Compulsion

by Heidi Ayarbe

Stop the itching. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I cradle my head between my knees and knead at the back of my neck, pushing down the spiders.

  One, two, three, four, five, six. Six clocks.

  Six of them.

  No. Five and one.

  I wince but leave them all on the floor, plugging them into the wall.

  Batteries. Fucking batteries. Zinc-carbon, nickel-cadmium, alkaline addiction. Okay. Four AA batteries. Easy. Four batteries. Two clocks. Six. Six. Five and one. Four and two. Four divided by two is two. OK.

  It’s okay. Technically it’s okay.

  Two. OK.

  I rifle through my desk drawer for batteries and set the clocks down in a line on the floor, working them one by one, until all eleven clocks tick in unison.

  Eleven.

  Good.

  Great number.

  It works.

  Gotta. Go. She needs help.

  I look at my phone. Nothing. No beeps. No messages.

  Nothing.

  Maybe we can talk. Just talk. I’ll call Grundy. Or Kalleres. And we’ll talk. She’ll tell me about her day. We’ll wait for dawn together. It’s okay.

  I ring Grundy.

  No service. Out of range? Fuck. Did they go to Yosemite or something?

  “Can you hear me now? Can your hear me now?”

  Dressed. Get dressed.

  But I have to start again. Do it right. I get back into bed and stare at the clocks.

  4:40

  Four forty. Four plus four is eight. Four minus four is zero.

  The second hands look like they’re all stuck in time. The digital clocks blink, blink, and I concentrate so hard that now it looks like every line glows red or green.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  I can’t see the fucking time.

  I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the spinning. My

  mind feels like a mad merry-go-round whirring and spiraling, chipped paint on metal, hot to the touch, cheeks jiggling, stinging slaps of hair in the eyes, red mouths wide, laughing, laughing, a cyclone of images that shudder to a stop.

  But the spinning doesn’t stop even when the merry-go-round does.

  Everything spins.

  Except the North Pole.

  Zero miles per hour there.

  No spinning. No moving. Nothing to throw me off. No time.

  Just night.

  Just day.

  The North Pole.

  The screen on my cell is blank.

  One Hundred Thirty-One World Erased

  Sunday, 4:47 a.m.

  Four forty-seven. Four plus four is eight plus seven is fifteen minus four is eleven. OK.

  One, two, three, four, five. Elbow, elbow, knee, knee.

  I make it to the top of the staircase but have to stop before I retch all over Mom’s carpet, before everything goes black.

  Call Luc.

  I dial him on his cell and am kicked to voice mail. “Hey. I’m not here.” Beep.

  My battery bar is down to two blinking notches. I need to save it . . . just in case.

  I get to the hall phone and lean against the wall, whispering in the receiver. Pick up. Pick up. Fucking pick up the phone.

  “Hallo?” a sleepy voice answers. Luc’s mom.

  I hang up and try to call his cell, but the phone goes nah-nee-nah. “We’re sorry, but this call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.”

  Fuck.

  Dad had all long-distance and cell phone calls blocked from our house phone unless we punch in a special code because two summers ago Kasey ran up a four hundred–plus–dollar phone bill calling Marcy at summer camp.

  I cradle the phone in my hand until I hear the annoying beeps, counting them until I get to fifty-three, then replace the phone in its cradle. I feel better.

  Fifty-three.

  I crawl to Dad and Mom’s bedroom door and lift up my hand to knock. I need to get help. Kasey needs me.

  Got your back.

  Three words. OK.

  “Take care of Kasey.”

  My stomach churns. I move my ear to the door. Silence. My stomach lurches just thinking about going into that tomblike room.

  It’s okay.

  It’s okay. Kasey can wait. Drama queen of the freshman class can totally wait. I’m sure it’s nothing. She probably got in a fight with Marcy.

  I block out the other thoughts that work their way through the sticky webs.

  I put the phone back on the hook. Kase would find a way to call if she needed something. She’d borrow somebody’s phone. She’d really call if she needed me.

  But when I search through my message box—now blank—the only thing I can do is curl up into a ball and wait for dawn.

  Fifty-three.

