The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

by Teresa Toten

  What are you going to do? Stop talking and fix me! Just fix me. I need to be fixed.

  “It’s good. I’m better. Plain old panic attack, sorry. Thanks, Doc. I’m way better, seriously clear and everything.”

  He was reeling when he got into the elevator. He was alone, at least in the beginning. It felt like he had walked into a vacuum tube. Adam rode the elevator up and down, as he sometimes did after a session with Chuck. The compression was soothing, as was the soft ding of the floor indicator. As Adam rode, he reviewed every word and gesture. Seventeen minutes later, he walked out into the cold towards the pharmacy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He took an Ativan before he called her. He thought she’d be pleased about the whole impromptu Chuck session. She wasn’t.

  “Did you tell him about the letters?”

  “Not in so many words,” he admitted. He walked over to his fish tank. The boys swam over to him and then swam away in a huff when they realized he wasn’t going to feed them. All except Steven, who stayed and looked at him pityingly.

  “In any words, Adam? I mean words that actually left your head and came out loud into the world?”

  “Not so much.”

  She eventually wore him down. It was a war of attrition and Robyn was better armed. In every conversation, every evening that week, she hinted not so subtly that he had to get more support, more ammo, more help—in other words, tell Group about the letters.

  “Uncle!” he groaned on Sunday night.

  “Good decision,” she said sweetly. “I’ve been praying on it.” The superheroes all checked in with their accessories that Monday. Batman wore his ring. He wore it all the time now, and Robyn brought in a new pair of long green leather gloves. She smiled encouragingly at him as soon as he sat down. Adam found that irresistible and had to concentrate on not throwing himself across the room and kissing her. Instead, he spoke up right after check-in.

  “Adam, you’d like to start us off?” The therapist looked pleased.

  “Yes, sir. I think. So, guys, well, you all know I have the counting and, uh, the threshold thing, right?”

  Everybody but Wolverine nodded. Wolverine just looked bored—or was he checking his target heart rate? Thor offered Adam his signature death-stare. At least it meant that he was paying attention.

  “Yeah, so it’s expanding. Maybe.”

  Snooki turned in her seat to face him.

  “A lot. New ones. I don’t why. There’s more places at school, and you know about the church. There’s the side door at my dad’s now, and the worst”—Adam’s mouth dried up—“the worst is the front door of my house.”

  “Your own place, man?” Iron Man shook his head. “That is so the bitch.” You could tell by the way he said it that he’d been practising that phrase, working it hard and waiting for the perfect moment to roll it out.

  “Yeah, yeah, it is. I’m, like, scaring the neighbours.”

  Adam elaborated and could quite legitimately have taken up all his time on that rather salient and considerable problem, but he noticed that Robyn had given up on being encouraging and had careened straight into being anguished.

  “But that’s not the real problem.”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” said Wolverine. “You’ve gone from tapping your brains out every session to not being able to get into your own house and that’s not the problem? What about that pretty speech you made in September? The one about getting clearer every week until you could blow this place?” He leaned forward shaking his head, radiating concern. “Man, you’re circling the drain.”

  Chuck cleared his throat.

  Thor glowered.

  Wolverine shut up.

  Adam noted all this while exhaling, slowly. He did not count or choke on Wolverine’s passive-aggressiveness. He also did not get up and fling himself at Wolverine as he moved his chair closer to Robyn’s. “Maybe I am, but no, that’s not the real problem.” He took a couple of raggedy breaths but still did not count. He’d be damned if he would count in front of that mutant. “So, and like this so has got to stay here …”

  What was he doing? Sweat beaded on his forehead and then on the sides of his face until all the beads found each other and decided to form clammy streams that raced down his neck.

  Danger. This was a betrayal. Danger.

  He didn’t know how to begin. He should have practised, like Iron Man. Adam fumbled around in his head searching for a path, until he remembered how Robyn had talked about her mother.

