List of Ten

by Halli Gomez

Genres: YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

A harrowing yet hopeful account of a teen living with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder . . .
and contemplating his own mortality.
Ten: three little letters, one ordinary number. No big deal, right? But for Troy Hayes, a 16-year-old suffering from Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the number ten dictates his life, forcing him to do everything by its exacting rhythm. Finally, fed up with the daily humiliation, loneliness, and physical pain he endures, Troy writes a list of ten things to do by the tenth anniversary of his diagnosis—culminating in suicide on the actual day. But the process of working his way through the list changes Troy’s life: he becomes friends with Khory, a smart, beautiful classmate who has her own troubled history. Khory unwittingly helps Troy cross off items on his list, moving him ever closer to his grand finale, even as she shows him that life may have more possibilities than he imagined. This is a dark, intense story, but it’s also realistic, hopeful, and deeply authentic.

Release date: February 1, 2022

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 368

Sample

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

I stepped into the room the same second I got to ten. Also the same second the bell rang. Yeah, it sounded cool, but required absolutely no talent or planning. I counted my steps every day, so it was bound to happen at some point.

Of course, I still had to make it to my desk before class started. In other classes I’d be considered late and heading to the teacher’s desk to pick up a detention slip, but Mrs. Frances didn’t care. Probably because it took her a few minutes to get her stuff together, and right now she was preoccupied with her computer.

My desk was in the front row, but on the far side of the room. I stood in the doorway and debated which path to take. The long way down the side, across the back, then up to my desk, or the shortest across the front. My neck twitched. My hands squeezed into fists.

Since class hadn’t started yet, everyone sat in their best conversation positions, facing away from the teacher. Abhy and Spencer argued about whether Luke Skywalker was Rey’s father, and three girls puckered and posed in front of the phones they held at arm’s length. Their fascination with Instagram selfies would make it possible for me to walk across the room without being noticed.

I took a deep breath and the first step. One. You’d think I was heading toward the electric chair. It was just science, which happened to be my favorite subject. Another step. Two. I stretched my legs to maximize the distance. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

I was three desks from mine, but it didn’t matter. I’d hit the magic number. I bent down, touched the floor, and just in case someone saw, fumbled with my shoelaces like that’s the real reason my hands were near the nasty floor. From the corner of my eye I saw Jason’s eyes on me. Busted. Heat rushed from my neck to my forehead, and not because they turned on the heat in this school. I stood up, took three giant steps to my desk, one, two, three, whispered the remaining seven to get to ten, and fell into my chair.

My neck twitched. My hands squeezed into fists. Repeat. I pulled A Farewell to Arms out of my backpack. If anything could take my mind away from here it was World War I. I read and annotated until Mrs. Frances stood up, barely visible above her computer monitor, and pushed her wide black-framed glasses farther up her nose.

“New term, new seats,” she announced.

For one breathtaking minute, my body froze. Okay, it was literally scared stiff, but the neck twitches and hand squeezing stopped. I savored the stillness.

Then the minute passed.

My head bobbed to my left shoulder. My left shoulder lifted to my head. Repeat. Head bob, shoulder lift. Head bob, shoulder lift. Of course it came back. I’d done the neck twitch every day, every hour, every few minutes since I was six. But right now it was out of control.

I pleaded with Mrs. Frances. My mind to her mind. My eyes to her’s. Please don’t do this. Don’t change my comfortable hell. She moved to the front of the room and studied the paper in her hand.

“Okay, everyone pack up your materials and move to the back.”

Chairs scraped around me. Papers fluttered. The mumble of voices drifted behind me.

I took a deep breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

Mrs. Frances looked up from her paper. Her eyes landed on me.

“Troy, pack up your books.”

My chest tightened. She interrupted me in the middle. And on an odd number.

Eight, nine, ten. I shoved the book in my backpack and started again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

I stood up, trudged to the back, and fitted myself into the corner. Mrs. Frances consulted her paper, called out a name, and pointed to my old desk. “Bradley.”

