Free Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Page A

us to take a good look at the way we talk, at the way we express ourselves. Let’s call it change with a small ‘c.’ It’s only for a week. Let’s try it.”
    So I was okay not using the F- word in group. It wasn’t going to kill me. I could think it. I didn’t have to say it. I could use another word. Andit wasn’t as if I said that much in group. But I did like to say things like That really stuns me out and that tears me up or I’m really wigging out right now. So I was on contract about using those expressions for a week. Big deal. I’d use them in my head.
    No one can put you on contract for the things you keep in your head.
    But I’m telling you, Sharkey was one pissed-off dude. After group I heard him tell Adam that he wanted to change therapists. Adam wasn’t all that shaken up about it from what I could tell. He kinda smiled at Sharkey and said, “Sorry, buddy, but we’re kind of stuck with each other for now.”
    “I’m serious,” Sharkey said.
    “Okay,” Adam said, “we’ll talk about it.”
    Sharkey, he was just letting off steam. He gets himself all worked up. See, I get Sharkey. He gets all worked up and gets all verbal. I’m like that but different. I get all worked up and get all anxious. Maybe I get verbal too. Only I get verbal in my head. You know, that internal life Adam talks about.
    The next day, Adam came back to the whole idea of words and how we use them. He says it wasn’t a bad idea for all of us to engage our imaginations and come up with new words that expressed our internal lives—“our rich internal lives.” I wonder where he lifted that from. Mentally, I was going to put Adam on contract for that expression.
    That Adam, he was certainly an optimist. Look, I’d seen what having internal lives did to my mom and dad. Like I wanted that. He gave us all homework. We had to come up with a list of words that expressed what we felt. No cuss words were allowed on the list. He really pissed me off sometimes. I mean it. Sorry, I can’t say he pissed me off. I have to say, he really makes me angry. That’s a really boring way to say what I feel. I am not fucking boring. Okay, okay, sorry, sorry. No more of that F- word stuff. I’m on contract.
    And there’s another thing I’m on contract for. It has to do with that 85% thing. See, I have to bring that number down. Adam says I isolate. He is addicted to telling me that I spend too much time in my head. It’s an unhealthy behavior. Look, I don’t see how not bothering other people with your screwed-up vision of the world constitutes unhealthy behavior. Okay, so I hang out in my cabin a lot. What’s wrong with lying on your bed andthinking? Like that’s a crime. Look, I can do that for hours. See, this is the way I see it: I got this gerbil in my head. And he’s always running around up there, stirring things up. I named him Al. So Al, he and I, well, we have this thing going. He stirs things up and I hang out with all the things he stirs up.
    Adam thinks I need to shut Al down. Letting Al run wild in my head is not good for me. And he wants me to talk more in group. He calls it sharing. “Can you share more in group?” Look, if I wanted to share more, I would. That’s the deal. You know, it isn’t as if Adam pushes me. Well, he does push me but in a very subtle kind of way. Well, maybe not all that subtle. He’s always trying to figure out some kind of game plan. That’s how I see him. He’s cool. He is. Mostly I like him. But not all the time.
    Sometimes, when I’m in Adam’s office, I study that picture he has of his kids. I guess I wonder what it would be like to have Adam as a father. I don’t think that I should think those things. Thinking about what kind of father Adam would be is an unhealthy behavior. That’s the way I see it. Adam. He even showed up in a dream I had. He was trying to talk to me but I couldn’t hear him. I kept trying to get him to talk louder. I could see his lips moving and his