  “Okay, so …” He looked at his feet, which were on the floor. He crossed his legs the wrong way, undid them and crossed them the right way. “Uh, I think I got to lay some ground rules?” He looked to Chuck, so they all looked to Chuck. Chuck nodded and everyone returned to Adam. “Right, so like I said, except I didn’t say anything. So I’ll say it, but I don’t actually want at this point, right now, any solutions or comments, okay? It’s crazy complicated and I can’t go to the cops or tell any authorities. Any. You just have to believe that. I feel like I’m taking a big risk and … like I’m going to make it worse.”

  Wolverine groaned, but Thor emitted a low soft rumble. Again Wolverine shut down.

  “Sorry. Okay, thing is my mom … my mother has been getting these deranged, threatening letters that call her disgusting names and keep pushing her to kill herself.” Adam noted a soft gasp, and he stumbled. He looked to Robyn. He could feel her across from him, pleading with him, urging, nodding, cheering for him. The girl was burning up a lot of energy.

  “The letters, they’re like toxic vomit.” Fear spiked down his spine and then spread. He did not take his eyes off Robyn. “They’re deranged, but in case you’re wondering, they don’t threaten her directly, which means something legally, and they’re like those old-school cut-and-paste jobs, like in the movies. It’s like somebody wants to drive her crazy, get her locked up.” Adam’s heart erupted in uneven pa-thumps. He had said out loud and to them what he had refused to say to himself.

  No one breathed.

  No one said anything.

  “Big step, Batman. Maybe you need a minute, and maybe everyone else does too,” Chuck said gently. “So I’ll ask a couple of questions just on facts, nothing loaded. I agree that the situation is loaded enough. If you don’t want to answer, just shake your head, okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay with that.”

  “How many letters?”

  Adam thought for a moment. “Five? No, six that I know of for sure, but I’m guessing seven or eight when I think about how she acts after.”

  “Do you have any idea who?”

  Did he look at Wolverine? He didn’t mean to.

  Adam dropped his head. “Could be work, or someone we know. No, I have no idea, and we don’t—she won’t—talk about it.”

  “And how is your mom? Is she coping?”

  “She has her issues—other ones, you know? But she puts on a good front. Thing is, I know she’s strung out; the house vibrates with it, or she’s vibrating. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “Okay.” Chuck took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “That’s enough for now. You know to call.” Chuck and Adam surveyed the room together; most everyone in it looked uncomfortable. “We won’t comment, but good one, Batman. Splendid breakthrough. I’m very pleased that you could share what you did. Big step, young man. Big, big step.”

  And he was right. It was like a high-pressure front blew in and swallowed up everything that was thick and heavy.

  Snooki leaned over to him and patted his thigh.

  Robyn lasered Snooki.

  And Adam felt fine. Shockingly, brilliantly fine. Once again, he had told. Once again, a relief so pure and powerful rocked him to the core.

  He tried staying in tune for the rest of the checks and even managed to comment on Green Lantern’s latest running-over-someone-in-the-car drama. Adam was still feeling lighter and brighter when they stacked chairs forty minutes later. He couldn’t wait to get to the cemetery with R
obyn, to be alone with her. She would be pleased, proud. He would hold her. She would make it even better.

  He was still smiling when Thor loomed up behind him, casting a shadow over the stairwell. His footfalls reverberated like gathering thunder until he had just passed Adam on the stairs, and then he turned. Even though Thor was one step down, he still towered over Adam.

  “I’ll find him, kid.”

  “What? Uh, Thor, no. You don’t have to … you shouldn’t …”

  “I’ll find him.” Thor’s voice was so low that the actual words were barely audible. “I’ll find him and I’ll kill the prick,” he said, or Adam thought he said. He definitely said something close enough to that to shred Adam’s stomach before he took off.

  You tell and all hell will break loose, Adam. Promise me you’ll never tell. Promise!

  Adam leaned against the rail trying to steady himself.

