List of Ten

by Halli Gomez

  I pedaled and coasted for twenty minutes. I didn’t count the miles. I pushed out images of Dad going back to my room for another talk. As long as my phone didn’t ring, I was good. And once I was on the bus and out of Richmond, there was nothing he could do. I pedaled faster.

  . . . . . . . . . .

  It took me thirty minutes, not twenty, to get to the bus station. I stored my bike in the rack, raced to the ticket booth on wobbly legs, and bought a one-way ticket to Schenectady since that’s all I had the money for. Then I sat down to wait.

  The place was a ticcer’s nightmare. Even in the dim light, I saw chewed gum smushed on the floor like polka dots and a greenish-brownish-blackish grime smeared on the walls. I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the tingling in my fingertips. I would have traded the touching tic for anything right now. The arm flap, the curse words, even screaming bomb in a theater.

  Based on the red-versus-blue graffiti, it seemed like gangs actually fought over this place. I knew it was a territory and pride thing, but I would’ve gladly handed over the nauseating aroma of urine and puke-crusted walls for a nice, open place under a bridge.

  I chose a bench far from other people as a favor to them since I was dripping sweat from the bike ride and probably had the stench to go with it, but close enough to the ticket booth so that I wouldn’t be mistaken for a runaway-in-hiding or a victim-to-be.

  The clock ticked slowly. If I ticced that slowly, I wouldn’t have been sitting here right now. You know you’ve lost it when you wished you were a clock.

  I tapped my feet, counted rounds of ten, and fought the urge to play on my phone. Eight hours was a long time to have a dead phone battery. Ten minutes was a challenge. To pass the time, I went over my plan, which was extremely disorganized for me. Basically, I would arrive in Schenectady, take a cab to Mom’s house, and knock on the door.

  After then it was up to her. She’d either let me in or slam the door in my face. She wasn’t crazy about seeing me when we lived together since I constantly mirrored her tics and touched her plate, so why did I think this would be different? Maybe the fact that I spent eight hours on a bus to see her would give me an edge and guilt her into letting me in. Maybe if I said I had to pee really bad. The alternative was to stand outside, yell everything, and possibly pee on her grass. Of course, that meant attention on me, so no thanks.

  I dropped my head in my hands. Music, pieces of conversations, and the clang of the metal gate separating those with tickets and those without rang in my ears. My hands squeezed together and hit the side of my head ten times. With my right hand. Then with my left.

  I glanced up. A black guy on the bench across from me had his eyes closed and earbuds in. He didn’t notice me. The gray-haired couple on the opposite side of the bench looked away. Did it ever occur to them to help me? What if this was a medical emergency? I didn’t see them reaching for their phones or yelling to the ticket lady for help. But if I walked over and touched them, all of a sudden it would be the emergency of the century. They’d call the police and yell that some crazy kid infected them. Why wasn’t there any in-between? I was either completely ignored or a complete lunatic.

  The speaker squawked and spit out a stream of static before the announcer got out the word Schenectady. The freaked-out couple eyed me, then stood up and sprinted to the bus line. I grabbed my backpack and followed them. One part of me thought about brushing my arm against theirs or literally breathing down their necks. Maybe it was the fed-up side. Or the dark side.

  I sighed. My neck twitched. People took their time finding seats and stowing their luggage. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Repeat. Finally it was my turn to get on.

  This bus was longer than the city bus but had the same issues of aisle seats and seatmates. That wasn’t going to work. I’d reach over and touch someone and be thrown off before we made it out of Virginia. Back to a police department, charged with inappropriate touching, drugged-out behavior, and being a runaway. And they’d call Dad.

  I made it up the steps and did a quick scan. The back seats were taken, but there were enough open ones on each side, so I could get a window. And the line behind me wasn’t too long, so I could get a seat to myself.

  I started down the aisle. One, two, three, four, five, six—the first open seat was at least six more steps. I stretched my steps as wide as I could—seven, eight, nine, ten. The people behind me sighed as I bent down and touched the floor. I stood up, took three more steps, and slid into a seat on the left counting the rest of the way to ten.

  Not surprisingly, everyone else behind me scooted past my seat and found others farther back. I was alone when the doors finally closed. I put my back against the window, my legs across the seat, and closed my eyes. Soon my body moved in time with the bus’s rhythm and not its own.

  MARCH 30

  A big, old-fashioned wall clock greeted the bus as it pulled into the Schenectady station. Eight thirty in the morning. I rubbed my eyes and stretched. It wasn’t the best sleep I’d ever had, but it had to be enough. My brain couldn’t be foggy today.

  I glanced out the window at the people leaning against the walls and hanging out in groups. They stood with their arms crossed, smoking and frowning. The bus doors opened; I started my ten-count-bend-down. My back screamed from the stiffness. A thirty on the rate-the-pain scale. No big deal. I’d been worse.

  This station was similar to the one at home. The smell of bodily functions gone wrong indicated no one bothered to clean it. Not to mention the overflowing garbage cans and paint-chipped walls. Outside the sun was shining and the temperature was crisp, reminding me I was in the north. How could anything bad happen on a day like this? It was so damn bright and cheery.

