by Heidi Ayarbe
COMPULSION
HEIDI AYARBE
For Lisa, her strength and courage.
This is also for Amelia, whose laughter fills my world.
And always, Cesar.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Wednesday, 6:13 p.m.
Two The Spiders Return
Three The Script
Five Aberration
Seven Sanctuaries
Eleven Time Trial
Thirteen Memories Unearthed
Seventeen Keeping Order
Nineteen Lost Time
Twenty-Three The Doubting
Twenty-Nine The Future
Thirty-One Paying Debts
Thirty-Seven Out of Order
Forty-One Merry-Go-Round
Forty-Three Stuck
Forty-Seven Genesis
Fifty-Three Mera’s Song
Fifty-Nine Reviving the Dead
Sixty-One Confession
Sixty-Seven In the Shadows
Seventy-One Focus
Seventy-Three Beginning Perfection
Seventy-Nine Triggers
Eighty-Three Haunted
Eighty-Nine Truth
Ninety-Seven Magic
One Hundred One Freedom
One Hundred Three Normalcy
One Hundred Seven Comfort Zone
One Hundred Nine Into The Dark
One Hundred Thirteen Compulsion
One Hundred Twenty-Seven My Normal
One Hundred Thirty-One World Erased
One Hundred Thirty-One Sorry
One Hundred Thirty-Nine Exposed
One Hundred Forty-Nine Breaking Normal
One Hundred Fifty-One Burying Ghosts
One Hundred Fifty-Seven Asking the Impossible
One Hundred Sixty-Three Night Whispers
One Beginning
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Heidi Ayarbe
Copyright
About the Publisher
Wednesday, 6:13 p.m.
Two The Spiders Return
Tanya Reese’s Tinker Bell tattoo flits on her pale shoulder, blowing on a dandelion, its fluff spiraling down her back. Tanya shivers. It’s November and she’s wearing an off-the-shoulder shirt. Mom would say, “Not weather appropriate.” I don’t offer her my jacket because I’m not a fucking Boy Scout and would rather stare at the goose-bumped flesh and imagine where the trail of wispy dandelion seeds might lead me. Blow hard and make a wish.
“Cap’n Hook, eyes up front,” Luc says and laughs. “Jake. Cash?” He holds out his hand.
I tear my eyes from Tanya’s shoulder and pull out my wallet, only to find a limp Lincoln and taped-together Washington.
Luc raises his eyebrows.
I pat the money in my front pocket—the cash Dad gave me to pay Mr. Hartman. “C’mon, asshole,” Luc says. Tanya and Amy giggle. Tanya opens her purse. “I’ve got money too.”
I shake my head. “No. That’s okay. I got it.” I take out Dad’s money and hand it to the zitty kid behind the cash register. “My treat tonight.”
Okay. Dad’s treat. No big deal.
The register chimes and the drawer slides closed. “Thanks for coming to In-N-Out.” He hands me my change, and I shove it into my pocket before counting it but can’t help fingering the bills and coins—four bills, seven coins. Eleven. OK.
Luc puts his wallet away. “Nice, Martin,” and hands me the tray of food. Tanya smiles, and I follow her milk-white skin to the booth.
The four of us cram into the vinyl-and-Formica fast-food heaven, the tray piled high with burgers, fries, and shakes. We have everything, including hot chicks, to make for a perfect culinary experience. I glance at Tanya as she picks up a french fry, bites, then double dips it in the runny, room-temp ketchup. Blue nails. Red ketchup. Double dipping.
“What’s up?” she asks.
I’m such a fuck, all I can say is “Your nails. They’re, um . . . blue.” And then the smells hit me: grease, pine floor polish, doused-on cologne from Carson High’s soccer team, and—I sniff in deep—a faint smell of curdled milk. I look back and some mom has a baby draped over her shoulder, white chunky milk running down the baby’s chin.