One of the selfie girls giggled. Bradley moaned.

“Mrs. Frances, can I have another seat?”

“What’s wrong with that one?” she asked.

Bradley glared at me like this desk-switching event was my idea. Mrs. Frances could have said half the class had Ebola and it was a contamination issue. It wouldn’t have mattered. It took me four months to get comfortable in the last seat.

“It’s . . . well . . . he’s . . ,” Bradley said. “Nothing.”

Bradley sighed, turned away from me, and took the long way to the seat. I tensed my neck muscles and occupied my mind by mentally reciting the periodic table. I didn’t want to see him disinfect my old chair before sitting down. And someone who frequently forgot their deodorant after PE shouldn’t be worried about me.

I recited all the elements, but as usual, my brain changed directions on me and fixated on something else: the papers in my backpack. They were probably crumpled from stuffing everything inside. I wrinkled my face to mimic the wrinkled papers.

My neck twitched again. My face scrunched itself up. Another neck twitch. Then a face scrunch neck twitch combo. Great, a new one. I slumped further into the corner and stared at my sneakers.

What grand purpose could switching desks serve? Was she alphabetizing the classroom? Putting us in height order? Maybe it was something completely radical, like arranging us by birthday. While all those possibilities seemed rational to me, they were uncharacteristic of a woman who mixed her pens and pencils and left sentences half finished.

Bradley mumbled something to the boy behind him while Mrs. Frances finished filling the first two rows. Six seats in each. Twelve.

I counted to ten.

She started the next row. Dead center of the room. My neck twitched. My face scrunched. One new neighbor was nothing compared to what the middle of the room would do to me. Being surrounded by other kids’ desks, some turned slightly diagonal, pencils left crooked, and wrinkled pieces of paper taunting me, would make my whole body shake. I would have to touch everything. Repeatedly.

I stared at the teacher and resisted putting my finger to my temple like Professor X did in the X-Men movies before he learned to implant his thoughts into someone else’s mind without all the dramatics. I screamed the words in my head. Put me next to Abhy again. The urge to touch his desk should be gone since I already knew what it felt like. And his desk was neat.

I counted to ten, stood straight, then leaned forward hoping she’d call this craziness off. But Mrs. Frances ignored my signals this time too and continued reading names. Spencer, Esther.

Not a middle desk. Please not the middle. An invisible hand squeezed my chest. I tried to suck air in, but none made it to my lungs. One, two, three, four—there would be four desks to touch—five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

“Eric.” Mrs. Frances pointed to a desk in the third row, three seats back. The room started to spin.

“Abhy,” she called.

A tiny bit of air got in. She called more names and pointed to more desks. Each time she filled a desk, the breathing got easier. I was on number six when she called my name. Seven, eight, nine, ten. I could breathe again and even the stale classroom air felt good. I skimmed the back wall on the way to my new desk.

Fifth seat back in the row closest to the door. There was no one behind me, and I was golden if there was a fire drill. All that stood between the door and me was Bob, the classroom skeleton, and a waist-high bookcase filled with magazines, books, and videos from the nineties. The videos were probably fire hazards, but it was a chance I was willing to take for this seat.

I sank into my chair and breathed freely. Oxygen in. Carbon dioxide out. Repeat. Mrs. Frances smiled at me. I nodded back. I had a new love for her. Either she got my mental telepathy messages or she really was observant despite her obvious lack of organizational skills.

My neck twitch went from every four seconds to every two minutes, and the face scrunch showed up every fourth time. I straightened the wrinkled papers in my backpack, pulled out my science notebook, and wrote the date: February 1. Then found the courage to peek at my new neighbor on the left.

Khory Price.

A girl.

My neck twitched faster. Touching a boy’s desk was bad, but a girl’s? With my place on the social ladder, it would come across as creepy, and I didn’t need another label. I already sported the nickname “American Horror Story Freak Show.”