  I turned on my phone, and it beeped immediately. Messages from Khory. None from Dad, which meant he went to work before I supposedly left for school. Part of his new adjusted schedule so he could be home to babysit both his boys.

  Of course, Khory wouldn’t miss the fact that I wasn’t in school. I scanned her texts. More of the same from last night but with a touch of added panic. She pleaded for an answer so she would know I was okay. In other words, tell me you’re alive and didn’t kill yourself.

  School just started, so she’d be in Language Arts, but I knew her phone would be close. I sent her a text.

  ME: I’m fine. Just sick.

  And in case she felt the need to call her parents, or mine, to check on me, I added a little bonus for her.

  ME: I stayed up late talking to my dad, so I’m tired too.

  I barely had my finger off the Send button before it beeped.

  KHORY: Sorry you’re sick. Glad you talked to your dad. I love you.

  No smiley faces with heart eyes, but she seemed to believe me, if you could believe a text message. But I didn’t have time to worry about that, I had to get to Mom’s house. I used the map app to track the route and distance. Only fifteen minutes from here by car. Walking would add another hour and a half, especially the way I walked.

  And I had a time limit. I had to be at Mom’s before Jay and Khory met in the lunch room and he innocently mentioned that he had loaned me money for a bus ticket. I debated texting him and asking him to keep it quiet, but I had already taken money from him that I wouldn’t be able to pay back. So that gave me three hours before phone calls were made and Dad sent the Schenectady Police Department to find me and haul me home. I put on my jacket, calculated the money I had left, and walked to the cab waiting on the curb.

  . . . . . . . . . .

  The fifteen-minute cab ride wasn’t long enough for me to get it together. I stared out the window trying to come up with a better plan. Something besides, “Hi, remember me?” I kicked myself. Me, Mr. OCD, should have written note cards, or at least key phrases on my hand, but I had nothing. The most important conversation of my life, and I was stumped.

  Office buildings, houses, and churches zipped by. My neck twitched. My hand squeezed together. I counted to ten. My f
ace scrunched up. Repeat.

  “Kid, we’re here. 5220 Hawkwood.”

  Already? I was sure I hadn’t made it nine rounds of ten yet, but the driver, half turned in his seat, had his hand out. I paid the bill, plus a tip, then grabbed my backpack and scooted out. I stood on the sidewalk and watched him leave. Then I turned to the house.

  It was smaller than mine, light gray with white shutters and columns on the porch. A tan Ford Focus sat in the driveway. It was the kind of car I’d pick. Not sporty or flashy like Jay’s, but something that blended in with everything else.

  I started toward the house, taking small steps for a change. It took thirty-five steps and three bend-downs to get up the driveway. My neck twitched. I took four more steps and did another bend-down. Up close the columns were dirty and had cobwebs. She needed a teenager to clean them.

  I started another round, walking up the brick pathway.

  One, two, three . . .

  I was on the porch.

  Four, five, six . . .

  I peeked in the front window. A couch and lamp. No people.

  Seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten.

  My neck twitched four times. My hands squeezed together.

  I raised my hand to knock, but it just grazed the wood. Not even loud enough for a dog to hear. I pressed my hand against the wood. My stomach flip-flopped.

  Just do it.

  Rat tat tat.

  I waited. My hands in my pockets, then out. My neck bobbing to my left shoulder, then to my right. My stomach rumbled, but the thought of food made it nosedive, even though I hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.

  The door opened.

  Mom.

  She wore jeans and a T-shirt and had the same long, brown hair, but curlier I think. And gray at the temples. She looked older and had wrinkles by her eyes. And the scar on her chin. It was her. The left side of her face scrunched. Then the right. I grabbed the wall and squeezed tight.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Troy,” she said.

  I nodded.

  She peered around me. “Are you here with your dad?”

  I shook my head. “I took a bus.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here.” She smiled, studied me from head to toe, then took my hand. “Come inside.”

  I followed her inside to the living room. It was as plain as the outside, but homey. A white couch and chair faced a fireplace, and a shaggy blue rug partly covered hardwood floors.

  She turned toward me and gave me another once-over. Her chin trembled, and she pressed her lips together. I wanted to hug her and cry with her, but I wasn’t ready for that. My hands squeezed, voluntarily this time. She left me. This wasn’t a happy reunion. It was a question-and-answer session. Of course, if she hugged me, there wouldn’t be anything I could do. I bit my lip. My neck was out of control. I lost count after four sets of ten, and I was usually a much better counter than that.

  She pulled me close. I wanted to be strong, but who was I kidding? I had no control over anything. I put my arms around her and let the tears flow.

  She hugged me, then stepped back and held my hands. “Your voice is so deep. You’re so grown up.”

  The last time she saw me I was short and thin, but that was before years of meds. I was also pretty stupid then and believed life would get better.

  “I didn’t know you were coming. You should have called. I would have picked you up,” she said.

  She made it sound like I was welcome here and this was a normal visit. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.

  “How is everything? At home? Your Dad?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “I don’t know why he didn’t call to tell me you were coming.”

  I knew he had her phone number. I gritted my teeth and was just about to say I hated liars when remembered I was one.