I inhale and gag, then try to exhale the stink from my nostrils, sure the hair has trapped the odors. When I open my mouth to gasp for air, the stench is palpable—something I could spoon up into a bowl and eat—so I slam my mouth shut. I feel sweat trickle down my back—pooling on my tailbone. I hold my breath to try to make everything black. Black is better than the gray of the webs that I feel creeping up my neck. Way better.
Tanya scoots closer, her shoulder nestled against my chest. The Tinker Bell tattoo stretches across her right shoulder blade when Tanya reaches across the table—Tink’s smile turning into a distorted Munch-like grimace. “Well, yeah,” she says. “We are in Spirit Week . . . for you guys.” She laughs, then slips her hand in mine—soft hands with slick fingertips and blue nails.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock —Captain Hook only had to worry about Tock. My crocodile is fucking everywhere.
I feel the familiar itch. Not. This. Week. I think about the game, the team.
I grasp onto my watch—looking at the time. I have to count. Maybe just today.
I need the magic.
The team needs the magic. This is for them.
6:14 p.m.
Six fourteen. Six plus one is seven plus four is eleven. OK.
I have exactly forty-five minutes and thirty-two, thirty-one—less than forty-six minutes to get to Hartman’s, pick up the meat for Dad, and get home. Plenty of time.
Not plenty of cash.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I down my Flying Dutchman and a Neapolitan shake; I’m still hungry but blew everything I couldn’t spare on food Tanya won’t eat. The entire Carson High soccer team has come—team tradition—slurping down shakes and ingesting burgers at alarming speed.
Tanya and Amy shouldn’t even be here to begin with. No other chicks are.
But Luc’s the captain. He can bring anybody.
And I’m Magic Martin.
My stomach growls. I lean back in the booth wondering what Mom made for dinner.
“Goddamn, Martin, why don’t you show some manners, man? Breathe between bites at least.”
I shrug. “I was hungry.” I swallow down a belch. That’s about as gentlemanly as they’ll get tonight. I try to stretch, but Tanya has crammed me into the booth.
She giggles. “I can’t believe you eat that much.” Her fingers are wrapped around the burger, tipped with those chipped blue nails. She takes one of those dainty-chick bites. I’ve always told Kasey to not do that when she starts going out. Eat like a real person, not some kind of chicken pecking at corn. Luckily Kase eats a lot as long as nothing on her plate is touching. That drives her nuts.
The tingling in the back of my neck begins to sting—like jellyfish tentacles. It’s not a big deal. I’ll get through the rest of dinner. I just have to focus. I look at the clock hanging on the wall.
6:26
The clock on the wall isn’t in time to my watch. I look at the hands of my watch and count the seconds.
Four seconds faster than the clock.
So right now it’s 6:26 and 6:27—for four seconds.
Four. Fuck.
My resting heart rate is forty-seven beats per minute.
I feel my pulse and watch the seconds on the clock. Sixty-three.
Just relax.
Six plus two is eight plus six is fourteen minus two is twelve minus six is six. Fuck. Plus two is eight . . .
Numbers blur. Sweat stings my eyes.
Inhale.
Exhale.
6:2
8
Six twenty-eight. The numbers spin. I look across at Luc, but he’s too busy trying to cop a feel of Amy to give a shit what’s going on. A filthy film of grease coats the glass on the clock on the wall.
I pull my eyes from the clock and count the fries in the bag. Thirteen. Tanya eats another, twelve¸ and another and another until there are only four left. Then she tries to give me one, but I jerk my head back. “No thanks, um. Just . . . ”
Numbers, just look at the numbers. But I can’t because my watch and the clock aren’t in sync and the numbers won’t work that way.
Sweat drips down my temple, tickling my chin. I lean my head down, feeling the perspiration, wiping it with a napkin.
It’s like something clicks in my brain, waking up things that should be left to sleep. One by one neurons come to life, sizzling and charring the only good connections that are left, turning my brain into a smoke-filled frazzle. And I can feel the familiar tickle of spider legs crawling up my spine.
