“Tricky Tickle… what the hell did that doctor call it?” Leslie’s mother fumbled through a packet of handouts printed off the internet and some poorly xeroxed copies from the DSM the psychiatrist gave her back at the clinic hoping to respond to her husband’s ludicrous pronunciation of their daughter’s affliction.

“Tri-cho-till-o-mania.” Each time her mouth formed another syllable, Leslie cringed, trying to keep her hands under her thighs during the car ride home. She wished the rain pouring buckets on the car would drown out the sound, but her mother’s shrill voice made it impossible to focus on anything else.

 “What about Wrestlemania!?” Wesley exclaimed, barely looking up from his iPad.

It’s okay, maybe this car will crash into something, anything and I’ll never have to hear them talk about me again, look at myself in the mirror again and all those stupid printouts will mean nothing. Leslie thought as she fought the urge to slide her hand up through her bucket hat.

This was a hat that reminded her of something her grandmother forced her mother to wear as a child. Probably the same one. Who knows! Her mother just yanked it out of the closet one day and nervously requested she wear it in public. It was hard enough having to hand her homeroom teacher the note explaining why she, out of all the students, was allowed to break the dress code. She was already getting envious glances from the kids in the back who were always getting yelled at to remove their baseball caps. The girls, with their slits for eyes, appeared eager to fan the flames with their “How come Leslie gets to wear a hat?” or “I don’t see why she is so special and can’t take hers off like the rest of us” comments. Most of them knew already why, but feigning ignorance only gave them more power. Her teacher read the perfectly crafted note, her mother’s wispy cursive, as she stood, defeated in front of them all.

“Wesley, stop making up words! You too Tim this is serious.” Her Mother, so naïve and sensitive about the whole situation, would not tolerate any more attention drawn to Leslie nor would she stand for any humiliation brought upon their family especially from within. Everything about what was happening to her 16-year old daughter should be dealt with as quietly as possible.

“I just don’t get the deal with these complicated, funny names to confuse us. Why can’t they just call it ‘Nervous Hair Pulling Syndrome’ or something?” Leslie’s father always had a casual way of reducing the most serious of situations to nothing more than a cliché or a simple misunderstanding between man and the universe.  A bought of depression was just “a case of the blues.” A tragic fire killing hundreds was “a spot of bad luck” in the eyes of her father.

“Tim please. We tried to manage this on our own and we need their help so as far as I am concerned they can call it whatever they want as long as they can fix it.” While her mother was dismissing her father’s comments, he glanced at his daughter through the rear-view mirror. After a split second, he pulled away, too embarrassed to meet her eyes.

That was how Leslie felt to her parents. She was this well-oiled machine that had a bad part. Someone was going to replace that bad part and all would be right with the world. The family could go about their business and put the whole thing behind them.

She promised herself she wouldn’t cry anymore if someone looked at her with those disappointing eyes, but something about the glare her father gave her as he tried to understand what was happening to his first born made Leslie tear up. It was too much to handle. The sound of Wesley tapping on his screen, her mother fidgeting up front with paperwork and her father’s sighs. Her hands moved from under her thighs to the tops of her knobby knees. She could get away with it this time. Dad’s hands were on the wheel, Mother was distracted with medical terms and psycho babel and Wesley… well he never gave a fuck anyway. Besides, the tingle, it was too much to handle.

Slowly, slowly like a creepy crawly, her gnarled fingers walked up the side of her head, up under the cap as she felt nothing but scabs, patches of hair and tender skin. She touched a raw spot and that tingle zapped her to her core. It was like opening the flood gates. Before she knew it, Leslie had lost control of herself. A chunk of hair fell out onto her lap.

“Leslie No!!!” Her Mother screamed. The screech of her mother’s voice ignited the tingle of pain like a fire poker stabbing at her scalp. Coals begging to be turned over in a pit of fire beckoning her to extract more hair, aching to be touched. The echo of screams rattled in her brain alongside the thunderous pounding of the vehicle against the side of her body, the shards of glass, the taste of metal, the smell of burning rubber.

Just as quickly as it began, all sounds ceased. Her father’s body, slummed over the steering wheel, her mother’s screams silenced by sudden impact and poor Wesley, his delicate head and neck hanging loosely to his side.

Leslie crawled outside, noticing the deer, only slightly injured in comparison to her family’s horrific accident. Under her feet, the crunch of car carnage reminded her of the tingle. The piece of glass was just large enough. Besides, no one was there to tell her no.