CHAPTER ONE
CONNECTICUT, AGE EIGHT
“Charles Corbin?”
I glanced up quickly from my book to see the lady stepping into the boring waiting room, a clipboard in her hand, and then I looked at Mom. She was already starting to stand from the chair beside mine as she nodded reassuringly.
“That’s you, Charlie. Come on.”
My tummy felt worse now than it had when she picked me up early from school. She had said that it was butterflies from being nervous, but butterflies fluttered and danced through the sky like ballerinas. The feeling in my tummy didn’t remind me of dancing at all. This feeling hurt. It felt angry and reminded me of the wasps that had made a home under the porch roof last summer.
My legs felt heavy, like they were full of rocks, as I slid from my seat, reaching down to the floor to grab my backpack and slide my book back inside. I knew why we were here. I knew it had to do with the things Mom and Dad whispered about at night.
“We have to do something about him, Sue. We can’t just … let him be like this.”
“I know.”
“They’re tormenting him.”
“I know, Paul. All right? I know.”
They thought something was wrong with me; everyone did. I could tell by the way my teachers looked at me, like I was gonna break at any second. I could tell by the way the other kids in school wouldn’t look at me at all—unless they were picking on me. But I didn’t really care about what they thought as much as I cared about Mom and Dad, and I’d thought everything was fine until the principal called and their whispers began.
Now, I knew something was wrong. My brain was messed up, just like the other kids in school said. I was a freak . And now, Mom had brought me to this stupid doctor to fix it.
Together, we walked across the waiting room to where that lady with the clipboard stood, Mom’s hand on my shoulder and my sneakers scuff-scuff-scuffing against the gray carpet. We tried to walk past her into the hallway, but the lady stopped us.
“The doctor would like to first speak to Charles alone, if that’s all right, Mrs. Corbin.”
Mom’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and she didn’t let go. “Alone? Why alone?”
“It’s just so we can get an accurate evaluation of the child’s condition without the possibility of—”
“Of what? What do you think my presence is going to do?” Mom’s voice sounded angrier than before. “Other than to make him feel a little more secure in an environment he’s already nervous about.”
The lady swallowed and hugged her clipboard to her chest. “If you aren’t comfortable—”
“With my son being forced to speak, alone, to a bunch of strangers? No, I’m not comfortable with that.”
The lady puckered her lips like one of my teachers always did whenever she ate one of her green apples. Then, she nodded her head only once. “Fine. Well, if you’ll just follow me …”
***
They asked me lots of questions—first that lady and then an old man who looked a lot like my grandpa, except with a mustache.
They asked lots of questions but didn’t say much back.
Things like, “What makes you feel afraid?” And, “Is it only at home, or do you also feel scared at school and other places?” And, “What do you mean when you say you get feelings ?” And, “What happens when you get those feelings , Charlie? Do you see people or hear voices? Or do you just … feel ?”
They asked me questions like they didn’t believe me about anything, like my teachers and the other kids in school. And they asked those questions for a long time until I couldn’t sit still, and I didn’t know the right answers, and I wanted to cry. That was when Mom told them it was enough, that I’d had enough … and she was right.
I had had enough, and I wanted to go home, where my big brother, Luke, might play with me—if his dumb friend Ritchie wasn’t around.
Then, the old man said some things to Mom while I looked at my new sneakers.
“Mrs. Corbin, I would strongly urge you to consider antianxiety medication and maybe even antipsychotics if you want your son to have any chance of reaching his full potential, mentally and socially.”
“Wait a minute.” Mom held up a hand like she was telling the doctor to stop right there. “I understand the anxiety, although I’m not sure I want to immediately jump to medication before trying other coping mechanisms. But are you saying you believe that my son is psychotic?”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. But he is clearly having delusions—”
“Delusions? No offense, Doctor, but I don’t think having a bad feeling about a Category 3 hurricane makes him delusional .”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Corbin, your son said he had a feeling that the hurricane would do something bad to your home, did he not? Which would imply that he was imagining—”
“He’s an eight-year-old boy!” Mom shouted, making me jump. She sounded even angrier now, all squealy, like the way she had that time Luke forgot to take out the garbage three days in a row. “He was terrified of what was going to happen, and his fear allowed for his imagination to go wild, and that, in turn, triggered his anxiety. Which, I’ll remind you, is why I thought we were here. Not to discuss whether or not he’s psychotic .”
I slumped deeper into my seat as I thought about the hurricane. The one that had taken our house away.
