The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (2 page)

Robyn folded her hands neatly in her lap. They jutted out of a forest green school blazer. The uniform jacket was too small and the school kilt too short. This was more about neglect than an effort to look cool. Adam would swear to it. Except for shiny perfect lips, her brilliant face shone without a trace of makeup, but bright blue nail polish gleamed on every fingernail. Ten little robin’s eggs.
Robyn’s
eggs. He knew with impenetrable certainty that this was the reason she had chosen that color. He
got
it. It was yet another reason, in the head-spinningly fast accumulation of reasons, why they should be together, forever.

Chuck was in serious overdrive in his signature laid-back kind of way. He was going around the room again. There was muttering.

Adam had missed something.

“Trust me, people, studies show that this can be very freeing. Try it on for size. Just pick a character. It’s like you can be more true to you, somehow, if you’re someone else.”

Huh?

Chuck looked like he didn’t care one way or the other. But Adam knew better. He’d already been going to one-on-one
therapy for almost a year before Chuck suggested that it was time to join the group. Dr. Charles Mutinda cared plenty.

Chuck had asked everyone to pick a nom de guerre, as he called it, for this and all future sessions. They would leave their doubt-ridden, shell-shocked and agonizing selves at the door and become instead all-powerful beings. Adam got excited despite himself.
He
would cease to be, becoming the Venerable Lord Kroak or Grimgor Ironhide! Yes! Why not?

But by the third pick a clear trend was forming: except for Elizabeth Mendoza, who claimed a reality TV star named Snooki, the rest of them called in comic superheroes. In fact, the group was loosely forming into either DC’s Justice League or Marvel’s Avengers, with just a hint of X-Men. Connie Brenner chose Wonder Woman, lining up in the Justice League camp, while Peter Kolchak called in Wolverine. Kyle Gallagher said he wanted to be Iron Man, while Tyrone Cappell said he’d like to be Green Lantern if that was all right with everyone.

“Naw you don’t, Cappell!” snorted the newly christened Wolverine. “Haven’t you heard? Green Lantern’s a fag—I mean, gay.”

Green Lantern seemed to ponder this for a moment and then stammered, “Uh, y-yeah, so Green Lantern would in fact be especially perfect.”

“Oh. Right, yeah. Cool. Whatever,” said Wolverine.

Jacob Rubenstein, who sat on the other side of Robyn, chose Captain America and couldn’t stop smiling. Chuck interjected to tell everyone that Nicolas Redmond, the
massive brooding fellow sitting not so much in the semicircle as behind it, had chosen the Mighty Thor. “Right, Nick?”

The storm cloud growled his assent.

Adam smiled at the Viking like an idiot. He couldn’t help it. “Hey, man, Thor’s the best!” The newly anointed Viking glared at him. Didn’t matter. Adam loved the anguished Thor comics. He had a million copies perfectly stacked in order of issue in his closet. Nicolas Redmond was a perfect Thor.

Then it was
her
turn.

“Robyn,” she whispered. “If you don’t mind, I choose Robin. Not my name but like the … well, you know.” Each consonant and vowel shimmered with pain.

And even though he had never noticed girls before, not at all—okay a bit and sort of, but not
really
—Adam knew he had to save her, must save her, or die trying. He loved her deeply, wildly and more intensely than he would have believed possible even minutes ago. Robyn,
his
Robyn, needed someone larger than life—a victor, a knight—and
he
would be it. For her, Adam would be and
could
be normal and fearless. He
so
wanted to be fearless. He could do it. He would be
her
superhero.

That’s it!

They were all looking at him now, including Thor and Robyn. Her smile sweetened, Adam was sure of that too. He felt himself grow. It all made perfect sense. The universe was unfolding exactly as it should.

“Batman,” he said in a strong, clear voice. Adam Spencer Ross would be her Batman.

“So, my man, did you do your homework?”

Adam and Chuck were about three-quarters of the way through their monthly session when Chuck began threading a fountain pen in and around the fingers of his right hand. The pen-flipping became hypnotic. Did Chuck know that? He had to. Chuck knew everything.

All Adam had to do for his one-on-one homework was the List. But he usually didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t, and he didn’t know why. Chuck also assigned homework in Group. Most of it was from an OCD handbook that they’d had to buy before Group started. Adam didn’t do that either. It was crazy. He did
all
his school homework. He was probably the only kid at St. Mary’s to do so. He did it in record time in the school library using their computers. And he did it
perfectly
. But Chuck’s stuff?

Nope.

Until today.

Adam had
goals
now.

“Yes, sir. Yeah, I did.”

Chuck raised his left eyebrow and then his right. He hated being called
sir
.

“Hey, there’s a first time for everything, right?” offered Adam.

Chuck’s eyebrows were also hypnotic. He could raise them independently of each other, which is a superior trick when you think about it. When Chuck lifted his right one it meant he was sort of pissed or frustrated, like he was with Wolverine that last Group. The left one raised meant he was surprised or questioning, like he was now.