I shoved my left hand under my leg. My elbow jerked trying to free it. With my right hand I smoothed the crinkled papers. A difficult feat, but it kept me occupied. My head still bobbed. My shoulder still lifted.

I didn’t want to be a jerk and ignore her, but if I looked toward Khory and saw the brown faux wood of her desk, I’d have to touch the place where it attached to the gray metal. My fingers tingled with the idea of running themselves over the seam.

I mind-messaged Mrs. Frances to start class, but she continued to scribble questions on the whiteboard. Apparently our connection was gone.

Against my better judgment, I peeked at Khory Price. She had her left elbow on the desk and her forehead in her hand, and alternated between writing and erasing numbers in an open notebook. The only thing consistent was the sighs.

Her hair slid off her shoulder and covered the wood and metal seam of the desk. Suddenly the urge to touch the wood disappeared, but it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. My fingers still tingled and moved up and down as much as they could trapped under my leg. They had an urge to touch something, and realizing what it was made me wish for the desk.

Her hair. Long and brown, with a hint of red when the sun shone through the window. It was shiny and smooth. My fingers would slip down like on a water-park slide and get lost in the curls at the ends. I ran my right hand through my own hair. It did nothing to satisfy the tingle and probably just made my hair stand up straight. My left elbow jerked to free my hand. I yanked it out and held it back like it was a two-year-old going for candy.

Khory slammed her pencil down and stared at me. “What?”

My cheeks burned. I shook my head and focused on my own notebook and the date. Sixty-five days left.

“Sorry, I’m Khory,” she said.

Of course, I already knew that. There were only twenty-two of us in the class. I didn’t talk much, but I listened well.

“I’m Troy.” That was the extent of my conversation abilities.

“Hi.”

Thankfully she didn’t want to shake hands or I’d have to free my left hand. If we were both girls, we would have hugged and squealed or made some other noise only dogs could hear. I got away with a nod. She turned back to her desk, frowned at her notebook, then bit her bottom lip. I counted to ten and watched her hair fall over her shoulder and cover part of her face. She twisted the edge of her paper. My left arm lifted a few inches and moved to the edge of my desk. There was no controlling it. It had a mind of its own and stretched out until it was a millimeter from the tip of her curls.

“I hate math,” she said. “Or maybe it’s just Mr. Nagel. He stares too much and creeps me out. I hate when people stare at me.”

I let out a big breath and yanked my hand away just as Khory looked up.

I had him too, but he turned away when I walked into the room. Maybe he thought I was the creepy one. I kept that to myself since I couldn’t handle another seat rearranging and fumbled with my pencil. I counted to myself and tapped it ten times on my desk, then leaned back and attempted to seem cool, or not as weird.

“Okay, class. Listen up,” Mrs. Frances announced. “Before we start the new section, I want to tell you about a new science summer program. It’s a three-week intensive course on astronomy ending with a field trip to New York.”

The chance for a trip to New York, even for a school-type program, got people to put their phones down and sit up straight. Except Khory.

She sank in her chair and stared at her desk. A shadow covered her face, one that had nothing to do with the sun streaming through the window.

“You good?” I asked.

Khory turned to me. “Yes. It sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I’d love to go, but New York is so far.”

“Sure.” It sounded like a dream come true, but it conflicted with another, more important dream I had. Summer was almost five months away, and my list would be completed by then.

After Chemistry and a brief stop at my locker, I started the trek to the back door and the bus lot. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten steps. Bend down. Repeat. Faster and faster each time. I didn’t want to walk the three and a half miles home if I missed the bus. My brother was waiting for me.

I climbed the school-bus steps. My favorite seat behind the driver was taken by a short, beefy kid with a trombone, so I scanned the seats for an empty one, or at least one by the window. My neck twitched. Sitting on the end with a seat across the aisle was just like the classroom-desk issue. The urge to touch it, and the person sitting there, would be overwhelming. The thought alone made my fingers tingle.