The bad feeling in my tummy had started when Dad turned on the weather channel one day in the summer when I was seven. The man on TV said we were in for a bad hurricane season, and that word— hurricane —wouldn’t stop repeating over and over and over again in my head. It made the little hairs on my arms stand up, and it made me scared. When I asked about it, Dad told me not to worry and that we would be just fine. But I didn’t believe him, not one bit, because that feeling in my tummy sort of told me not to. That feeling made me think that something really, really, really bad was going to happen.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about it for months , and that was a really, really long time. I just kept remembering what that guy on the TV had said—that we were in for a bad hurricane season—and I kept on feeling like I needed to do something to make Luke and Mom and Dad listen because what if that bad feeling was right?
So, I talked about it all the time until I cried and yelled and slammed my bedroom door. Finally, that guy on the weather channel talked about the hurricane. He said it was coming and that it would be bad, and Mom and Dad looked at each other, their eyes big and afraid. Then, they packed our bags and took us to Pennsylvania to stay with our aunt.
The hurricane had taken our house, but the hurricane hadn’t taken us. We were okay. I had done good, telling my family about my bad feeling, but the old man doctor looked like I had been wrong. He looked at me the way my teachers did. The way Ritchie and the other kids at school did.
Like I was crazy .
“I’m only trying to help, Mrs. Corbin,” he said, sounding tired. “I only want what’s best for your son.”
Mom didn’t say anything right away, and I looked up from my sneakers to see her face. Oh yeah, she was mad all right. I could tell by the way her cheeks were splotched red and her lips were all pruney, kinda like she had eaten too many sour candies. Her eyes went from the doctor to the lady with the clipboard, and her mouth opened like she was about to say something. But before she said a word, she looked at me, and the mad look went away.
Then, she smiled, even though she also seemed kinda sad. About what, I wasn’t sure, but I did know those angry wasps in my tummy settled down a little bit.
“You know what?” she said, keeping her dark brown eyes on mine for a moment before looking back at the doctor and continuing, “I don’t think you know what’s best for my son. I don’t think any of you—not the teachers, not this office, not any of you—know what’s best for my son at all. Now”—she hurried to stand, snatched her purse from the chair beside her, and reached out to take my hand—“we are leaving, and you can take your antipsychotics and shove them up your ass.”
***
“She did not say ass,” Luke groaned, rolling his eyes away from the TV long enough to glare at me.
“Oh, yes, she did,” I argued before grinning again.
Mom hardly ever cursed. She always yelled at Dad whenever he cursed around Luke and me and told him he was being a bad influence. So, hearing her curse at that doctor was pretty much the coolest thing I thought she’d ever done in her life.
“So, what’s the plan now, Sue? I thought you were going to take him down to that doctor the school recommended, get him looked at, and do what you had to do to get this sorted out.”
Sorted out . Dad said things like that about the leak in the bathroom and that one time the lights wouldn’t turn on. Sorted out meant something was a problem . I was a problem.
The hardened glare in Luke’s eyes disappeared as he clamped his lips shut at the sound of Dad’s voice in the kitchen. Now, he just looked sad.
Sad for me.
“They wanted to put him on antipsychotics,” Mom said.
“Yeah, and?”
Mom made a noise like she couldn’t believe Dad would say something like that. “Are you serious? You think he’s psychotic ?”
“Sue, I’m not saying—”
“What exactly would you have me do, Paul? Huh? You want me to take him back to that place and let them treat him like he’s some … some lab rat and pump him full of pills? You want them to treat him like a freak? Jesus Christ. He’s our son , Paul. You didn’t hear the things they were saying. You didn’t see the way they looked at him. You didn’t—” Her voice broke, and I knew she was crying.
I didn’t like it when Mom cried.
I didn’t like that I had made her cry.
“Sweetheart,” Dad said quietly, and a chair was pulled out from the table.
“He’s not crazy, Paul.” She sniffled.
“I never said he was. I just …” He groaned loudly. “I want him to have a good life. I want him to be happy. I don’t want him to be alone . And that school … you know they’re going to ruin him if he doesn’t—if we don’t—”
“So … he won’t go back.”
Luke’s eyes got really big then. What? he asked silently, his lips moving.
But I didn’t know what to say. My heart was beating so hard, so fast.
“I’ll keep him home,” Mom said. “I’ll teach him myself.”
Dad didn’t say anything right away. I wondered if he was angry. I wondered if he was going to yell at Mom.
