“They used to go golfing together. Take annual vacations. Visit casinos in Europe. Go fishing,” I said, leaving out the escorts, strip clubs, and underground joints they’d promised to take Andrew and me to when we were older.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be naïve, Cillian. People will do anything to get close to us Fitzpatricks. We can’t have real friendships.”
Mother dropped me off at the clinic as soon as we landed, signed the paperwork, and told me she’d come to pick me up in a few hours.
“I would stay,” she sighed, “but you know how jittery I get in clinics. They’re not my scene. Besides, I have some shopping to do. You understand, don’t you, Kill?” She pinched my cheeks. I stepped away, turned around, and left without a word.
A nurse led me to a white small room with a desk and a chair. She locked the door behind me. I sat down, looking up at a security camera that was trained on me. I was obviously being watched.
They kept me like this for twenty minutes or so before a male voice sounded behind a two-way mirror.
“Hi there, Cillian.”
“Hello.”
I wasn’t afraid. I was extremely adaptable. Came with the territory of growing up in the hands of au pairs and attending private schools away from home from age six.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Been better. Been worse.” I crossed my legs, making myself comfortable.
“That’s interesting,” the doctor said. It wasn’t, really, but I appreciated his sympathy, whether it was genuine or not. It was more than I’d received from my own mother, oftentimes.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the pleasant voice asked.
“I’m guessing it’s because I have a thing called the Tourette’s syndrome.” I slouched back in the chair, taking in all the whiteness. The calmness of it pleased me. A long silence stretched from the other side of the window. “How long have you known?”
“About a week.”
I heard pages flipping on a clipboard from the other side. I smiled grimly. Normally, it was the patient who was in the dark.
“How can it be? It says here your tic attack took place two days ago,” another voice said. A middle-aged female was my guess. Both doctors had accents. One was probably Italian, and the other Swiss from the French border.
“Yes,” I said slowly, giving them time to fill in their charts. “But I’ve been feeling the tension of the attack in the days before building up, so I did some research.”
“So you knew you were going to get it?” the woman Swiss doctor asked incredulously. “The attack.”
I nodded curtly. She gasped. She actually gasped.
“Poor thing,” she said. Very un-doctor-like.
“Never been accused of being that before,” I muttered, checking my watch for the time.
“Where are your parents?” the female doctor asked, her voice growing closer. Were they going to open the door between our rooms? I hoped not. Eye contact wasn’t my favorite.
“My father is in Boston, handling the family business, and my mother is shopping. Zurich is one of her favorite retail spots.”
Knowing Mother, she was going to pick me up with bags full of new shoes, cuff links, and summer clothes for me. Her version of being maternal.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” the male doctor asked. “About the Tourette’s syndrome.”
“What was the point?” I brushed my dress pants from lint. “Knowing my family, we will be keeping my condition under wraps. So either you prescribe me with shit, try new treatment on me, or let me go. I’ll figure out a way to hide it.”
“It’s a neurological disorder,” the female doctor explained, her voice turning even softer. “Caused by an array of very complex things, mostly because of abnormalities in certain brain regions. The tics will come and go, and even though we can offer some treatments to relieve and ease the disorder, it is mostly here to stay. You can’t control it. The very definition of Tourette’s is that your tics are involuntarily. You cannot train your nerves. They are everywhere in your body. To numb them, you will have to stop feeling completely.”
Perfect.
“Then it is voluntary.” I stood, heading for the door.
“No,” the doctor hesitated. “For you to stop the tics, you’ll have to stop feeling. I don’t think you understand—”
“I understand everything.” I curled my fist, knocking on the door three times, signaling the nurse I wanted to get out.
“Mr. Fitzpatrick—”
I didn’t answer.
I got what I came here for.
A solution.
Now all I needed was practice.
Operation Cancel Feelings did not get off to a smooth start when I came back to England.
To begin with, I wasn’t big on feelings. That was not to say I hadn’t felt any. I was capable of being sad, happy, hungry, amused, and jealous. I hated a lot of people—certainly more than a boy my age should—and even loved a little.
Mainly my baby brother, who had the advantage of not being able to talk back, hence not being able to piss me off. But I also loved other things. Polo and Christmas and sticking my tongue out when it rained. The alluring taste of winter.