I Was Thirsty

I didn't plan on getting arrested that day. You wouldn't believe the chain of events that whiplashed me. Completely inevitable. Unfair. And, like any other afternoon, it all started with a therapy session.

Doctor Conner was waiting for me in his office. 

I stared at—not out—the fogged-over car window as I waited for the frost to drip. I'd only touched the glass once, yet the clear portion had already clouded over.

"Ben? Did you hear me?"

My driver's voice had an odd ring to it. Like he'd just finished saying something. Something important. I realized he had directed this mysterious question toward me when he glanced in the rearview mirror.

What had he asked?

I shook my head and hoped that was an answer.

My driver—I called him Ed, though I didn't know if Ed was his real name—sighed. He made an expression to conceal his emotions from me, from what I could tell. I'd grown accustomed to that face.

He spoke the words that transformed my life into a Shakespearian tragedy. "I said I'm going to be a few minutes late picking you up today."

"Why?" I said, not the least bit interested, mind you. My head was back on the window.

"Your parents need me to pick them up first." 

I gawked at him.

"I'll come get you afterward."

I flipped through the files in my brain's headquarters. My dad was on some mission to rise to fame in the world of politics, and Mom smiled and waved along with him. I never paid attention to what he did. Something about campaigning and the governor and please don't make me go on or I'll fall asleep.

All I knew? Cameramen hounded him without mercy. And he always kept me at a solid distance to avoid screen time.

I didn't blame him. Dad's boss—the mighty Rex Peterson—says I'd ruin the "image," i.e., a beautiful wife, perfect sons for all anyone knows, and more money than Microsoft would know what to do with. The media had yet to pick dirt on him.

They'd have their story soon.

Ed stared at the mirror again. I studied his face. His eyes were a little wider than usual. He expected a response from me.

"Okay," I said.

He seemed satisfied, because he turned his focus back to the road, where it should have been the whole time. 

I wish they'd let me drive. I mean, I had my own car. But my parents had this idea trapped in their file cabinets: Ben won't control the steering wheel until he's thirty-five. In a lot of ways, I agreed with them. Although I would have said thirty-six. And a half.

Ed tapped his fingers against the gear stick, pulling past the stop sign and up to our destination.

Doctor Conner's office reminded me of a prison. Ha, prison would be a step up. This was my least favorite place in the world.

I opened the car door.

"Remember. Just. Wait. Here."

People separated their words like that when they spoke to me. It's not a convenient form of communication for any species, so why make me the exception? It's not like slowing down his words was going to make me listen to them. Boy, I should have.

Before I could watch Ed pull away, I disappeared inside the building. I wouldn't be coming back to this place for a long time. I just didn't know it yet. 

So, I dreaded it as usual. 

The bright colors of the room felt like a dull knife cutting through barbed wire. A prison yard disguised as a preschool, tricking troubled kids into thinking they're special.

I knocked on the door to Doctor Conner's office and poked my head inside.

"Hi, Ben," he said. "Have a seat."

We used to have these long arguments when he called me "Benjamin" with emphasized syllables. I'm Ben. That's what I want to be called. Doctor Conner asked me why, and my answer was the ever simple, Because that's what I want. There's no changing that fact. Or arguing that logic.

I took my seat and prepared for interrogations. Sure enough, Doctor Conner asked, "How are you?" 

I crossed my arms the way I always did and stared at the floor. "Fine."

"Did you do anything fun yesterday?"

"No."

"What did you do then?"

"Nothing."

"What didn't you do?"

"..."

"How's your brother?"

"He looks the same."

"Do you want to talk?"

"Not really."

"But I want to talk to you, Ben."

"I don't."

"Well, that's too bad."

"I don't see anything negative about the current situation."

Dead feedback.

"Ben. Could you look at me?"

My body remained as if locked in a time warp. 

"Please?"

I considered him, then glanced up. His fake grin matched the room's preschool atmosphere as he leaned back in his swiveling office chair. "That's better. Don't you agree?"

I squeezed the arms of the chair so I wouldn't jump out and choke him. There was something about him. Like he was a fly on the wall, and I was holding the swatter.

"Why don't you tell me how you're feeling right now?" he said.

I won't bore you with more details of my therapy session. But, to understand what I was going through, imagine something you hate to do. Like an eleven on a scale of one to ten. Okay, now imagine you're doing that thing you hate with someone you honest-to-goodness hate. Then, imagine doing that hated activity with that hated person for at least one hour. Every. Single. Day.

My life in a taco shell.

I see I haven't scared you away yet. This is a problem. So, I feel now is a good time to answer the question undoubtedly going through your head right now. 

What the helicopter is wrong with this kid?

No one knows. Kyle will tell you my birth was the first abnormality, with enough trips to the hospital to cause a mask shortage. But Mom doesn't talk about it.