I scratch at the back of my neck. I haven’t felt this for a while.
Maybe a couple of weeks. It’s been a good two weeks.
Fuck.
“This Saturday is going to be magic,” Tanya says.
Magic.
For a second I can imagine the game, bring my mind to Saturday and erase this moment, the smells, the sounds, and the freak Tinker Bell tattoo. Magic.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Luc leans back in the booth, his arms crossed behind his head. “Saturday’s game is everything. You can’t imagine,” he says to Amy, then looks at me. “Right?”
No. He can’t imagine. Everything in my life depends on Saturday. I glance at the clock, work out the numbers, and sigh. It won’t be long until that’s all gone—only, though, if Saturday is magic.
“What do you feel when you get on that field with all those people cheering for you?” Tanya leans in and stares at me intently, those blue polished nails holding that greasy fry, the other hand, a shriveled husk of dried skin and bone, in mine. Tinker Bell’s fairy dust looks like flecks of mustard-
colored sewage splatter, her head deformed by Tanya’s jutting shoulder bone.
Tanya looks up at me with big brown eyes—giant. I mean alien giant, and a little face that ends in a tiny pointed chin. She wears a black choker around her neck with a heart charm dangling from some silver loops.
I’m struck by the idea that she looks a lot like our neighbor Sarah Merckley’s Chihuahua. What’s his name? Ramón. Wearing makeup, of course, with blue-painted claws.
Inhale. The curdled milk mixes with Tanya’s perfume—some fruity, flowery shit that smells like bathroom potpourri spray.
“Well?” she asks.
“Indescribable,” says Luc, scowling at me.
Tanya moves closer, shoving her hipbone against my thigh. I squirm to get space, but she takes it like I’m mak-
ing more room for her and moves in closer.
Give me some fucking space!
I’m not really speaking. I know this because nobody is looking at me weird.
I try to keep my voice in my head—to work out a way to make my thoughts sound normal. Sane. My heart hammers in my chest, pulsates in my ears, and I can’t hear above the clamor. I wipe my sweat-slick palms on my thighs and peel off my sweatshirt.
Just don’t breathe.
Through the blur of the webs in my brain, I stare at the french fry dangling like a waterlogged cigarette from Tanya’s blue fingertips. If I tried, I could probably make out my reflection in the sheen of grease.
Count.
I look at the time. Subtract, divide, add. Anything to make the numbers prime. Like number roulette in my head, spinning and spinning. I wait for the marble to drop in the slot; I feel my pulse.
Eighty-three.
Spinning, spinning, the marble won’t drop and it feels like my head will explode. Now that would be a mess for Luc to explain to my family—spontaneous head explosion and brain matter all over In-N-Out.
Tanya’s talking. Talking like she eats—little pecks of words suspended in front of us. Nothing of substance. Just peck, peck, peck. I check my pulse.
Eighty-six.
The spiders crawl and they weave, the pain working its way up my spine until it feels like somebody is stabbing my temples with ice picks. Their thick-spun webs cloud everything, making it hard to think.
I count.
I turn away from the clock and look back at the three fries in the bag and the one in Tanya’s fingers. All I need her to do is eat the fucking fry. Just eat it. Just eat the goddamned french fry.
But she drops it back in the bag. Leaving four. Four. Fuck.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks, pulling her hand from mine, looking to Luc for help. My entire back is drenched in sweat; my palm’s slicker than her greasy blue-fingered french-fry hands.
Luc flings a limp pickle at me. “Jesus, man. What’s with you?”
Inhale.
I count breaths. One . . . seventeen . . . inhale, exhale. Their words are muffled by the pounding in my head, and I try to make out what they’re saying. Luc absently reaches over and eats a fry from the bag, leaving three.
Exhale.
The spinning slows to a stop, the marble drops into a slot, and the numbers fall into place.
