Rise of Alpha (The Prodian Journey #1) (4 page)

“How’s Gerry?” he asked while glancing at my records.

“Gerald is buried up to his neck with work, as usual,” my mother said. While I was growing up, she’d chosen to stay home while my dad pursued his profession, but once I entered my junior year, she had taken a part-time job as a staff editor for the local paper that allowed her to work from home.

I had a nagging suspicion Mom was keeping tabs on me, even if she never expressed concern about having a child who would never fit in. In her own way, she wanted to be available whenever I needed her. It felt like she wanted to protect me from life itself.
 

“So, young man. How do you feel? There’s a new medication I want to discuss with you and your mother.”
 

I gave him a brave smile, concealing my feelings behind a smirk while under his close scrutiny. He always saw right through me, which was disconcerting, yet I still strived to keep my emotions hidden.

Without hesitation, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I want to be taken off medication.”
 

Mom jumped out of her chair, her face marked with worry. “Brian, why?” She touched my shoulder.

I didn’t look at her when I answered. Instead, I kept my eyes on Dr. Singer. “I want to be taken off. The medicine might be controlling my depression, but the tic isn’t going anywhere. I would rather be off it. I’ll let you know if I can’t handle it.”
 

I’d rather experience sullen moods than pretend that everything was fine. I was sick of shaking, jerking, and cussing. To prove my point, I shuddered as another tic ravaged me.

Dr. Singer studied me, and I returned the favor. After several seconds of tense silence, he spoke. “If that’s what you want, we can try it on a trial basis.” He glanced at my mother, who appeared ready to cry.
 

It was understandable. My mother wanted the best for her only child, but there came a point when she had to let go. I hoped this was it.
 

“Okay, but I want you to be honest with us. Let us know if you need to be back on an antidepressant,” she said, pulling me into an awkward hug.

Once we walked out of Dr. Singer’s office, I felt like I’d won a small victory. I promised not to give mom a tough time if she hovered. It was a small price to pay for freedom from the medications I’d been on for so long. I was going to take whatever I could get.
 

Once we got home, I ignored the calls from Mark and Darryl, and another call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was probably just a telemarketer again.
 

The minute I switched off my lamp and darkness descended, I felt a sense of ease course through me.
 

That night, I dreamed of Shannon.

Dream

In my dream, Shannon was being pursued by an enormous fanged creature that drooled massive amounts of greenish slime and sported claw-like hands. Shannon cried for me to help her. I tried, but when I reached for her hand to pull her to safety, another creature jumped in and wrenched her from my grasp. They said my name.
We’re watching you, Brian.
 

Distressed, I woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep right away. When I finally did, I was launched into yet another nightmare. This one was much clearer, but confusing. In this dream, a woman who worked for a landscape company was bitten by a rattlesnake and was airlifted to a hospital. There were no clues and no indication of the dream’s relevance, and the woman was a virtual stranger to me.
 

I awoke an hour before my alarm clock was set to go off, confused by the vividness of the dream. Sweating and dazed, it took a few minutes to shake the feeling away. What did it have to do with me? Glancing at the clock one more time, I knew that sleep wasn’t possible anymore. Six o’clock. I had an hour before I had to get ready for school, so I decided to get up and go for an early run around the neighborhood.
 

It wasn’t something I did every day, just when time or schedule permitted. I plucked a decent T-shirt and shorts from my drawer and laced up my running shoes. It was still dark outside when I locked the front door behind me. Since the temperature hadn’t dropped much overnight, I removed my shirt and threw it on the lawn.

I walked down our driveway and onto the street, quickening my steps until I was moving at a steady jog. Street lamps lit my path, and I kept an even pace, planning to run for thirty minutes.

Turning onto a darker patch of road, I noticed a woman with a limp walking in my direction. Her unsteady gait was alarming, so I hurried toward her in case she stumbled.
 

To my surprise, the woman touched my outstretched hand and gave me a blinding smile. “With every curse is a blessing,” she said.
 

A flash of panic hit me at the feel of her hand, and I jerked away. I hadn’t seen her before, not in our neighborhood. Upon a closer look, I noticed her robe was glittering and fluttering behind her. There was no indication of the unsteadiness I thought I’d seen earlier. I blinked and then blinked again, hoping my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The woman was not ugly or beautiful—just different, kind of out of this world. My gut feeling told me that nothing about this woman was ordinary.

Taking a step back, I stared at her. I hadn’t expected another reminder of Madame Elizabeth’s prediction. Just like before, the hair on the back of my neck rose. Freaked out, I moved away from the woman. What the hell was going on?

I sprinted back to my house. There was a faint scratching noise behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see what it was. Nothing was behind me except the sun peeking over the horizon. I took one last look back before I hurried inside the house.
 

Once I reached my room, I flicked on the television for a distraction, angry with myself for being such a pussy. My cell phone chimed with a missed call. I picked it up, and the unfamiliar number from the night before showed on my caller ID. Who was this persistent caller? I tossed the phone on the bed and headed to the shower.

At school, I found Mark and Darryl in front of the building waiting for me a few minutes before the bell rang.
 

