When My Heart Joins the Thousand(12)

After a brief delay, he asks, Why?

The request must sound strange to him. I suppose I could just tell him I’m mute, but I have no faith in my ability to lie convincingly. I feel more comfortable communicating through text. It’s easier for me.

Well, okay. If that’s what you want.

The phone rings once. Twice. I pick it up.

“Alvie?” His voice sounds more or less the way I expected, young and a little uncertain.

I’m here, I type. It takes a little longer with one hand.

“Um. Hi.”

Hello.

A few heartbeats of silence pass. “So how was work today?”

Passable.

“Well, that’s good. I mean, I guess passable is good. It’s not bad.” He lets out a small sigh. “God, I’m so out of it right now. So, uh . . . how are things outside of work?”

I’ve been reading about multiple worlds theory.

“Oh?”

I start to type out an explanation of universal wave function, but before I can finish, he says, “I’d really like to meet you sometime. In person, I mean. If you found my phone, you must live in the area, right? I thought maybe . . . we could have lunch, or something.”

My heart drops out of my chest. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.

“I won’t pressure you,” he continues. “I know you’re a really private person. But I’d like to know what you’re like in real life. Not that this isn’t real, but. You know.”

My vision momentarily grays out, and my hearing goes fuzzy. When it comes back, he’s saying my name, his tone urgent. “Alvie? Alvie, are you there? Please say something.”

The phone is slick with sweat, pressed against my ear. I’m breathing too hard. Too fast. I feel a little nauseous.

He keeps saying my name.

“I . . .” My voice emerges flat and hoarse. “I have to go.” I stab a button with my thumb, ending the call. Black spots swim across my vision, and I shut my eyes, hugging my knees to my chest.

In a flash, I see the doors of the Vault before me. A faint rumble emanates from within.

My chest feels strange, as if a yawn’s gotten stuck inside it. My jaws clench. A dull pain throbs behind my left eye and shoots down my neck. I recognize the beginnings of a panic attack. I go to the tub and wrap myself in blankets, but it doesn’t help—not this time.

No one has ever died from a panic attack.

In ten minutes or so, it will be over.

I just need to get through it. I repeat the well-worn phrases to myself as I gasp for breath.

When the attack dies down I’m left shaking and bathed in a thin, icy layer of sweat. I extract myself from the covers, kneel in front of the toilet, and retch.

Hand shaking, I wipe my mouth with toilet paper. It’s been months since I’ve been that bad.

For a brief moment, I think about calling Dr. Bernhardt. Maybe he can put me in touch with someone who’ll prescribe me some sedatives—something to numb me, to take the edge off. But I can’t deny the sinking dread that fills me whenever I think about setting foot inside a doctor’s office.

When I was fifteen, fresh out of foster care, I had a mandatory psychological assessment with an old woman who emitted a pickled, salty smell, like olives, but the session was very short and perfunctory. I spent most of it staring at the wall and answering her questions as vaguely as possible, wanting to get it over with. I’d already had far too much interaction with doctors and other medical professionals when I was a child. None of them ever truly helped me.

The first time I ever saw a counselor, I was in third grade. Her office was filled with dolls and puppets. There was a Feeling Wheel with colors labeled HAPPY and SAD and MAD and CALM. During our first session, she tried to teach me how to smile.

“A smile is an easy way to be friendly,” she told me, pointing at her own rosy, dimpled cheeks. “Like this. Now you try.”

I bared my teeth.

“That’s . . .” She cleared her throat. “That’s very good. Here, why don’t you practice in front of the mirror?”

I tried again.

“Now, one more time. Try to relax.”

“Apes will show their teeth as a sign of submission,” I told her.

She blinked her bright eyes at me and tilted her head. “Well, that’s interesting. But remember, people aren’t apes.”

“Yes, they are. Humans are primates, just like chimps and bonobos.”

“Let’s try that smile one more time, shall we?”

That week, at school, there was another incident, which was what the grown-ups called it when something bad happened. A boy started following me in the hallway between classes, rolling marbles in his pencil box, because he knew the sound drove me crazy. I felt like the marbles were rolling around in my head, clattering off the walls of my skull. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. I tried to ignore him. He kept following me, rattling the marbles louder and louder and chanting, “Robo-tard, Robo-tard” in a singsong voice. Finally I spun around and backhanded him across the face. I got detention for two days.

“Now, let’s talk about that situation,” the counselor said during our next meeting. “How could it have gone differently?”

I sat in my chair with my arms crossed and my gaze fixed on the floor. “Just make them stop hurting me.”