Connor and I walked up to the door of the Tourette’s support group. “Here we go again,” he said under his breath as I opened the door. This month’s group was smaller—only Dexter, Jack, and Mason were there.

“Hey, armless Aven,” Dexter said.

“Is that a new tic, Dexter?” I asked, thinking of his tendency to say inappropriate things.

“What do you mean?” he said, a baffled expression on his face.

I grinned at the floor. “Never mind.”

Dexter patted the seat next to him. “Come sit over here—chicken nipple.”

Connor and I sat in two seats next to Dexter. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Dexter said. “Maybe Rebecca slapped herself so hard—chicken nipple—that she’s lying passed out on her kitchen floor.”

Jack snorted loudly. “That’s not cool, Dex,” he said.

I shook my head. “Definitely not cool.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearly doing his best to look innocent. “It could be the bathroom floor.”

“That’s enough, Dexter.” Andrea looked up from the clipboard she held on her lap. “That’s almost crossing the line into making fun of instead of making fun with.” She stared him down, but I could hear some playfulness in her voice.

“I’m sorry.” Dexter hung his head and stuck out his lip. “I won’t do it again.” He covered his mouth to hide his obvious grin.

“Well, it looks like this is all we have today,” Andrea said. “Why don’t we go ahead and get started. Since we all talked a little bit last month about our fear of going out in public, I thought this month would be a good time to talk about some techniques for staying relaxed when we go out. There’s no reason any of you should feel you need to stay confined to your house out of fear of venturing out. It’s so important you all live your lives as normally as possible, and feeling comfortable when going out in public is a big part of that.”

“But what if we can’t relax and our tics get really bad?” Jack said, letting out his loud whooping noise.

“Don’t already decide that you can’t relax in public, Jack,” Andrea said. “That’s why I’m going to teach you some techniques you can use. Are you going to tic in public? Probably, yes. You have to accept that. But you don’t have to allow it to get out of control.”

“Is this going to be about habit-reversal training?” Connor asked. “Because I’ve already tried that.”

“What’s that?” I asked him.

Before he could answer me, Andrea said, “No, Connor. We’re not going to be discussing habit-reversal training today.”

Connor turned to me. “It’s when you try to focus your attention on doing something that basically, like, competes with the tic as soon as you feel the urge. Over time, it’s supposed to make you feel the urge to tic less.”

“Does it work?” I asked.

“A little,” Connor said. “But I haven’t been very good about doing it.”

“It can work well for some kids,” Andrea said. “But today we’re just going to focus on relaxing.”

I ignored her. “Maybe you should try it again if it helped,” I told Connor.

“I told you I’m not going to therapy anymore, Aven,” he said. “Besides, it didn’t work well for me.”

I frowned and kicked at my chair legs as Andrea went on about how to breathe deeply. We all closed our eyes, and she told us to breathe in slowly through our noses and out slowly through our mouths. I found it difficult to relax with Dexter repeatedly saying “chicken nipple” next to me, but I did my best.

“Now,” Andrea said in a soothing voice, “feel a warmth in your chest—a wonderful warmth that travels from your chest . . . to your shoulders . . . now down your arms . . . and into your fingertips.”

I couldn’t help it—I totally burst out laughing. Then Connor and the other guys joined me. “You feel that warmth in your fingertips, Aven?” Dexter asked.

Andrea tried to continue talking about the warmth drifting down to our legs and feet, but everyone kept giggling and ticcing, so eventually she gave up and talked to us about other ways we could relax in public. These included using our breathing, visualization, meditation, and even counting or going over times tables.

At some point, Andrea said we should all have a goal we were working toward. It didn’t need to be big, but something easily attainable—like my parents had always taught me: one small goal at a time.

Dexter said he wanted to make it through a meeting without calling his mom to check the stove. Andrea said that was a good goal. Then Dexter asked if he could call his mom to check the stove. Jack said he wanted to talk to this girl at school he liked—not ask her out or anything, but just say hi. And Mason wanted to stop making farting noises.

When Andrea asked me what my goal was, Connor and I looked at each other with knowing grins—but I wasn’t about to tell the whole group about our murder investigation. Instead, I said I wanted to learn how to use nunchuks, which was also true.

When Andrea asked Connor about his goal, I blurted, “Connor’s going to challenge the next person who makes fun of him at school to a cage match.”

The others giggled, but Connor squinted at me suspiciously then turned his attention to Andrea. “I guess I should try to get out somewhere,” he said. “I haven’t been anywhere but school and Stagecoach Pass since I moved.”

The way he said his goal felt noncommittal, and I doubted he would follow through with it.

Andrea gave us the last ten minutes to socialize, so everyone wanted me to show them what kinds of things I could do with my feet. Andrea handed me her clipboard, paper, and pen, and I wrote People with arms are lame. I also opened up a water bottle and put my hair in a ponytail—impressive stuff.

“Wow, Aven,” Dexter said. “You’re like a superhero—like a totally awesome armless superhero.”

“If only I had those nunchuks,” I said.

“Armless Aven!” Dexter announced. “Able to open water bottles with a single toe!”

I blushed (that darn idiopathic craniofacial erythema). “Not a single toe, but that’s okay.” I glanced at Connor, but he wasn’t smiling. Actually, he looked downright annoyed.

Later, on the way home in the car, I asked him, “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.” He slumped down in his seat and crossed his arms. “Dexter just thinks he’s so funny.”

“He is funny,” I said.

“I can tell you think he’s so funny, but I don’t.” He turned away from me so he could stare out the window. “He’s starting to get on my nerves, calling you armless Aven,” he mumbled.

“Someone at the support group calls you armless Aven? Is that from his Tourette’s?” Mom asked.

“No,” Connor said. “It’s from his stinky personality.”

I looked at Mom in the rearview mirror. I could tell from her wrinkled, squinty eyes she was grinning. I grinned back and then looked out my own window, hardly able to keep myself from giggling.

I had never, ever in my entire life made a boy jealous until now.