There was one empty seat seven rows back. I made my way there and slid all the way to the window. I ran my fingers over the empty space next to me, then tapped it ten times. Just as I was about to start another round of tapping, a pair of gray legging-covered legs stopped in the aisle.

“Great,” the legging girl groaned.

I yanked my hand back. She flopped onto the seat, swung her legs toward the aisle, and put her back to me. Her long, blonde ponytail teased me. Pull me! I grabbed my jacket and pulled it instead. Nowhere near as satisfying.

The bus engine choked, sputtered, then eventually came to life. When we bumped our way to the open road, I took out my phone and opened the List of Ten. I thought about the new seats, Khory, and the astronomy summer program. Could I fit them into the list?

Before high school, my real dream was to have friends and a girlfriend. Someone who would wait at our locker before school and get me in trouble for texting me during dinner. Of course, we would share a locker. But high school was a rude awakening for what the real world had to offer. Hormones brought on a whole new mess of Tourette tics, emotions, and interactions with society that I would have preferred not to have. So what did adulthood promise? More of the same.

I could just imagine Dr. Hardly Qualified’s reaction if I’d told him my plan to commit suicide. He’d press his pointer finger to his cheek, which he always did to appear thoughtful while he came up with something to say. Then he’d grab some outdated, dust-covered book from his shelf.

“Hmm, suicide. Depression!”

“I’m not depressed,” I would have explained. “Just tired. Exhausted from the whole thing.”

“And what do you mean by that, specifically?”

“The Tourette, the OCD, being in constant pain because my muscles won’t stop moving and my brain won’t stop counting.” Even my explanations were on repeat. To a trained professional, it should have been obvious by looking at me.

“Troy, you need to give it time. Close your eyes, breathe in, and count to ten.” Then he would have added antidepressants to my current medicine cocktail.

I did give it, and him, time. Ten days. Ten months. Years even. And now that the tenth anniversary of my nightmare life was coming, the significance couldn’t be ignored. I was sure HQ wouldn’t approve.

I shifted toward the window, as the number of neck twitches and hand squeezes increased, and focused on the rows of trees whizzing by. My muscles ached as I tried to control them, but they quivered from the inside like a million ants scurrying through my body trying to get free. People already thought I was crazy. If my muscles took over, everyone would run away screaming like the zombie apocalypse was here.

I listened to the voices complaining about new semester classes, teachers, and homework as we passed the shopping center where I learned to ride my bike. Almost home. The bus turned into my neighborhood and pulled to the curb. My stop was the first one, two blocks from my house.

I scooted past ponytail girl and started the ten-count-bend-down, pushing away the visual of chewed gum, spit, and dog poop that lived in the floor’s rubber tread. A boy behind me sighed. His breath was warm on my neck. Did he think I enjoyed this? My neck twitched. Trust me, no one wanted to get home faster than me.

I leaped off the last step, took a deep breath of cool air, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. When I turned left onto my street, I ran the rest of the way, too fast to slow down when I got to the number ten. I stopped at the door, touched the ground ten times, then disappeared inside.

As soon as the lock clicked, I freed the ants scrambling in my body. My neck twitched fifteen times. An odd number. My hands clenched. Fingernails dug in my palms. My neck twitched five more times, felt the craving, and quickly did it ten more times. Thirty. Even number and divisible by ten. Which left a three. Ten more times. Forty. Four times ten is forty. Searing pain traveled from my neck down my left shoulder blade. An eighty-five out of one hundred on my rate-the-pain scale.

I let out a big exhale and shuffled to my room. Ten steps. Touched the hardwood. Ten steps. Touched the carpet. My fingertips slid over it. Soft. Too soft. I pressed my fingers into it, feeling for the hard floor underneath.

In my room, I collapsed on the floor, letting my body melt into the carpet. I stared at the light-up stars on my ceiling. My fingers ran over the carpet, but that didn’t matter anymore. I closed my eyes, thankful to be home just in time. How were strangers supposed to understand that? Of course I had to at least try to explain it before April 6.