Three. I shake my head and look up at Luc and Amy. Tanya’s moved as far from me as possible, sitting at the edge of the booth. Thank God. She moves to pick up another fry and I grab her hand. “Leave the three,” I say, and almost feel guilty looking at her untouched burger. Those fries were probably two thirds of her caloric intake for the day.
Luc laughs. Uncomfortable. I’ve embarrassed him again. I know that he sometimes wishes I was different—like him. “C’mon, man. You’ve done one too many wind sprints today.” He turns to Tanya and Amy. “He’s always like this before games.” He smiles. “Superstitious,” he mouths.
They both nod enthusiastically. That explains it. Explains it all.
“I’m tired,” I say. “Real tired.”
Fuck.
Luc motions for all of us to stand up, and I peel myself from the booth, leaving an embarrassing wet mark on the vinyl cover. Most of the team is gone. Grundy, Diaz, and Keller are the last ones hanging around, flick-punting grilled onions over the heads of some girls in the booth in front of them.
My body smells sour; I just want to shower and wash it all away. I sometimes wonder: If I scrub hard enough, will I slip down the drain?
What if . . .
Stop. It.
7:03
Seven-oh-three. Seven plus three is ten. Seven minus three is four.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Yeah. I know. Okayokayokay.”
And I realize I’m speaking out loud because Tanya, Amy, and Luc exchange one of those oh-my-god-he’s-got-a-boner-and-is-wearing-sweatpants glances. We pile into the car and drive by Hartman’s—the windows dark except for the neon glow of the closed sign.
“Sorry, man,” Luc says. “I’d have sworn they were open till seven thirty.”
The spiders are going mad in my brain, but I can still think clear enough to know Dad’s gonna shit when he finds out I didn’t pick up the meat and spent his cash on In-N-Out. Things have been better since he was promoted to driver at UPS, but with Mom out of work and on heavy meds, we still don’t have much to spare. Shit, I don’t even have a letterman’s jacket.
“A hard-on is no excuse to flake out on your family responsibilities.”
“What are you talking about, guevón?” Luc says.
Tanya and Amy laugh a nervous laugh. I force one too, but it sounds real. Easy. “Just trying to imagine the conversation I’m going to have with my dad.”
“About a hard-on?” Luc shakes his head. “Those are things you should keep to yourself, man.” The car fills with laughter, erasing my ultraweirdness.
I push the thoughts back in where they can’t be heard. Shut up. Just. Shu
t. Up.
Luc turns on Mario Bauzá, the trill of the trombone breaking through the quick beat of the percussion, making sense of the chaos. Luc lowers the volume; I see the thirteen little green bars and lean my head against the car seat, letting the music fill up the spaces between the webs.
We drop Tanya off first, then Amy. “Be right back.” Luc winks, walking her to the door. He comes back with chapped make-out lips, smelling like perfume. After re-
adjusting, he slides into the Dart and winds his way up the street to my house. We don’t talk. Luc lets the car idle in front of the house, our breath and the heater fogging the windows.
“Guevón,” he finally says. “We’re cool, okay? You just need to fucking normal out.”
I nod, tapping my fingers on his dashboard, needing a release. “Yeah. I think I’m freaked out about the game and stuff, you know—”
He laughs. “Ah, shit. Not too normal. Then you’d be like all the other white boys at the school. But fuck, man, you’re sometimes way out there.”
I laugh. I just need to get inside. Talk to Kasey. Everything will be fine.
“See you tomorrow morning,” he says.
“Okay. Tomorrow. See ya.” I stand outside of the house and watch as Luc turns around the cul-de-sac and drives away, his taillights fading in the distance. My damp shirt sticks to my sweaty back and the wind bites with splinter-sharp teeth. I stop for a second and lean over to squeeze my head between my knees, hoping the intense pain will go away; trying to sweep away the spiders and their webs, using the numbers to rein them in.
They’re not supposed to be here anymore.