  What have I done?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “I don’t know why you’re tripping out so much. I thought it went good. They’ve got your back, you know. All of them.”

  Was Robyn annoyed?

  Annoyed would not be good.

  Angry?

  Angry would be bad. Scared?

  Scared would be badder.

  But then Robyn put her arm through his as they walked through the cemetery gates. And they were close enough for Adam to get lost in the promise of her.

  “I mean it, Adam—all of them! They are so for you!”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Especially Wolverine.”

  “No …” Robyn withdrew her arm. “Especially Snooki.”

  Wow. Were they having a fight? Was this their first fight?

  This had to mean that they were definitely a they in order for them to have their first fight.

  Once the novelty wore off, a full two seconds later, Adam felt nauseated. He tucked her arm through his again. “I’m sorry, Robyn.” He didn’t have a clue what he was apologizing for.

  “No.” Robyn shook her head. “I’m sorry. I forced you and now you feel worse. And I’m such an idiot, and I’m really, really sorry.”

  “No, I don’t feel worse, really,” he lied. Adam felt worse by the hour, it seemed. There were moments when it felt like he was disintegrating. The time and attention that the compulsions demanded, the humiliating aftermath of the rituals, all pierced through and left puncture marks in their wake. He was exhausted.

  Each ritual, each time, required more and gave less.

  But Adam had to be strong for her. Robyn needed a strong defender, protector, warrior … something much more than he was. Yet he would and could be that for her, and also for his mom and for Sweetie. There was no time to be tired.

  Last week’s ice storm had left its mark on the cemetery. Though the path was cleared, snow and ice draped every available surface, glittering even in the dusk.

  “Wow, eh?” Robyn squeezed Adam’s arm. “It’s like how I imagined Narnia to be when the White Witch turned it into the Hundred Years Winter.”

  Adam traced the icicle-decorated branches scratching against the gathering darkness. And then they were there, at her mother’s headstone. The big black granite an aggressive scar erupting from all that white.

  Adam reluctantly let go of Robyn so that she could make the sign of the cross and say her rosary.

  It was while she prayed that he knew.

  It was no longer an act, a compulsive tic or a driving necessity. Robyn was not obsessing. He reviewed the last few weeks, at church, at her house, in Group and here with him. There was no sense of desperation.

  She was better.

  Adam could hear himself exhaling in that way you can when you’re at the bottom of a swimming pool or running in the woods by yourself. This was wrong. Who was saving who here?

  No, it was even wronger than that somehow. He knew it at the core of his being, but couldn’t put his finger on what or how. He shivered.

  Robyn turned back to him. It was almost dark. They would close the gates. The rules were loose, but usually they shut the gates when night fell, not at any set hour. He’d gotten caught a couple of times in the autumn when he’d doubled back rather than returning home along the main streets. Adam now knew all the perimeter fences and which ones were scalable. Robyn had to know the rules; she’d been coming far longer than he had. Yet the darkening sky didn’t seem to concern her.

  “You know, I don’t remember her ever not fighting.”

  “Fighting?”

  It was as if Robyn were addressing an audience, not just Adam. “Even when she was unconscious, I swear she fought. She, he, they fought when she was drugged, radiated, hair falling out and throwing up. They flew her everywhere, for every possible trial or quack treatment. The fight took up everything, you see, for years. It was … exclusive.” She hugged herself. “There was no room in that kind of battle for a little girl. There was no air left for me, and …” She turned back to the stone. “I—I hated her for it.”

  Then Robyn tried to smile.

  “So, my superfine superhero, I guess I was praying right now that you could maybe understand why I went with the suicide story as opposed to this disgusting selfish-brat story. Do you think you can, even a little?”

  Even in the sooty dark, Adam could tell that there were tears struggling down Robyn’s face. He bounded up to her.

  “Why the hell do I tell you these things? They are so, so ugly … and still I tell you. I don’t get it. Why?”

