“It’s everything. Like, yeah, I get angry, and when I do it’s like I’m possessed or something, but that’s not the only thing. I get really sad sometimes and I don’t know why or I get stressed during tests but it’s, like, out-of-control stress, like my whole body is buzzing and I’m just gonna vibrate into oblivion, you know?”

“That sounds overwhelming.”

“Yeah, it is overwhelming!” I nod enthusiastically, unable to stop talking now that I’ve started. “It’s really overwhelming and I can’t rein it in, I can’t do anything about it—things just build and build and then they explode and it’s like I don’t have a choice in it, like my body just reacts without me making a decision!”

By the end I’m practically shouting. I’m out of breath, like I just ran suicides. She barely reacts, pinning me with a completely unreadable expression on her face. It makes me feel calmer for some reason—the itchy feeling under my skin has gone away and I feel something slot into place.

Now that all that’s been released, I’m feeling dumb, like I got carried away. I try to brush it off.

“But, like, I’m sixteen, so that’s probably normal, right?” I say, faux-casual. “I mean, getting into a fight with someone isn’t that big of a deal. Although apparently my parents disagree, because they sent me here instead of grounding me like normal people.”

“Do you think you shouldn’t be here?” She doesn’t seem insulted, which is strangely a relief.

“I don’t know. I mean, I know I shouldn’t have hit him,” I admit.

“It sounds like it’s not just about that,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I’m feeling unsettled all of a sudden. Nervous. Like some sort of bomb is about to be dropped.

“When your parents spoke to me about you”—the pitying look is back and I hate it—“they mentioned that you’ve been behaving differently over the past few months. That you’ve been having mood swings.”

“They told you that?” I ask.

“Yes. And based on what you just described, it sounds like they hit close to the mark.”

“Uh yeah, I guess. I didn’t realize that they’d, you know, picked up on that,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck and looking away. “But I mean, everyone has mood swings sometimes, right?”

“True. But your parents seemed to think it was out of character for you. They’re worried that it might be an indication of something more serious.”

“What do you mean ‘more serious’?” I ask. Oh god, I’ve done it. I’ve given her reason to think that I’m totally insane and now she’s going to send me to some kind of special school for boys who can’t control their tempers.