by Halli Gomez
“Hmm, suicide. Depression!”
“I’m not depressed,” I would have explained. “Just tired. Exhausted from the whole thing.”
“And what do you mean by that, specifically?”
“The Tourette, the OCD, being in constant pain because my muscles won’t stop moving and my brain won’t stop counting.” Even my explanations were on repeat. To a trained professional, it should have been obvious by looking at me.
“Troy, you need to give it time. Close your eyes, breathe in, and count to ten.” Then he would have added antidepressants to my current medicine cocktail.
I did give it, and him, time. Ten days. Ten months. Years even. And now that the tenth anniversary of my nightmare life was coming, the significance couldn’t be ignored. I was sure HQ wouldn’t approve.
I shifted toward the window, as the number of neck twitches and hand squeezes increased, and focused on the rows of trees whizzing by. My muscles ached as I tried to control them, but they quivered from the inside like a million ants scurrying through my body trying to get free. People already thought I was crazy. If my muscles took over, everyone would run away screaming like the zombie apocalypse was here.
I listened to the voices complaining about new semester classes, teachers, and homework as we passed the shopping center where I learned to ride my bike. Almost home. The bus turned into my neighborhood and pulled to the curb. My stop was the first one, two blocks from my house.
I scooted past ponytail girl and started the ten-count-bend-down, pushing away the visual of chewed gum, spit, and dog poop that lived in the floor’s rubber tread. A boy behind me sighed. His breath was warm on my neck. Did he think I enjoyed this? My neck twitched. Trust me, no one wanted to get home faster than me.
I leaped off the last step, took a deep breath of cool air, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. When I turned left onto my street, I ran the rest of the way, too fast to slow down when I got to the number ten. I stopped at the door, touched the ground ten times, then disappeared inside.
As soon as the lock clicked, I freed the ants scrambling in my body. My neck twitched fifteen times. An odd number. My hands clenched. Fingernails dug in my palms. My neck twitched five more times, felt the craving, and quickly did it ten more times. Thirty. Even number and divisible by ten. Which left a three. Ten more times. Forty. Four times ten is forty. Searing pain traveled from my neck down my left shoulder blade. An eighty-five out of one hundred on my rate-the-pain scale.
I let out a big exhale and shuffled to my room. Ten steps. Touched the hardwood. Ten steps. Touched the carpet. My fingertips slid over it. Soft. Too soft. I pressed my fingers into it, feeling for the hard floor underneath.
In my room, I collapsed on the floor, letting my body melt into the carpet. I stared at the light-up stars on my ceiling. My fingers ran over the carpet, but that didn’t matter anymore. I closed my eyes, thankful to be home just in time. How were strangers supposed to understand that? Of course I had to at least try to explain it before April 6.
I sank deeper into the carpet. Life could be worse. I could have lost an eye, or a leg, or everything I owned in a house fire set by a drug-addicted second cousin, as Dad would say.
“Troy, as a cop, I see despair every day.”
Doubtful since he was a captain who worked behind a desk in the part of town where lowlifes were people whose houses only had four-car garages. And what did he know? He didn’t live in my body. I would never judge anyone. Actually, I envied people whose lives were worse than mine but who found the courage to survive.
I rolled onto my stomach and made a pillow with my hands. Some cruel joke of the universe gave excruciating pain, a dumpster full of tics, and a number fixation to a sixteen-year-old boy. As if being medicated and pudgy with a few pimples wasn’t embarrassing enough. That’s why I made the list. I was exhausted.
The only relief was sleep, and right now I would give up my iPhone to get some, but the sound of jingling keys meant I’d have to wait.
“Troy? Are you home?”
I opened my eyes as my stepmom poked her head in the doorway. She scrunched her eyebrows together. “Are you alright?”
“Just tired.”
“Are you okay to stay with Jude? I have to leave in five minutes.”
“Sure.”