  “Because you know that I will love you no matter what. It doesn’t matter what you think you did. I will always love you, Robyn.”

  “You love me?”

  He went to her and thought he would implode with want.

  Instead of devouring her whole, Adam wiped her cheek as gently as he would Sweetie’s. “I love you. I love you so much that I tell you all my … and I—”

  “You’re talking too much,” she whispered. “Stop talking, Adam, and just—”

  Adam cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. He kissed her forever and then longer than that. His body was shot through with shards of hot and cold at the exact same time. Her lips were softer and, yes, peachier than he could ever have imagined, and still they kissed. Adam moved one hand to the back of her head and the other circled her body as if he did this every day, and still they kissed. Robyn threw her arms around him and pulled him into her, and still they kissed. They kissed that one long, hungry, uninterrupted first kiss that went beyond the now and would last as only first kisses can, in time and memory, until they breathed no more.

  Until they were caught by harsh intrusive high-beams.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh.”

  They blinked like startled owls at the security car in front of them.

  A car door opened. “You kids want to get a room? The gates have been closed for half an hour!” The security guard heaved himself out and, to add insult to injury, beamed his flashlight on them. “Hell, I take it back. You are kids. Go home right now before I haul you in and call your folks! I’ll drive over and open the Main Street gates. You all think the cemetery is some kind of make-out mansion. Now, get home! Go!”

  Robyn kissed him one more time and then once more again. Everything in him ignited. Adam grabbed her hand and they ran to the Main Street gates, laughing the whole way. Even with all his long-distance training, he had trouble catching his breath. And that was okay. He held on to the heat of the kiss, of her. He was not tired. He did not count.

  “Robyn—”

  “Shh.” Robyn smiled, touching his lips with her gloved finger. “Shh … I love you too, Adam, really I do. I have almost from the beginning, and I will love you”—she turned, looking back to the cemetery—“I will love you until…” She reached for him and kissed his cheek and then his eyes and then his lips one last time before disappearing down Main Street. He heard the gates clank shut behind him.

  Guess it was going to be the long way home tonight.

  Who cared?

&n
bsp; Not him.

  Robyn Plummer tasted like peaches.

  And Robyn Plummer loved him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Adam ran home without his feet touching the ground. Wow. He got it, he really got it. So this was what that was like! This was better than anything! This was worth anything! Love, man. Love was amazing. Miracles sparked in the night air, bloomed and burst open before him.

  Until he got home.

  And he got to his door.

  And nothing had changed. So everything did.

  It was a bad reset. And it was one that happened that fast. It took Adam twenty-three minutes to get in. And in that time everything turned upside down. He had to retrace and start again seven times.

  It must have been a pity kiss.

  Because he was that pitiful.

  He felt like an open wound by the time he turned the key. Thank God his mom was on late shift all week.

  When he got to his room, Adam just sat there in his coat in the dark and counted until the phone rang.

  “Robyn?”

  “No, doofus. Don’t you have call display? It’s Ben.”

  “Stones?”

  Adam unzipped his jacket and started wiggling out of it.

  “What’s up, man?”

  “Nothing much.”

  The guys had never developed much of a telephone relationship over the years. They relied more on monosyllabic and heavily coded texting. But that had not been available to Adam for almost a year now. So, on the phone, each out-wrestled the other in tortured conversation. Their “conversations” rarely lasted longer than a few seconds and usually involved little more than setting the date and time of their next meeting. But sometimes, Ben Stone called for no reason whatsoever.

  Like this time.

  As always they began with their standard awkward pause, and then…

  “Yeah, so I thought I’d just call, you know?”

  Adam nodded, but of course Ben couldn’t see him.

  “So I called … And so, dude, how are ya? You still nuts?”

  “Pretty much,” said Adam. “Thought so.”

  “You still fat?” Adam wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out of his mouth. “Sorry, man, that was pissy.”