September 4th of Senior Year

Dr. Sherman's office smelled like Thai food.

I don't know why. Maybe it was that box poking out of the trash, buried under all those crumpled tissues. I assumed they were from the patient before me.

The tissues, not the Thai food. Or, I assume not. The last patient wouldn't have brought food. Patients never bring food. That's not a thing that people do in therapy, is it? Eat with your therapist?

This wasn't what I was supposed to be thinking about.

Anyway, it smelled like those spicy noodles with those vegetables I can't quite remember the name of right now. I'm pretty sure it was Thai food and not, like, Chinese or Vietnamese because the wording on the box looked like the instant Trader Joe's Thai noodle boxes—you know, for those people who're just a little bit too good for instant ramen, but just as pressed for time?

I knew I was supposed to be doing something else. I was supposed to watch my therapist. Listen. Engage. I wanted to. But I couldn't. Not as much as I should have. Not when I kept smelling it across the room.

At least I wasn't smelling my own sweat this time. I'm pretty sure I was sweating. because he kept looking like he expected me to say something.

When that clearly wasn't doing anything thanks to the trash can, he tried talking, instead. "Evan?" Unlike me, he'd technically succeeded in talking.

Dr. Sherman's pen tapped against his clipboard in time with a measured, intentionally patient patient prodding, like he'd done this a million times, probably because he had. He looked pretty much exactly the way that you'd expect for a therapist to look when you call someone a therapist, or possibly a college professor. Mister Rodgers sweater, big glasses, that sort of thing. Except he had what I think I'd heard one of his other patients in the waiting room call Bob Ross hair, once.

"It's okay. We're here to talk, or to not talk, about whatever you do or don't want to talk about. Whatever you're comfortable with," was what Dr. Sherman said. What he meant, he was never going to say. He was paid not to.

I, with my usual insight, forced out a sentence. Or, it was supposed to be a sentence. What it actually ended up as was "…Yeah. It's. I know that's, how. Yeah."

I folded further over myself, slouching into the fraying, beige and gray splotched couch of his office. My right hand pulled at the bottom of my shirt. The trash can was staring back at me. It was easier watching garbage than it was Dr. Sherman. The trash can wasn't there to figure out what was wrong with me, when, maybe, it would've been a harder question to ask what was right.

"Did you remember to bring one of your motivational letters, today? I'd like to see one," he asked through that same measured, patient, probably rehearsed kind of tone. "It might seem silly, but, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to change the way you're thinking about things. Give yourself a new perspective?"

In a way, he was sort of right. Writing that letter to myself earlier today in the computer lab had given me a new perspective on the floor. And it was going to keep giving, new, terrible perspectives on how much of a horrible, freakish, broken bother I was to everyone around me whenever they stopped to recognize I was alive. Except, that isn't the sort of thing that you get to say to a therapist, so, instead, I'd said "Yeah, no, I. I've, I wrote one," which, while technically true, was also wrong enough not to impose.

I must've paused a little too long, because Dr. Sherman tapped his pen again. He made a quick scribble I couldn't recognize as he spoke. "If it's easier, you don't have to talk about it, yet. I can read—"

I didn't know what I was saying when the chain of "No, no, no—" first spurted out of me. I shook my head in a twitch, my shoulders scrunching up to my ears in the effort to maybe, potentially figure out a way to merge with the couch entirely, if only because that'd mean not being a disappointment for that, too. "I mean obviously you can read, you're. That's not. You're literate. Literally. Literally literate. That's not—" I choked on my breath, mangled non-words stammering into nothing but a gulp of dread.

Whatever I said to Dr. Sherman, it usually got back to mom. It wasn't supposed to, he said, but he probably told her that, too. Besides, if I talked about Connor Murphy, and Connor stealing my letter after picking a fight, that meant talking about why the letter would upset Connor, which meant talking about Zoe, and what right in the world did I have to bring Zoe Murphy, a girl with no reason to know me now and every reason to never know me, into any of this? So, I paused. I paused, clutched my arm, and I stalled until I could think of something, anything, else.

"You said ninety percent of conversation—" I wrung the bottom of my shirt even tighter through the stammer, collapsing at what was maybe at least a forty degree angle. "Communication. Ninety percent of communication is non-verbal, right? The stuff you say while you're saying it? So it's better, if I read it, with the, saying the things I mean to say?"

All I'd heard as validation from Dr. Sherman was a mildly perplexed "yes," clearly as confused by what I'd settled on as I was. He even tucked his pen into the top of his clipboard. "If that's what you'd prefer, of course. I'd love to hear you say what you wrote, Evan."

There'd probably been a better excuse I could've come up with.

Shit.

"Would you like to get the letter out, Evan?" Dr. Sherman asked over again, because I was sitting there all scrunched up instead of taking out a letter I, supposedly, had. "Whenever you're ready?"

I let go of the shirt, let in a breath, and let out nothing but a stammered. "Yeah. …great. I, here."

I leaned further over and flipped through my backpack—through the books, notebooks, textbooks and one leftover guide to state park regulations that I really had no reason to have with me right now—as if any of them were going to help me. Dr. Sherman's magnified, dark eyes stuck at the back of my neck, expectant.

I took out a spiral notebook, one of the fresh ones, from a class I wouldn't have until Tuesday so there was nothing in it yet, and clutched it, instead. The paper crinkled, rustling under the internal earthquake that was me existing here, now, under a microscope of someone professionally paid to pick you apart.

