Page 95 of Spring Awakening

“Why do you want to sound profound?” he asks.

Zach shrugs. “I think I’d be better in therapy if I had any idea what the thoughts in my head sound like.”

“No one goes into therapy knowing what to say,” Theodore replies. “It would be awfully boring if they did. Tell me, what does your brain sound like?”

Zach laughs a little, stroking his jaw. His facial hair longer than he likes to have it. “A lot like Mali.”

“Tell me about that.”

“I sound like me, but with more adverbs. I used to get so bored being in my own head. Now it’s like I’m writing fucking poetry every time I have a thought about going to the shops. There’s no ‘I need tuna,’ it’s all, ‘I literally need tuna right now or I’ll die, for real.’”

“And that brings you joy?”

“Yeah. Dunno if it’s weird.”

Theodore shrugs. “Whenever I write lists, I say the words in my head in my wife’s voice. Why would it be weird to hear a loved one when they’re not around? Is it not romantic to take parts of you partner and turn them into something you can use when they’re not there?”

“Never thought about it like that,” he mumbles. He wonders if Mali thinks anything in his voice.

As if Theodore knows he’s eager to know, he says, “Mali says ‘innit.’”

Zach frowns. “What?”

Teddy smiles as he crosses his legs at the ankle. “Mali uses the word ‘innit’ on a regular basis. She didn’t say it when she started working here—it started when you moved in together. She doesn’t use it particularly well, but she uses it all the same.”

Zach smiles, and then, as if he’s forgotten he’s in therapy, Theodore drops a bomb on him.

“Who do you hurt?”

“Why you gotta trick me,” Zach says, with a laugh. Theo always gives him a little while longer, in case he wants to say something else. Zach thinks that’s enough admission for a lifetime, but he probably won’t get away with it.

Zach stretches his legs. He thinks about it. Who does he hurt?

“Mali, and my brother.”

“How do you hurt Mali?”

“I’m hurting her now, by leaving.”

“It’s not your fault you have to leave.”

“It hurts her anyway.”

“And how else?”

Zach frowns. “That’s everything.”

“So, you don’t hurt her all the time, or purposefully. You hurt her once, or you are going to hurt her once. Let’s say, for arguments’ sake, she was in pain once, as opposed to you continually hurting her. Would you say that’s correct?”

“Er, yeah.”

“Okay.” He makes a note in his pad. “And what about Devon?”

Zach thinks about it. “It’s more he thinks I hurt him, which still counts, I guess. I think I hurt him too, I just can’t not hurt him. If I give him money, he’ll get in trouble, and he’ll be hurt. And if I don’t, he’s hurt that I don’t love him.”

“And do you? Love him?”

Zach thinks about it again. “Yeah, but I don’t like him.”

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