian place on Third. The one we went to a few weeks ago.”
“Do you want the same thing you ordered last time?”
“Please,” she requests. “Just get the guys some pasta or something. They’ll eat whatever is in front of them.”
Will laughs a little and hums. “Give me a little bit, and then I'll be there.”
Macklin smiles into the phone. “No rush.” They hang up quickly, and Macklin sets out to work on her paper.
An hour and a half later, Macklin surfaces from her room when she hears knocking at the front door.
She’s barely down the hallway when one of the boys opens the door. “Hey, dude.” Collin, then. The voice sounds devious enough.
“Hello,” Will replies politely. He’s mentioned that he’s not on a close level with the boys yet—Macklin knew them for months before she met Will—and they make him a little nervous. Macklin thinks it’s hilarious.
“So, you brought us dinner?” Collin wonders slyly. Macklin hastens her steps.
“Please don’t terrorize my boyfriend,” she states as she careens into the entryway. Will’s face lights up when he sees her, his eyes starting at her messy curls, down to the sweatshirt she’s wearing—his—and stopping at her pants and socks. His eyes move back up and stop on her lips, hesitating there before turning back to Collin.
Collin looks absolutely gleeful. He must be catching on that Will’s a little scared of him. “Did you just check out my best friend?”
Will’s face turns a pretty shade of red. He begins to stammer through an explanation, but Macklin steps in to save him.
“Go put the food on the table, you shit,” she scolds him, taking the food from Will and handing it over. Collin is snickering when he leaves them. “Sorry about him.”
Will kicks off his shoes and puts them on the rack by the door. “No problem,” he says, still kind of red. Fuck, he’s too cute. “Makes me want to just…try harder? I don't know. It's weird.”
Macklin steps into his space, grinning. Will immediately puts his hands on his hips, looking at her with such…awe? She doesn’t know. “It makes sense to me,” she tells him. “Thank you for bringing dinner.”
“Always,” Will answers quietly. He leans in and kisses her once, twice. “We could tell them about you cooking more often? It might make things easier on you.”
She groans, dropping her head to his chest. She supposes it won’t hurt, having them in the know about this little detail. It certainly would make things easier for her in the future. She doesn’t like putting her mental health on blast in front of them, but she thinks telling them would make her feel a little bit better. She just doens’t know how to properly explain it all.
“I’ll stay,” Will adds when she’s been silent for a beat too long. “Help explain. You don’t like food not made by you. Simple as that.”
Again, Macklin groans. She threads her fingers into Will’s hair and yanks him in for another kiss, deep and filthy. One of her hands drops to the front of his pants, tucking the tips of her fingers into his jeans. He makes an exquisite noise in the back of his throat.
Someone gags from the living room.
“Stop making out! It’s disgusting!” Ekky yells.
Macklin pulls away from her boyfriend, who’s already panting. She eyes his crotch, and he looks down too. With quick movements, he adjusts himself and shoots her an amused look.
“Come on,” she snuffles a laugh, taking his hand.
Will follows easily.
The thing about love confessions is that Macklin has never had a big revelation of one before.
With her first boyfriend, she never really had a moment where she thought, oh, I love this person. With her first girlfriend, Macklin just knew she liked her a lot. Of course, there were hook-ups that she only saw for one reason only, and she didn't fall in love with them.
But when it comes to Will, Macklin knows she loves him like she knows she likes peanut butter. It's not a question. Just a simple fact. Macklin likes eating peanut butter toast in the morning, and she's in love with Will. She likes painting her nails different colors, and she's in love with Will.
And she's going to tell him. She is. She just has to work up the courage.
Today, she and her best friends are spending the day at Macklin’s apartment, watching a marathon of The Hobbit movies to celebrate existing. Will was invited, but he said he has to finish a paper and then run some errands before he comes over.
Which, yeah, it sucks. All Macklin wants to do today is spend it with her friends and her boyfriend.
“What's with the face?” Ekky asks her as he queues up the first movie.
Macklin didn't realize she was making a face. She tells him this.
Collin—sitting on one end of the couch, curled up with a blanket covering his legs and a pillow under his arm—snorts. “It's her Will-face, dude. She makes it all the time.”
“I don't have a—”
Her words are cut off when Collin interrupts her. “You do,” he says. “Toff asked me about last week.”
Toff is a TA for all of them, and he's taken to their little group. He's like their dad.
Macklin’s mind reels. “He did what?” She doesn't shriek, but it's a near thing.
Collin nods, making room for Ekky when he comes to sit between them. “It's not a bad thing. Just a thing you do.”
“Like the tapping thing?” Ekky wonders, pulling Collin’s blanket over his legs with the amount left over.
“Exactly,” Collin agrees.
“What is happening,” Macklin exhales hard. She doesn't know where to start with dissecting her Ekky’s words: the fact that she makes a face when she thinks about Will, or the fact that, apparently, she does it as often as the finger-tapping.
But it's fine. It's fine because Macklin is basically a grown adult and can handle her emotions. She tells them, “Whatever,” and hunkers down to watch the movie.
It's only after they take a break during the second movie for the bathroom and to retrieve more snacks that Will shows up.
Collin and Ekky act super weird when the knock on the door sounds, both looking at each other and giggling like children. Macklin huffs at them and gets up from the couch, padding over to the door in her favorite pink house slippers.
When she opens it, she comes face to face with a massive bouquet of pink cosmos. Macklin lets out a very small oh my god. Will finally lowers the bouquet, and Macklin sees his brilliant smile.
He also looks a little nervous.
“Happy birthday,” he says, moving the flowers to his side. Looped around his other hand is a bag overflowing with what she thinks are stationery items. She can sort of see a package of her favorite pens, all in black.
And she just can't help it.
Macklin blurts, “I love you,” and then immediately wants to throw up about it. Will’s face shutters momentarily, but if possible, his expression brightens further.
“Mack,” he says, lowering her gifts to the stoop. He steps into her space, cupping her face with his hands. “I love you. So fucking much. You drive me fucking crazy.”
Macklin releases a breath she didn't realize she was holding. “I thought—” she stops, grabs his wrists as an anchor. “I've wanted to tell you for so long, and you just show up here with my birthday flowers, pens, and—”
Will leans in to kiss her once, twice. “I've tried to show you. I think I've loved you for a long time.”
And suddenly, Macklin realizes that instead of telling her he loves her, Will has been showing her this entire time.
Taking her for ice cream and not commenting on her anxious, leg-bouncing. Taking care of her after a panic attack, but not reprimanding her about things she can't control. Helping her explain to her best friends that she doesn't like to eat out at food places, and she prefers cooking for herself now. Showing up on her birthday with flowers and her favorite pens, because he notices everything.
Will loves her.
“Fuck,” she mumbles, trying to stop the way her eyes well up stupidly with tears.
Will chuckles sweetly, fondly. He kisses the tip of her nose, her cheek, her chin, and her forehead, not stopping until she's giggling into him.
He draws her into a hug, and she goes easily, as easily as breathing.
Because yeah, she's a bundle of jittery nerves almost all the time, she's working on her OCD compulsions, and she also has a boyfriend whom she loves, and who loves her back.
Pretty sweet deal, if you ask her.