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sky. It was clear and blue. I smiled, but probably because I was concussed.
    Max appeared over me. “You okay?”
    â€œI don’t think I want to play football anymore.”
    Max laughed. “Fair enough.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s get you home. I think you’re going to need some ice.”
    As we walked away, I saw Taj laughing. He was wearing number nine.

CHAPTER 4
    Later that night I was lying on the couch eating pudding in the family room. Not because my jaw was broken or anything—I just liked chocolate pudding. Max had walked me home, and my mom had made a big fuss and waved her fingers across my eyes and inspected my skull for cracks. Then she’d just clucked and made me lie down.
    When my dad got home, he walked in and said, “I heard you took a knock at football today. Were you playing?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I was the gunner. Kind of got blocked and sent flying.”
    He smiled. “That’s my boy. A few hits are good for you. Keep it up.”
    He went to put his briefcase away, and I frowned. Making my dad proud was painful.
    I liked staying on the couch because it meant I could delay the Routine, but my mom wouldn’t let me sleep down there. So at ten thirty I shuffled upstairs, exhausted.
    She was going to check on me every two hours through the night in case I had a concussion. I wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep. I changed into my sleep pants and started the Routine. I know most people call them pajama pants, but all I do is sleep in them, so it seems like a better name. I only had two hours before my first checkup, so I needed to start the Routine quickly.
    Oh, you might be wondering what the Routine is. I’ve been doing it for five years. It grew out of a few different habits, and now it’s permanent. There is no room for error. It looks like this:
    1. Take ten steps from my bedroom to the bathroom
    2. Brush my teeth with ten vertical movements on either side and five horizontal ones
    3. Take five steps to the toilet
    4. Pee, and then use two strips of toilet paper to wipe the rim in case I missed
    5. Wash my hands with ten overlapping squeezes to either hand
    6. Wipe hands on stupid pink doily towel—five squeezes to either hand
    7. Take ten steps back to the bedroom
    8. Flick lights on and off five times
    9. Get to bed in five steps and climb into bed
    As you can see, it’s fairly simple. It might even be normal. I mean, how many times does anybody do anything when they walk the same distance or brush their teeth the same way? I just happen to know.
    But that’s not the problem. It rarely looks like that, because perfection is hard. I have to restart when I do it wrong, like if I take an extra step or pull off three strips of toilet paper instead of two or wash my hands nine times. I concentrate really hard, but sometimes I stumble or take four strips of toilet paper off by accident. And how do you accurately count hand washing?
    Other times I just get Zapped out of nowhere, and then I have to do it again. It’s all Zaps really; I think the Routine is just when the Zaps take over. Usually the fear is me thinking, Do it again or you won’t wake up in the morning, and I keep doing it until I think I will wake up in the morning.
    It was a particularly bad night. Since I was usually scared that I would die in my sleep if I did the Routine wrong, having a concussion and a real threat didn’t exactly help. As a result the Routine looked like this:
    1. Take ten eleven fifty steps from my bedroom to the bathroom
    2. Brush my teeth with ten eleven  . . . one hundred and ninety-two vertical movements on either side and five  . . . three hundred horizontal ones
    3. Take five steps to the toilet—and redo fifteen times and don’t step on cracks
    4. Pee, and then use two entire roll and replace roll and then use another roll and replace roll