Adam was supposed to keep a weekly Tens List, a State of the Union–type thing, and bring it in for review. Chuck had assigned it about four months ago, and Adam had finally done his first one today, on the way over. But the thing was, at least he’d done it. And he would do one
every single week
from now on
and
bring them all in. If doing psycho homework would put him on the fast track to being fixed, then move over, Adam was boarding that bus. Robyn was waiting.

“Can we review it together?” asked Chuck.

“No! Uh, I mean, no. We … Not this time, if that’s okay. Okay?” Adam’s heart was racing. It went to the starting block as soon as Chuck said the word
review
. Of course the therapist would want to “review” the List, discuss it, pick it apart. Hell, it freaked him out that Chuck was even going to
read
it.

Chuck slid his glasses farther down his nose and peered over the rims. The glasses were massive wire-rimmed aviators from the 1980s. The man was a walking time capsule.

Adam sighed, relenting, and handed Chuck a piece of paper that had been folded over so many times it looked like a runner-up in a demented origami contest. The therapist began the process of unfolding the paper and reading it while Adam paced inside himself. He knew the List by heart. He’d rewritten it several times in his head before committing pencil to paper. It was not perfect.

Chuck didn’t flinch while he read, but Adam’s heart remained in the starting block waiting for the pistol to go off, waiting for signs of disgust.

On your marks!

Without looking up, Chuck asked Adam whether he’d been working on his breathing exercises. Adam said he had.

Get set!

“Really?” Left eyebrow raised. “Then you had better do one now, because I can hear you escalating from across the room.”

Go!

And off his heart went. Chuck
knew
! He had to know. He knew what a liar Adam was, and would condemn him accordingly because he deserved to be—

“Adam?” Chuck spoke so softly, Adam wasn’t sure that he’d heard his name.

“Yes, sir?”

“Everybody lies, son. Everybody.”

Chuck had gotten into his head and pulled that one out. Adam’s heart slowed to a jog. He nodded.

“And don’t call me sir,” he said before returning to the List. “I’ll knock that out of you if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Big step, Adam. Good job!” Chuck refolded the note. “We won’t review. We won’t ever delve into a List if you’re not ready. So take that pressure off yourself, okay? Just do them.”

“Yeah, sure.” Adam nodded and looked up at the clock. He would’ve agreed to a circumcision just to get himself out of that beige-on-beige office. It was over fifty minutes.
Time to go
.

“Just one point, though—okay? One small check-in?”

Adam nodded. Fifty-three minutes.
On your mark!
“Yes, sir.”

“Your mother?”

Get set!

“Yeah, she got weird.”

The left eyebrow rose.

“Er, she got weird
er
a couple of days ago.” Adam looked away from Chuck. “She was ripping up a letter or an envelope or something when I got home from school. It was like she was hyperventilating. We both pretended that I didn’t see. She didn’t talk for the rest of the night.”

Chuck wrote stuff down. Fifty-five minutes. They were over their time. There was probably some poor schmuck dousing himself with hand sanitizer in the waiting room. “It’s usually something to do with the divorce, money, my dad … what the hell, pick one, eh? No biggie, right?”

“Right.” Chuck closed the file folder and nodded. “Good. I think the medication level is working for us. I’m still surprised the Anafranil is symptom free, but given all the trouble we were having with the newer class of drugs, I’m relieved. Sometimes old school is best school, right?”

Adam nodded as if he were paying attention.

“Be precise in the List, okay? It’s critical now that you’re responsible for your own dosage. But it’s all good. So over the next month: breathing, the List, exercise, and you’re on your way.”

On his way. It was all worth it if he was
on his way
.

To what?

To being fixed. To being
normal
.

Adam got up, distracted by the possibilities, and absently shook his therapist’s hand. “Thank you.” He was on his way to normal. He was on his way to Robyn.
Robyn
.
Her lips turned up at the ends. Those pillowy, perfect, shiny lips. From now on, Adam was going to run home every week, or at least walk briskly. No more buses or cabs, anywhere anytime. Between the exercise, doing all the assignments, the breathing thing, going to Group and one-on-one, hell, he’d be cured by the end of the month.

“And, Adam?” Chuck called just as he reached for the door. “I’m sure you’re right about the letter—that it’s nothing—but try to keep me up on your mom’s stuff, okay?”

Adam turned the knob.

“It’s important.”

“Yeah, for sure.” Adam exhaled and opened the door. “You got it,” he lied.

Adam thought about Robyn nonstop all week, and every week for three weeks straight. Big love and his OCD made that pretty much inevitable. If he were an artist, he would have drawn her. If he were a writer, he would have written about her. If he were allowed a smartphone, or even a regular PC, he would have scrolled and dug and searched. But he wasn’t so he didn’t and he didn’t so he couldn’t.

Adam had gotten into a bit of a thing last year, scrolling endlessly for hours, counting the blinks of the cursor, images, words, the letter
m
, among other things. It took longer and longer for it to feel “just right.” Therefore, change of meds and no more personal devices. Now he just
thought
. They couldn’t take away his thoughts, though most of the time he wished they could.