I followed her into the family room. She put the baby monitor and a stuffed giraffe on the coffee table, tied her shoulder-length hair in a bun, then loaded up her tactical belt with the handcuffs, gun, and a flashlight. She was a cop who actually saw the dregs of society. That’s why she let her muscles peek out of her uniform sleeves.
“He’s still napping,” Terri said. “There’s spaghetti in the fridge for dinner. Your dad should be home around six-thirty.”
“Got it.”
I dug my notebooks and iPad out of my backpack. After twenty minutes, I had only done two questions, and now had the image of Khory and the way her hair fell over her face burned into my mind. I laid my pencil on the table parallel to my notebook and went in search of last year’s yearbook.
Back in the family room, I flipped through it until I found her. Khory had the same long brown hair and huge dark eyes last year. She smiled with perfect straight teeth, and I assumed, if the picture were color, she’d have some version of the pink lipstick she had today.
I sighed, flipped to the index, and scrolled to her name searching for other pictures with her hair falling over one eye or her biting her bottom lip like she did in class.
My fingertips gripped the page and pulled gently. An urge grew in my chest like the beginning of an itch. Pull harder, my brain taunted. Then, a second later, don’t rip the page. Tourette was one big contradiction.
The tingle went down my fingers to the palm of my hand aching for the feeling of balled-up paper. The hand squeeze was a losing battle like all the others. I shoved the yearbook away, sat on my hands, and fell back against the couch. One, two, three, four, five, six.
A gurgling sound came through the monitor. Seven, eight, nine, ten. I got up, and the yearbook fell open to a page of kids making goofy faces at the camera. It was weird how people chose to scrunch up their faces or stick their tongues out when most of my life I tried to avoid doing that. Or avoided cameras altogether because I couldn’t.
I went to Jude’s room, and my neck calmed down. We did the whole diaper-and-clothes change thing. Not my favorite part of our afternoon party session, but a small price to pay for quality time with my best friend and most trusted confidant.
“How was your day?” I grabbed his Thomas the Train blanket on the way back to the family room. “Mine was fine. Thanks for asking. I met a girl.”
Okay, she was assigned to the seat next to me, but I didn’t look up anyone else in the yearbook. Or spend half the afternoon thinking about them.
Jude laughed, which I didn’t take personally since his eyes twinkled with excitement and not ridicule.
“Oy. Eeee. Aah,” he said. Well, that’s what most people probably heard, but since I spoke eleven-month-old, it was clear he asked, “Is she cute?”
“As a matter of fact, she is.”
I set him on the carpet, gave him his blanket, and took out four blocks and a train with lights and the most annoying music since the eighties. I made it through two more math problems before he derailed the train.
Since we were a lot more interested in science, we watched the videos Mrs. Frances assigned. Jude’s smile was the only thing I looked forward to when waking up in the morning. He was a lot like our dad, with his tuft of brown hair and blue-green eyes, while I was exactly like my mom. Brown eyes, solid build under the medication weight, and the disorders.
My parents knew what I had even before they took me to the doctor almost ten years ago. The repeated neck twitches, grunting, and touching were classic Tourette symptoms. And some were the same Mom had.
The doctor, an older lady with black hair and deep lines around her eyes, put me on the exam table and studied me. No shining a l
ight in my eyes or examining my ears. She just watched. My neck twitches increased. I touched her arm. Twitch. Touch. Repeat. Dad reached for my hand while Mom backed up toward the parent chair.
“Of course he has Tourette,” the doctor said. “I’m sure you recognized the signs.”
I peered around Dad to see Mom collapse in the chair. She nodded and stared at the floor.
“Mommy?”
Dad rubbed my back. “Yes, we did,” he said to the doctor. “We just wanted an official diagnosis, so we could move to the next steps.”
Those steps turned out to be questionnaires that uncovered my obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder, and anxiety. Then prescriptions for medications that made me feel like a zombie, and finally psychiatrist information that eventually led us to Hardly Qualified.