I sank deeper into the carpet. Life could be worse. I could have lost an eye, or a leg, or everything I owned in a house fire set by a drug-addicted second cousin, as Dad would say.

“Troy, as a cop, I see despair every day.”

Doubtful since he was a captain who worked behind a desk in the part of town where lowlifes were people whose houses only had four-car garages. And what did he know? He didn’t live in my body. I would never judge anyone. Actually, I envied people whose lives were worse than mine but who found the courage to survive.

I rolled onto my stomach and made a pillow with my hands. Some cruel joke of the universe gave excruciating pain, a dumpster full of tics, and a number fixation to a sixteen-year-old boy. As if being medicated and pudgy with a few pimples wasn’t embarrassing enough. That’s why I made the list. I was exhausted.

The only relief was sleep, and right now I would give up my iPhone to get some, but the sound of jingling keys meant I’d have to wait.

“Troy? Are you home?”

I opened my eyes as my stepmom poked her head in the doorway. She scrunched her eyebrows together. “Are you alright?”

“Just tired.”

“Are you okay to stay with Jude? I have to leave in five minutes.”

“Sure.”

I followed her into the family room. She put the baby monitor and a stuffed giraffe on the coffee table, tied her shoulder-length hair in a bun, then loaded up her tactical belt with the handcuffs, gun, and a flashlight. She was a cop who actually saw the dregs of society. That’s why she let her muscles peek out of her uniform sleeves.

“He’s still napping,” Terri said. “There’s spaghetti in the fridge for dinner. Your dad should be home around six-thirty.”

“Got it.”

I dug my notebooks and iPad out of my backpack. After twenty minutes, I had only done two questions, and now had the image of Khory and the way her hair fell over her face burned into my mind. I laid my pencil on the table parallel to my notebook and went in search of last year’s yearbook.

Back in the family room, I flipped through it until I found her. Khory had the same long brown hair and huge dark eyes last year. She smiled with perfect straight teeth, and I assumed, if the picture were color, she’d have some version of the pink lipstick she had today.

I sighed, flipped to the index, and scrolled to her name searching for other pictures with her hair falling over one eye or her biting her bottom lip like she did in class.

My fingertips gripped the page and pulled gently. An urge grew in my chest like the beginning of an itch. Pull harder, my brain taunted. Then, a second later, don’t rip the page. Tourette was one big contradiction.

The tingle went down my fingers to the palm of my hand aching for the feeling of balled-up paper. The hand squeeze was a losing battle like all the others. I shoved the yearbook away, sat on my hands, and fell back against the couch. One, two, three, four, five, six.

A gurgling sound came through the monitor. Seven, eight, nine, ten. I got up, and the yearbook fell open to a page of kids making goofy faces at the camera. It was weird how people chose to scrunch up their faces or stick their tongues out when most of my life I tried to avoid doing that. Or avoided cameras altogether because I couldn’t.

I went to Jude’s room, and my neck calmed down. We did the whole diaper-and-clothes change thing. Not my favorite part of our afternoon party session, but a small price to pay for quality time with my best friend and most trusted confidant.

“How was your day?” I grabbed his Thomas the Train blanket on the way back to the family room. “Mine was fine. Thanks for asking. I met a girl.”

Okay, she was assigned to the seat next to me, but I didn’t look up anyone else in the yearbook. Or spend half the afternoon thinking about them.

Jude laughed, which I didn’t take personally since his eyes twinkled with excitement and not ridicule.

“Oy. Eeee. Aah,” he said. Well, that’s what most people probably heard, but since I spoke eleven-month-old, it was clear he asked, “Is she cute?”

“As a matter of fact, she is.”

I set him on the carpet, gave him his blanket, and took out four blocks and a train with lights and the most annoying music since the eighties. I made it through two more math problems before. . .