My opinion? It all went something like this:

Kindergarten. I had this round, pumpkin-faced teacher. See, I was tearing off the corners of the pages in my coloring book, putting those torn pieces in glue, and pasting them to the table from largest to smallest. She saw what I was doing, muttering "this kid is messed up" as she stapled more books together. When I decided this was reason enough to chase her with my scissors and try to cut off her bushy ponytail, she sent me home and reiterated her analysis in a letter to my parents: "I never want to see that devil's white boy in my classroom again."

Kindergarten 2.0. Just because I like things the way I like them when I want them to be that way, Mr. Peewickle informed my parents of my OCD-ness. I chased him with the scissors too (to cut off his curly French fry beard), and my "temperamental issues" developed labels of their own.

First Grade. I started homeschooling with hired tutors.

My seventh birthday, my parents gave me NAGAS. "Not As Good As Siblings Syndrome." Limited social skills and my inability to solve many substandard math problems contributed to this. 

Twelve years old. Madam Turk let me know I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder when my older brother, Kyle, left for college. I looked the term up later. I still don't think that's how it works.

The lanky homeschooling freshman. Nurse Perry stuck me on the spectrum. Asperger's.

Sophomore year. Dr. Conner discovered he could define certain personalities as wrong. In addition, my parents replaced hired tutors with a computer and a virtual Canadian academy.

Let's be honest. They chucked these labels on a "My Name Is" sticker for me because they didn't know what to think of my state of being. And I just go with it because, hey, I've got to give them something to believe in. I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.

Then, here we are. Seventeen years following my abnormal birth.

Junior Year.

Doctor Conner was really on my case that day. He almost broke out of his Minnie Mouse voice.

"Ben? Ben! Are you still with me?"

I opened my eyes. "We were talking about my problems?"

"No. We were talking about you." He handed me something small and round. "Tell me what you see."

I held it up.

"It's a mirror." 

I figured that out when I saw my face inside. I was still a skinnier and taller Frodo Baggins. Gold eyes. Long nose. Bank robber's jacket. Nothing struck me as different from the past hundred times, so I set it down on his desk.

"Now what?" I asked, glancing above. The wall clock said my time in Nazi Germany should last ten more minutes.

"I suppose you're free to go." Dr. Conner scratched his nose with his pinky. "Keep working hard, alright?"

"Sure." 

"See you tomor-" 

I shut the door and shivered when the cool breeze stung my nose.

A roller flattened my stomach at the sight of the bare-naked street. Calm down. I rubbed my temples. Ed said he would be late. Still, ten minutes early leave from therapy. My ride would be late. Twenty minutes. I couldn't risk waiting here and having Dr. Conner spot me. He would inevitably use the opportunity to communicate. I tugged at my hair as my pulse rose.

I needed a game plan.

That's it. I'm moving to Mars. They all think I'm some alien, anyway. At least there I'd have fresh water, and Kyle could send a hovercraft with waffles every few days. I'd survive without filling them with chocolate chips for a while. But if they shipped a man to the moon, it wouldn't take long for another one to find me…

Dropping my hands, I sighed as an image crossed my mind. The preschool-therapy office is my least favorite building in the world. But there's another place. The Cinderella to the evil therapy stepsister.

If you've gotten this far, I'd like to tell you about my safe place before you leave forever. Books are supposed to have descriptive details, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Running seemed desperate even for me, so I settled on a light jog. The big houses got smaller, and the mowed lawns returned with streetlamps and spilled garbage cans. By the time I got there, my lungs were heaving. A couple of girls walked past me and laughed as bony men followed behind. I heard glass shatter somewhere in the distance. Starlings squawked above. I'm pretty sure a rat scurried over my shoe at some point. He smelled like cigarettes.

Or something like that.

I circled the structure as droplets of water bounced off the wet edge. Autumn's leaves were still wet and cold inside of it, giving it a colorful canvas on its usual gray base. It was simply beautiful, or beautifully simple. You pick. Either way, the swelling in my chest died down as I collapsed to the side and watched the dirt disintegrate from my hands.

Alright, I'll stop hassling you.

My place is a fountain. It was this ancient one, smack in the middle of Delcoph, pressed next to an alley always covered in graphite. Apartments towered it, rendering it invisible. But despite the fountain's uselessness, no one has ever changed it. It was perfect the way it was. There was no need to fix it.

Goosebumps climbed up my skin. It was… what's the word? Let me Google it. Okay. Search said any of the following will do: Muggy. Gloomy. Depressing. Atmospheric. Etc. Same way Kyle describes me on a Monday.

I stared at the pale sky. No doubt Ed was back with my parents looking for me. 

Truth is, I would have stood there forever. But my mouth went dry sitting by the malfunctioning fountain. Nose was running, lips cracked. The symptoms screamed that I was thirsty.

So, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I got up and walked away. Straight to the nearest gas station.