  I like the way the number forms in my brain and settles, clearing away room for thought.

  It’s okay.

  I can wait.

  5:53

  The curtain of darkness has receded. I open my left eye, count to three, and watch as the blurry numbers take form. Then I open my right eye.

  Five fifty-three. Five plus five is ten plus three is thirteen. OK. Five minus three is two plus five is seven. OK. Five times three is fifteen divided by five is three. OK.

  Five fifty-three and fifty-five.

  I slip my left foot, as if I were taking it out from under the covers, and count. One, two, three.

  Fifty-six, fifty-seven—

  Right foot. One, two, three.

  Fifty-eight, fifty-nine.

  Up.

  The hallway is dark—but that’s because of the blinds.

  I have to be sure there’s enough light so that the streetlights don’t turn on. So I wait. I can’t afford to mess this up.

  Kase is counting on me.

  I stare at my phone.

  Nothing.

  It’s okay. She’s fine. I’ll be right there.

  What do I need to do? To check?

  The clocks. The time.

  Okay. It’s okay. I’m there.

  When it’s light enough outside, I go to my room.

  I inch toward my bedroom door, grabbing the knob with both hands, opening it until I can see all the clocks lined up.

  The watch on my wrist is set in time to the clocks.

  And I don’t know what to do, which way to go. I concentrate so hard on the numbers, they get blurry. My vision is splotchy.

  Turn away. Turn away.

  I look back at the clocks that I know are working. What I don’t know doesn’t count.

  6:07

  Six-oh-seven. Six plus seven is thirteen. OK. Seven times six is forty-two minus six is thirty-six minus seven is twenty-nine. OK.

  The first light of day is already erasing the blackboard night.

  I pull on my jeans. Then my left sock, right sock, left shoe, right shoe. My shirt slips over both arms at the same time, perched on top of my head, and I tug it over my face, the soft fabric easing down and settling on my shoulders.

  Skip steps eight and four.

  At the bottom of the staircase I wait. I can’t afford to forget anything.

  I have to get this right.

  I go over the clocks, time, dressing, tooth brushing in my head. Everything is right. No shower. But that’s okay. Everything’s ready for a shower.

  What am I forgetting?

  The shrill ring of the phone hurtles me forward—breaks the trance.

  Kasey.

  Feet pound down the hallway, down the stairs. Dad yanks the Carson Soccer sweatshirt over his head, almost plowing me over. “Move,” he says. He pushes his glasses up on his nose. “We’ve gotta go.”

  “I’m going. I’m going,” I say, my tongue burning with each word. Everything aches—even my teeth.

  “What the hell are you doing up?” He pushes past me, and I tap the grandfather clock three times. I manage to open the door with two hands and jump in the passenger side of the car before Dad takes off.

  There’s no more darkness—only light. Bright November light.r />
  Dad throws the car into reverse and peels out of the driveway, then stops in the middle of the road, the car idling, spewing out billows of black smoke, probably responsible for sixty percent of gas emissions in the state of Nevada.

  Dad leans his head on the steering wheel. “Kasey never showed up at Marcy’s last night.” Dad takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Our car blocks the street, and the newspaper delivery van has to veer around us. “Where is Kasey?”

  Everything in my mind goes blank, like somebody took a dust mop to the webs and cleared them out, sweeping away the spiders, numbers, leaving me with the image of Kasey alone.

  Alone.

  And my entire world gets erased.

  One Hundred Thirty-One Sorry

  Sunday, 6:09 a.m.

  Six-oh-nine. Six times nine is fifty-four minus six is forty-eight . . .

  “Just listen to me and what I’m saying.”

  So rushed. Always in a hurry. I just need to work out—

  “Do you know where your sister is?” Dad’s breath smells like rancid bacon fat.

  Focus . . . forty-eight plus nine is fifty-seven. Fuck.

  “Jacob!”

  I look at Dad. “She was at Mario’s—at a party.” I try to put the words together so they’ll make sense, my fingers tapping out a prime pattern on the dash. Two taps, three taps, five taps, seven taps, eleven taps . . .