Maybe there was a better way to put that. Except I couldn't tell, because I was barely capable of holding the paper. I raised my other arm to gently stabilize the notebook against the cast, if only so I could look down at the blank lines and try to somehow picture what would have been there, if I'd found the words the first time.

"Dear Evan Hansen, today is going to be a good day because. Because, it's the first day of school, so, there's, lots of—" I shook my head as rapidly as possible, flinched at the speed I'd moved at, and focused on the grain of the faux wood tiles instead of whatever was coming out of my mouth. "—Lots of people and stuff and new textbooks, before anyone puts those stretchy covers on so, then, later, you can make them, if you want. Or not. And, there's English. Class. Or, the language, which you speak at people."

I would've kept going, probably, had Dr. Sherman not cut me off with another "…Evan?"

I snapped my head upright and flopped backwards into the couch cushions. My arm wrapped around the notebook. "I'm not, with—"

Any effort to defend myself was cut off with Dr. Sherman's deep breath. He'd say he was breathing, but it was a sigh. A pitying sigh. It was the kind of patience people used not because they were actually, genuinely patient, but because they knew there was something seriously wrong with the person they were speaking to. "It's okay to say you didn't finish your letter. I know, it's hard. If it wasn't going to be a challenge, I wouldn't have asked you to try it."

"But, I did. I…"

"There's nothing on that paper, Evan," Dr. Sherman pointed towards the notebook.

"I did. It's not." I wrapped my arm around it tighter, or, at least, as tight as having one functional arm would allow. The pages crinkled against the cast, shaking along with the rest of me. "You see, I left it, in the other bag, in the lab. My other, at, at the printer class place…"

"At school?"

"Yeah! Yes. School. There being," I should have let go of the notebook. Instead, I clutched it tighter. "You see, I got. There was a distraction. I did. I had it. Letters. Letter. Singular letter. It just, I got a call from my mom, and we were talking, and walking, and I forgot to, on the way. I can mail it to you tomorrow, once—when I'm back there? At school? Where. Where the printer is?"

Dr. Sherman didn't move while I was talking. All he did was pick his pen right back up, click it, and scribble as he spoke. "It's okay, Evan. Let's focus on something else. Anything you want." It was the nice way of saying I'd failed. Again.

What kind of person went to a therapist, and couldn't stop examining the repeating faux wood grain or a literal pile of garbage on the other side of the room, because they knew how much of a bother it would be to be honest when there was no real way to fix it? In my head, I could see it all over again—this afternoon in the computer lab, with Connor Murphy, in my face, shouting that I was a freak.

I must've been staring off for a while, because, the next thing I new, Dr. Sherman had cleared his throat to ask as loud as he could while still technically counting as conversational. "Well, then. I'll try. Who's Connor?"

A throb of adrenaline sent my pulse through my ears. I snapped upright in disbelief I'd even heard that. "What? Who? He, who?"

"The name? It's written there, on your arm." Dr. Sherman pointed downwards, his eyes following the same path. I drooped down to spot what he was talking about. He smiled positively—not fake encouraging, but actual, blatantly misinterpreting positivity, which made my stomach twist all the more. "Is he a friend of yours?"

I twitched my head, shaking my hair and crinkling my nose through the shudder of a "…Yeah?"

At least, Dr. Sherman hadn't seemed to notice the doubt part, because he kept on going with what he'd wanted to hear, instead. "That's great, that you're able to see someone. See, that's exactly the sort of thing I want you to focus on when you do your next letter. Today's going to be a good day, because I'm going to see my friend Connor. Does that make sense?"

I nodded, in part because I could, and mostly because if I'd tried to open my mouth with all the nerves I had a feeling I was going to make sounds not meant to come out of a human. Dr. Sherman made another note with his pen, still smiling, and skipped right along to the next item on his mental mental patient checklist. "Good. So, how have you been feeling, lately?"

Like that wasn't a question I should answer.

Instead, I'd said, "Fine," and then corrected it to "Well," in the sense of stalling for time, and added "Well?" again, meaning it in the healthy way, not that he could tell the difference. Thankfully, he also hadn't noticed.

"Compared to last month, better, then? The new dose is a little more comfortable?" Dr. Sherman looked towards his wrist as he was speaking, checking the time on his watch.

I'd started off nodding my head, and had continued to do so for a good ten seconds, followed up with another pretty horrible twenty five seconds, then stopped. Naturally, that was when he started to look back, and I could barely piece together a babble that I thought sounded anywhere close to convincing. "Yeah. I think. I know? I think I know. I don't, know I'd know if I wasn't, though, you," I pressed my right palm down against my thigh, wiping my hand off over and over. "I'm sorry. That's not."

"Don't worry about me, Evan, I have nothing to do with this. We're here for you. I'll put in a refill for the Klonopin," Dr. Sherman sounded as if he was agreeing, except he hadn't asked a question this time, so it was more that he'd decided for himself and I was just kind of there watching blankly with a crumpled notebook, and soggy hands, and a black hole where my gut was supposed to be. "I'll see you next week? With a letter, this time, I hope?"

"Yeah. I," I bobbed my head so rapidly, it sounded as if I'd stuttered even when, for, once, I was pretty sure I hadn't. "I promise."

I already knew I was going to regret that.