“Hey, tic-boy. ‘Sup with you?” Mark said when I reached the top steps.
 

“Had some errands with the parental unit and things got hectic before bedtime. Why, what’s up?” I asked and nodded at Darryl.
 

“Nothing. Just wondering where you’ve been. You ditched class yesterday and ignored my text.” Mark gave me a knowing look.
 

If there was anyone close to being able to read me like a book, it was Mark. I avoided his questioning eyes and turned to Darryl. He had grown still, so I followed his line of vision and saw Shannon, Brittney and Veronica, three of the most popular girls at Marshall, bounding up the steps. Mark might have no problem, but Darryl and I were on the shy side, so ogling was pretty much all we could do.
 

My neck muscles tightened, and my shoulders jerked involuntarily for a brief moment. “Fuccckkkk,” I blurted.
Here we go!
 The first of many today, I was sure.
 

I groaned and turned my back while the girls walked by. They giggled, and that was my cue to flush, mutter a quick excuse about forgetting something in the car, and run away.
 

Embarrassment made me sit out my first period class. I sat inside my car, upset with myself.
Will this ever end?
 

By the end of first period, I was feeling a bit better. Good enough to force myself to attend my next class. AP English would be a breeze since it didn’t require my full attention. For sure I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate if Shannon was in the same class.
 

Fate must have been playing a cruel joke on me, because Shannon walked in the classroom. Pretending to be busy, I buried my face in my book while she settled in the seat across the room from me. Good. She was as far away as possible. I twisted and turned in my seat trying to control the vibration of my shoulders. One nasty problem with my tics was that they got worse if I got agitated or excited. Shannon was able to make me feel both.

Controlling my twitches had never been an easy thing, let alone keeping the jerky movements at bay for an entire hour. I sat on my hands the whole time to keep my body from jerking while Mrs. Sweeney droned on about our first big project for the year. She’d be pairing students up to analyze
The
Glass Menagerie
. With each passing minute, my shoulders were getting sorer from the pressure I was applying to them. Most times, I could pass off the twitches as small muscle spasms, but the more I tried this morning, the more out of control they were. It became unbearable while I counted down the remaining minutes before the end of the period. I was too stressed and terrified of what might come out of my mouth.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Sweeney seemed to be having the time of her life going over the subject matter. Her enthusiasm had no power to rub off on me since my focus was on grinding my teeth together to keep from uttering any F-bombs. Then she started calling the names of students who would be partnered with each other. There were groans and celebratory shrieks as each student was given their assigned partner. I could feel the buildup of unwanted vocal tics that were threatening to spill out.

“Brian Morrison, you’re partnered with Shannon McKesson.”

What the
 . . . “Ff-fff-fuckkkk!” The word slipped out, despite my fervent effort to control it. Sure enough, the entire class burst out in laughter. Yep, this was a good time to die, disappear into thin air, or crawl to the nearest exit. Mrs. Sweeney cleared her throat and tried to keep a straight face, but the laughter in her eyes betrayed her. I should be used to the ridiculing by now, but I still felt the sting of being the butt of the joke when I had an unavoidable outburst.
 

“Class, please, we need to focus on this project. I’m giving you two weeks to work on this. Remember, analyze each line separately, then get back with your partner, compare notes, and use the best combined analysis you have. Your grades will depend on your partner, so make the most out of your interpretations.”

Then the bell rang. Thank God. I yanked up my backpack and ran out of the classroom without looking at anyone. The need to disappear was so strong that I almost knocked over several kids in my haste to get away. I ran straight to the restroom, wanting to scream when I found the place filled to capacity. My symptoms were threatening to unleash themselves, and I hurried off to find a quiet place before I exploded in a huge fireball of tics and curses.
 

Mark was coming out of his class when we bumped into each other. He tapped me on the shoulder.
 

“Hey, bro. What’s the matter?” A worried and all-too-familiar expression of pity crossed his face. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen me racing away to avoid people.

My mouth started trembling, a silent warning that more phonic tics were about to break out. “Fuck!”
 

I grunted and ran out of the building to the basketball court. Here, I could have a little privacy, away from all the watchful stares. To my great relief, there were just a handful of students loitering in the area. I went as far as I could from them before letting one out. I breathed deep and exhaled long enough to ease the pressure in my shoulders.
 

My facial muscles tightened, followed by a tug at my neck and back as the twitching came hard. One hour was too long to keep the monster at bay. As much as I hated my tics, it was liberating to let them out.

“Ah-ah-ah.” My motor-mouth started to unleash its unholy terror. I had ten minutes to get it all out before I was marked late by my third period teacher. My shoulders continued to jerk for several more minutes before my body began to relax.
 

I sagged against the chain link fence and closed my eyes. There was only one word I wanted to avoid saying, and that was the very word that came out of my mouth during my tic attacks. I could live with the
ah-ah-ah’s
or the stammering, but
fuck
was offensive and plain rude. Wishing for my tics to stop was like reaching for the stars. It would come in time, Dr. Singer had reminded me on many occasions, but the million-dollar question remained. When? Shannon must hate me now. Twice today I’d cursed in her presence.