But then, “What about Luke?”
“He’s fine in school. He gets decent grades, and he has some good friends,” she replied, sounding sure and determined. “But if we’re going to give Charlie the best chance of making it in this world, I think the best thing is to get him the hell out of there. I’ll find some books on helping him to manage his anxiety. If that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll find a better doctor, one who doesn’t immediately jump to medication. But for now, we’ll take him out of school.”
“Okay,” Dad said without a moment of hesitation. “He won’t go back to school.”
Luke shook his head, one corner of his mouth curling into a smirk as he whispered, “You’re such a lucky butthead.”
***
The next day, Luke went to school, but I didn’t. Instead, Mom said we had to run a few errands and told me to get dressed. Then, we got into the car, and we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. That was where she asked if I’d heard what she and Dad talked about, and since I never liked to lie, I told her I had.
“So, you know why you didn’t go to school today?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on my hash browns and hot cakes.
“Are you okay with that? Because, Charlie, if you would rather go back to school, then that’s okay. We’ll figure it out. But if you want to—”
“I hate that school,” I admitted.
But she knew that already. She had to. Hadn’t I cried enough times before getting on the bus? Hadn’t I begged her enough to keep me home and tell my teacher I was sick?
Mom took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Okay, so after we eat, we’re going to the teacher supply store, and there, we’ll find some workbooks, and … we’ll figure this out, Charlie. Okay? You and me, we’ll figure this out together.”
I thought about what Luke had said as I finished my breakfast and then went on a trip to the store. I thought about how he’d called me a lucky butthead as I picked out a math workbook, some cool stickers, and a book about the solar system. I was lucky. I was lucky to not be in school, where Ritchie would corner me in the cafeteria and squeeze my juice box onto the floor or eat my sandwich before I got the chance. I was lucky to not hear the other kids laugh at me when I stuttered after the teacher called on me to answer a question—I always knew the answers, but I hated saying them out loud. I was lucky to be with Mom, to go home and watch TV instead of play alone during recess.
I was the luckiest kid alive.
But then Luke came home, and I was happy, until Ritchie followed him inside. It wasn’t weird or anything—he lived just two doors down with his younger brother, Tommy, and their mom—but I hated him. I hated Ritchie Wheeler more than I hated school, and I hated school a lot.
“Hey, Ritchie!” Mom said, smiling from the couch. “I bet you’re still so happy we moved into this house, huh?”
Ritchie’s eyes landed on me first before looking at Mom. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
“It’s nice you guys live so close together now.” She reached out to tug at Luke’s arm. “Right, Luke?”
Luke rolled his eyes and sighed. He used to like when Mom talked to him after school, but now, he just acted like she annoyed him. “Yeah, sure, Mom. Can we have something to eat?”
She nudged her head in the direction of the kitchen. “You know where the food is.”
“Cool.”
My big brother looked at his best friend and grinned, both of them ignoring me entirely as they ran toward the kitchen, and I started to feel lucky again.
But then Mom went to the basement to do some laundry, and Luke announced that he had to take a piss and ran into the bathroom. That was when Ritchie wandered into the living room from the kitchen, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his hand. He walked slowly toward me, taking a bite and chewing. Those wasps woke up in my belly again, and I shifted on the couch, moving farther away until there was nowhere else to go.
“I was worried about you today, Charlie boy,” Ritchie said, taking another bite. “I thought maybe you got sick.”
I swallowed and shook my head. “N-no, I’m o-okay.”
“Yeah.” He nodded and sat beside me, his thigh touching mine. “Luke said you weren’t gonna come back. He said your mommy thinks you’re too crazy to leave the house now.”
“I-I’m not crazy,” I muttered weakly.
“Maybe you’re just running away from me,” he said, like he was thinking out loud as he finished his sandwich. A glop of jelly was left on his fingers and he studied the red blob as he continued, “But you can’t run away from me, Charlie boy. I know where you live.”
Then, his hand snapped toward me, and those sticky, cold fingers dragged their way down my cheek, leaving the jelly behind on my skin. Tears burned at the back of my eyes, my bottom lip quivered, and I knew I would cry. I always cried, and Ritchie loved it.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?” He wiped his fingers the rest of the way on my shirt. “Better go wipe your face off, you little baby. Don’t let your mommy see the mess you made.”
Then, as he went back to the kitchen and I felt the first of my tears begin to slide down my cheeks, I started to wonder if I could ever truly be lucky at all.