I put Jude on my lap and gave him a hug. These afternoon hangouts would help get me through the next sixty-five days.
“So, I have this list of ten things I want to do.” I took out my phone and opened to the list. “As you can see, number two is to get my first kiss.”
“Mm, aahshh, oy.”
“Well it may be shocking for you that I’ve never kissed a girl, but sadly, that’s my reality. So, I want to make it happen, and I want it to be Khory.”
Jude reached for the phone. I put it on the couch, slid the yearbook closer to us, and flipped to Khory’s last-year picture. “See, she’s cute. Actually, she’s beautiful.”
Why would she want to kiss someone like me? I had nothing to offer except the entire Star Wars movie collection on Blu-ray and a head butt if she got too close to my left side. And my impressive academic skills, something she’d know if Mrs. Frances had arranged us by GPA.
“Jude, what is the one and, based on her frustration today, probably the only thing Khory needs that I can provide? Help in math.”
Jude turned away from the yearbook and smiled at me.
“I know, genius, right? Now comes the hard part. Asking her.”
FEBRUARY 1
Jude and I took a homework break and went on the swings.
“Dinner!” Dad yelled through the back door.
Already? I still had homework and doubted any teacher would accept the excuse of being distracted by a baby or working on a plan to get a girl to kiss me.
I carried Jude across the backyard. We made a game out of the ten-count-bend-down, me counting, then both of us reaching for the ground. His giggle made the compulsion bearable.
We walked into the kitchen, and I plopped him in the high chair. Dad, the taller and more muscular version of Jude, had his uniform sleeves folded at each elbow. He dashed from the microwave to the sink to the refrigerator, banging plates and pots and running water.
I soaped up a towel and squeezed the extra water in the sink. My palm tingled. I squeezed the towel again. Repeat. I groaned.
“Are you washing Jude’s hands?” Dad asked.
I took six long steps to Jude, counted the rest to ten, then rubbed the towel over his hands, cleaning the dirt between his fingers. My palm tingled, and the feeling spread out to my fingers. My heart pounded. I couldn’t stop it.
My hand squeezed into a fist. Jude’s tiny fingers were trapped inside. They rolled over themselves and felt like a handful of stones inside mine. He screamed. I rubbed his hair to soothe him, but my hand squeezed again. I leaped back. My neck twitched. My hands squeezed together. Repeat. Repeat.
“What happened?” Dad yelled. “What are you doing?” He stomped over and snatched the towel from my hand. Did he think I did it on purpose?
“Sorry. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to.” My body shook. I grabbed my hair and pulled. Harder. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Repeat. I moved my hands behind my back.
Dad turned to me. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it. Take a deep breath.”
Then what? Count to ten and suddenly everything would be better? I shook my head.
“Jude’s fine. Don’t worry. Sit. I’ll get dinner.”
I sank into my chair. Dad went to the kitchen and came back with two plates of spaghetti, sauce, corn, and a cup of yogurt.
Forks and spoons tinged against the plates. Dad was like a robot. One bite for him, two spoonfuls for Jude. I sat straighter, divided my food into ten equal parts, and made a barrier for the encroaching sauce with lines of pasta. The corn transformed into crushed bones. What happened? I was harmless. Except to paper and the occasional door I slammed against the wall. But people? Never.
I had a theory about Tourette: the busier the brain was, the less trouble the body caused. So I thought about the homework I didn’t finish, which led to chemistry, and then to Khory. There was a big difference between helping someone in math and kissing them, and I had no idea how to get from one to the other. My math skills were above average, but my social skills were definitely an F.
I couldn’t even tell if she liked me. As just a person, obviously, but the fact that she wasn’t like Bradley, who asked for another seat, and didn’t scoot her desk as far from me as she could, were good signs.
“How was school?” Dad asked.
“The same,” I said.
“Great.”
To Dad, “the same” was synonymous with “great.” Unfortunately, things had changed since he first asked that question. Tenth grade wasn’t second grade, and the same no longer meant recess, science fairs, and reading time that turned into superpower conversations.
