The fact that therapy has been the most exciting part of my weekend so far makes me feel really pathetic. Most of the time I just tell Dr. Bright about my week, do some “mindfulness” exercises, and then she gives me some stuff to think about for next time. That’s it. Pretty standard stuff for a pretty nonstandard Problem. But when she asks me how I’m doing today, I find myself cracking and finally telling her about Adam.

“He just sort of … drowns everything else out.” I shrug, knowing that that barely encapsulates the way his feelings get into every corner of my brain.

“Isn’t that preferable to feeling what everyone in the class feels?” Dr. Bright asks. “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“No, of course I’m not happy about it, that’s literally the point,” I snap. “I can’t be happy, because he’s so miserable.”

“Do you know why he’s sad?” she asks calmly, and instead of being grateful for her steady emotions today, I’m just annoyed.

“No, how the fuck would I know that, I’m not a mind reader! Look, I just—I just know that he’s sad.”

I wince at the tiny drop of pity I feel from her. I don’t know if it’s for me or for Adam, but it makes me grind my teeth. I’m jabbing at her for no reason and I hate myself for it.

“Does Adam’s sadness have a special color to it?” she asks. “Is he sad over his grades? His family?”

“Like I said, I’m not a mind reader. But I mean, I don’t know, it’s pretty general. He’s lonely, I guess,” I admit. I think about all the times I’ve noticed Adam over the past few months and how few of those times involved him talking to another person. “Yeah, he feels alone. He doesn’t have a lot of friends, so I guess that makes sense. Actually I don’t think he has, like, any friends … so.”

“Perhaps that’s why you only feel him when he’s around,” Dr. Bright suggests. “His loneliness isolates you from feeling anything else.”

“Yeah, maybe. I mean—look, people are sad and lonely all the time, it’s high school. He’s just—he’s just different for some reason,” I finish, really hoping we can move on from this topic. Thinking about it is like poking at a bruise.

“Earlier you said you made something worse this week,” she reminds me. “Did that have to do with Adam?”

“Yeah, it did,” I admit softly. The bruise feels like it’s being punched now.

“What happened?” she asks.

I tell her about the class presentations and Bryce being a dick and then me being a dick, and through it all she just nods and nods and I just feel worse and worse.