  “Knock it off,” Dad says, pushing my hands off the dash. “How do you know? Did she call you?”

  I sit on my hands and swallow the orange-rind taste that covers the back of my tongue. I push the words out. “I. Was. There.” Kaseykaseykaseykaseykasey. I stare at the numbers on my watch and can’t see them. Blinkblinkblink.

  6:11

  Six eleven. Six plus one is seven plus one is eight minus one is seven. OK. Six minus one is five divided by one is five. OK.

  “You were there? And you left her? She’s fourteen, for chrissakes, Jacob.”

  “See. It was supposed to stop. After the win yesterday. They were supposed to go away.” He’s got to know that. Tears burn my eyes and nose. Spiders crawl up and down, sticky-webbed legs jabbing at my spine.

  It was supposed to end. I was supposed to be normal.

  He looks at me like he did the day I got stuck in the closet—a curtain of disappointment dusts his features like his real face is breaking through the mask he always wears.

  Images and sounds rip through my head, all ending with Kasey screaming for help and me stuck.

  Always stuck.

  A whole life of numbers, spiders, and lying with no end.

  I was supposed to be normal after yesterday’s win.

  Dad swerves in and out of traffic, just missing a brown Oldsmobile full of gray, wrinkly people. He barrels up Timberline, half-tread tires spinning on the frosted asphalt as we fishtail up the road, following it until we get to Mario’s neighborhood strewn with beer bottles and the vestiges of a five-kegger, two-tub jungle juicer. “Kasey!” I think I’m screaming her name when I tumble out the car door, running up the slippery walk. “Kasey!

  “KaseyKaseyKaseyKaseyKaseKaseKaseK-K-K-K!” I pound on Mario’s door, repeating her name until I lose count and have to start again.

  “Stop it.” Dad grabs my shoulders. “Look at me.”

  “Shhhhhh. Just shhhhhhh.” I’m losing count again. “Kaseykaseykaseykaseykasey.” A whisper now.

  The pain on my cheek is jolting, and the coppery taste of blood fills my mouth. My jaw aches, and I stare at Dad.

  “Get your shit together, Jacob. We have to find Kasey.”

  I dial Luc’s number. No answer.

  Mario opens the door in his jeans, no T-shirt. “Well hello, M&M. Heard you got with Tanya last night. There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s, huh?” He wipes the sleep from eyes that get real big when he sees Dad right behind me.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Dad asks.

  Mario looks from my dad to me.

  “Is Kasey here?” I look behind his shoulder. “Can you check”—I lower my voice—“the closets?”

  “Yeah, man. I’ll check. Just a sec.” He shuts the door and clicks the deadbolt.

  There was no coverage.

  Kase’s battery died.

  I couldn’t wake them up.

  I had to start the day right.

  The lamp sputtered.

  Everything makes more sense in my brain, but when I start to say it, I know it’s wrong. But how can they understand that this is my fault because of every other day I fucked up? And it wasn’t supposed to be like this anymore.

  Mario comes back out. “She’s not here, man. Sorry,” he says.

  Dad pushes past Mario and starts hollering Kasey’s name.

  “Get your old man out of my house,” Mario says. He’s probably shitting himself that Dad will find his little herb garden. Assmunch.

  “Dad?” I say. He doesn’t hear me. Nobody does. I don’t know if I’m talking or thinking or what the fuck is going on.

  Kasey’s not here.

  Kaseykaseykaseykaseykasey

  Dad’s cell trills. He listens and loses all color from his face like somebody’s erasing him. All I want to do is draw his face back on. Let them erase me. This time I know enough to keep my fucking mouth shut.

  My fingers begin to itch, scraping across my scalp, trying to stop the fog and the gray and the numbers. I squat and count the bright drops of blood on the ground, grateful for the throbbing ache in my jaw and nose. Dad’s talking. But his words don’t make any sense; they’re the sound that matches the static, gray in my head.

  A car drives up: Luc. He rushes up the porch. “Where’s Kasey? What’s going on? Jesus, I just woke up and had all these missed calls. Why the fuck didn’t you call one of the guys?”