“How’s that kid you used to be friendly with? Eric, Evan?”
I sighed. “The one that moved away in fifth grade? Or the one in seventh grade that freaked out when I touched his hair?” The touching tic always got me in trouble.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot about that.”
Dad refocused on his food, ripping bite-size pieces of garlic bread from his and handing them to Jude. I grabbed my garlic bread. My hand clenched around it until it was covered in a layer of butter and garlic. Crumbs flew across the table. Jude’s eyes went wide. He laughed, grabbed a piece of his bread, and copied me. Then he threw it across the table.
“Jude, don’t throw your food,” Dad said.
It had to be frustrating to eat dinner with your sixteen-year-old who had table manners as bad as your baby. I wasn’t expecting an it-sucks-to-be-you comment, but he could have asked if it was time for my medicine. Or if I needed a napkin.
“So, tell me something that happened in school,” he said.
I repositioned my food into their ten groups and thought about asking how to get a girl to kiss you. He’s had two wives, so he must know something. But what if he asked for details? Or what if he didn’t? I put my head down.
I went over my day again. Freaking out about the new seating chart and ponytail girl were on the tip of my tongue, but all I said was I needed a new spiral notebook.
. . . . . . . . . .
After dinner I grabbed my notebooks and sat at my desk. I had homework to finish, but even science couldn’t push what I’d done to Jude out of my head. The thought of his tiny fingers inside my hand made me queasy. I pictured Khory and her hair curling at the ends, but my brain kept forcing the bad images through.
I shoved my laptop away and pounded the desk. Again and again. My chest tightened. I yanked a handful of paper from my notebook and scrunched it up. Repeat. The feeling wasn’t the same. My brain wanted his fingers. Those tiny little things I could crush into sand. My neck twitched. I pounded on my chest. Breathe.
Somehow I had to control myself. It wasn’t long. The tenth anniversary was too close for me to off myself after an excruciatingly painful day, or a trip to the principal’s office because I straightened pencils on someone’s desk who preferred them crooked.
I grabbed my phone and opened my list. Number two: first kiss. I clicked on the paper-and-pencil icon, opened a new page, typed “First Kiss,” and created another list.
1. Ask Khoryif she wants help in math
2. Meet in a quiet place (my house, her house, t
he library)
3. Find the right situation to kiss her
I clicked back to the original list and ran my finger down the entries. All doable with planning, although some were easier than others. Number one: meeting someone with TS. There were support groups, I just had to find out where. Number three: being pain-free? Now that would take some thought. If I had that answer, all this wouldn’t be necessary.
I stopped on number nine: Talk to Mom.
I snuck a peek at my closet. Hidden behind the door was all I had left of her. Our relationship for the past six years fit into a shoebox. Seven cards didn’t take up much room.
When Mom first left, the cards came so regularly, I practically stalked the mailman. After school and on Saturdays, I sat on the driveway, then rushed down to meet him.
“What a good helper,” he said to me.
I nodded even though helping by collecting the mail never occurred to me. I shuffled through the envelopes, picked out the one with my name on it, and tore open the brightly colored envelope. Then read and reread them. “Happy 10th birthday!” “Thinking of you.” “You Graduated!” She’d written my name and signed hers, but that was it. No letter saying when she was coming back. No invitation to visit her. Certainly no plane ticket. Just impersonal messages written by someone else who cranked them out for money.
And after a year, they stopped.
If she’d just written, or called, I could have told her she didn’t need to explain why she left. I just wanted someone to talk to. Someone who understood why I had to touch everything, why I grunted under my breath, and how lonely it was when no one wanted to play with you. Instead, I got HQ and the number ten.
When I found her, she was going to give me that explanation. It would have been easy if she’d just done it back then, because now I had a few things to say. She’d know this was her fault. We could have lived with it together, but she never gave me that option. By leaving, she took all hope of surviving.