  “Dad doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “What? We have to call him. He’ll be so worried and send the entire department out to look for you.”

  “It’s okay. He thinks I’m at school. I’ll call him later. I just want to talk to you.”

  She was silent. Trying to think of the right thing to do? She was worried about that now?

  “Okay,” she said.

  She led me through the kitchen to a sunroom where half the walls were windows. I sat on the edge a wood chair with puffy blue-and-white striped pillows, and she sat on a matching couch across from me.

  Mom had the neck twitch that seemed to define Tourette more than cussing. She tapped the arm of the couch in no specific pattern, and I had to look away so I wouldn’t even her taps out. How could she be so careless?

  I thought back to our shoes at the bottom of the stairs. I bet her house was filled with shelves of accessories, all of them touching. My hands clenched and went to my head. I grabbed my hair. They pulled and squeezed, but as usual, it wasn’t hard enough. My neck twitched again. And again.

  “I can’t believe you’re in tenth grade now. Are you still crazy about science and space?”

  “Yes,” I said. She remembered.

  I wanted to tell her about the zero-gravity experience, and Khory, but I had to focus. This wasn’t the time to play catch-up. I had a purpose. I just had to find the guts to bring it up.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “About two years. Since my mom, your grandmother, died. I was an only child, and even though we weren’t close, the house became mine.”

  I stayed quiet and counted while I figured out where to go next. Small talk wasn’t my thing, but I didn’t want to piss her off with accusations, or she would never give me answers. I opened and closed my hands and tried to put some order to her tapping. This wasn’t going according to plan. Oh, yeah, I didn’t have one.

  “I’m very happy to see you,” she said. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

  I watched her neck twitch and the left side of her face scrunch, then the right.

  “Why?” I spit out.

  Mom sighed and leaned forward. “I knew this was coming. I didn’t realize it would be today, but I should have been prepared. It’s not like me to be unprepared.”

  She tapped. “Why did I leave? I know this will sound corny, or like a cop-out, but I did it for you.”

  “You’re right. It is a cop-out.” It was the line everyone gave in every TV show and every movie: “I did it to protect you from the once-dead-but-now-back-to-life leader of the league of assassins.” That’s how lame her excuse was.

  “I didn’t have many friends growing up,” she said. “Just a few who could look past the tics.”

  “So, did you think it would be different for me?” My neck twitched, and my hands squeezed together.

  “I did because your dad was one of those. He treated me like the tics and obsessions didn’t exist. I thought he could give you a normal life.” She took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Normal? For me normal is people asking for a new desk so they don’t get what I have. Or people spitting on the floor because they know I’ll bend down and touch it.”

  Mom’s face scrunched up, and when it relaxed, there were tears in her eyes. Her tears should have put out the fire building inside me, but it was too hot to be smothered.

  “If you knew it was hereditary, and your life sucked, why did you have me?” I demanded.

  She shifted in her seat, wiped her eyes, then stared toward her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I thought it would be different for you. That I could help you more than my parents helped me. Of course, that was crazy, because I couldn’t help myself.”

  “So, you went ahead and had a kid, then realized it was too much and just left?”

  “I knew the risks, but I wanted a child so bad. And we were happy.”

  “But then I started showing the signs. And you couldn’t love me like that.” I gritted my teeth and squeezed my hands together.

  “That’s not true. I loved you. I do love you. But I couldn’t see you like that. Knowing the pain I went th
rough and that most likely you would, too. And that was my fault. The guilt was too much. I was afraid. Terrified I’d do something drastic.”

  I stared at her. Did she hurt me like I hurt Jude? Did she think about suicide? I ran my hand over my phone, knowing the list was safely inside. We could have shared our pain and feelings, maybe found a way to survive. But now it was too late.

  “So you left with no one to help me.”

  “If I stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to help. Do you remember what it was like living together?” she asked. “Our tics feeding off each other?”

  “The shoes,” I said. “It drove me insane when they touched. Still does.” I stiffened my neck and face muscles so I wouldn’t look around and see things that had to be moved apart.

  “I wanted you to have the easiest life possible.”

  I spread my arms wide. “You can see how well that turned out. I needed you. You understood. Instead I was stuck with someone who had no clue what to do. Except send me to a psychiatrist who made things worse. Dad doesn’t understand what it feels like or what I need. He thinks everything is great, like I’m still in second grade.”

  Mom’s shoulders dropped. She shook her head. “Your dad was so outgoing. I prayed you would get that from him. I just wanted to stay at home. I forced myself to go out after you were born. Took you to play dates, the park. I went to your school events. But it was too much.”

  “He did try to get me to be more social, but I fought him until he gave up,” I said. “I’m the same as you. I don’t go out if I can help it. Just school and the jobs I did to get the money for the bus ticket.”

  I forced myself to face forward, and the muscles in my body began to ache. Tourette wasn’t the only thing that was hereditary. It was all the fear and anxiety that went with it. So despite her so-called best effort, I still ended up just like her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she cried.

  I watched her body shake and listened to her sobs. My lips quivered and tears formed.

  “It’s okay,” I choked out. I wasn’t an asshole. I just wanted answers.