  Phrases ricochet off the inside of my skull, bouncing into the trap of silky webs, getting lost into the world of nothingness. I lose the time. I lose the numbers. The only thing I do is repeat her name, willing her to appear.

  “At the hospital,” Dad says to Luc. The words slice through the gray.

  I see her hair—soft brown curls leaning against Dad’s shoulder. Her arm twisted, swollen. Blue-black.

  I don’t know if I’m the one who’s screaming or somebody else.

  “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

  One word.

  Not OK.

  One Hundred Thirty-Nine Exposed

  Sunday, 6:34 a.m.

  Six thirty-four. My mind races to work out the numbers.

  Dad balls up my sweatshirt front with heavy, callused hands, dry fingertips dusted with fine wood powder. He shakes so hard my teeth clack together. “Not you too. Not you too.”

  This is not a warning or a plea. It’s a statement.

  Not me too.

  I grasp onto his shoulders to keep from falling back into the evergreen bushes. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

  Sorry. S-O-R-R-Y. Five letters. OK.

  Luc places his hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Mr. Martin. Please. Stop.”

  Dad comes back to himself—the anger lifts, and it’s just Dad looking at me like he looks at Mom—through me, like the person he thought I was is gone, replaced by whatever it is I have—whatever I am.

  But I’ve always been here. Right. Here.

  He’s just never chosen to see me. His balled fists release my sweatshirt. I stumble back, and he pulls me up, steadying me, stepping back.

  He opens his mouth, then shuts it, looking like a guppy gasping for air when it plops out of a tank. Luc shoves his hands into his pockets and stares at the ground, scuffing his shoes across the frosted sidewalk.

  Please. Stop.

  How many times did he say that to his dad?

  How many times should I have said that to Luc’s dad?

  Dad clears his throat. “Kasey is at the hospital. So take a breath and get in the car. You’ve got to get control of this.”

  What is this? Me?

  “I’m right behind you two.” Luc opens my door. “
C’mon, Jake. C’mon,” he urges.

  6:41

  Six forty-one. Six plus four is ten plus one is eleven.

  “Okay.” I slump into the car. Luc and I lock eyes through the dew-covered glass. “Okay,” I say.

  * * *

  Each time the doors open, they make this weird whirring sound. People shuffle in and out, quiet except for the whir.

  Some carry flowers with them wrapped in soft-colored tissue paper, Crayola-colored stuffed animals, heart-shaped Mylar balloons, cigars wrapped in pink or blue ribbons. Lots of dyed carnations—ripples of petals on thick green stems. Waves. What I imagine ocean waves must look like, each one lapping over the next in a blur of colors.

  I can’t count the waves.

  News travels fast. The waiting room soon crowds with all of Kasey’s friends—vodka oozing from everyone’s pores. We’ll probably get drunk off the fumes.

  I look down, readjusting the icepack on my nose and jaw.

  A nurse who uses peach-smelling body spritz comes into the room, smothering the sour smell of urine. Some guys from the team walk in and smell up the place as if their pores are Everclear jungle-juice air fresheners. When Kalleres and Grundy walk in, freshly showered with wet hair, reeking tangy, like guilt, I lunge at them, slamming Kalleres against the wall, my fist balled. “You were supposed— Why didn’t you call?”

  I choke out the words and Luc peels me off Kalleres. “Knock it off, guevón.”

  “Fuck, man,” Grundy says. “We’re the ones who brought her here. She’s a lightweight.”

  Kalleres straightens his T-shirt. “She was waiting for you to come back for her.”

  “Christ, we didn’t know she’d get so sick.”

  “We were just hanging out.”

  It’s like watching Tweedledee and Tweedledum, a Ping-Pong match of assholes. But I’m the one to blame.

  I left Kasey.

  “I messed up,” I say. “It’s all my fault.”

  Luc loosens his grasp on my sweatshirt. “Guevón, it’s not always about you. Right now, it’s about Kasey.”

  The words hang in the air.

  It’s about Kasey.

  It’s about the team.

  It’s not about me.

  What if . . . ?

  I shrug Luc off and sit next to Dad. Luc sits next to me. “Just breathe, for fuck’s sake,” he says.