Excerpt from Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It's like that song "Too Alive" by the Breeders. I feel every little thing, way more than regular people do.

"So, how are you doing today?" Susan asks too cheerily, like a hostess at Olive Garden or something. "Where are you on the scale we've been using?"

(I feel so deeply it agonizes me.)

"I'm okay. I guess on the scale I'm probably 'pretty dang bad,' but better than yesterday and still not 'scary bad.' "

(Now, probably to the soundtrack of Belle and Sebastian's "Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying," there's a longish montage of me zoning out, imagining the lives of everyone I know. Even in my dreams, it's so easy and fun for them to exist.)

"Are you still taking the art class?"

"Yeah. Every Tuesday."

"That's wonderful. And how are you liking it?"

"It's fine. Sort of boring, but ... I guess it takes my mind off things."

"Do you want to talk about what's on your mind the other times?"

"Um, not really," I chuckle, in my best joking-­with-­adults voice. The AC churns menacingly, like it always does, taunting me. Susan, with her wrinkled white cleavage, unmoving and unrelenting. Susan doesn't play.

I think about grabbing a Werther's from the crystal bowl but don't, even though I want one. (Will Susan write Loudly sucks on Werther's in my file as soon as I leave, right next to Is probably fine; just being dramatic?)

"I guess just people at school. Why I'm so different."

"Can you say a little more about that? What are the things that make you feel so different?"

"I don't know." My chest is welling up with everything I've been trying to stuff into my mind's closet. "I can't get happy."

It happened only three weeks ago, but since my "episode," no one in my family has uttered the word suicidal. It's easier not to.

I glance down at my Chucks, trying to divert my eyes from Susan. Stare at a lamp, the books stacked on her shelves. I spot a spine that reads Healing, Recovery, and Growth, and immediately feel ridiculous. Sweat pools in my bra. This isn't gonna work.

"Morgan, why are you so angry with yourself?"

I clench my jaw. "I'm not!" This is a lie, but it hasn't always been. "I'm annoyed," I admit, sighing, "and embarrassed."

"Why are you embarrassed?"

"Just—­I don't know ... ," I whine. Words begin to spill and spew from my lungs like a power ballad. "Like, why am I the only one I know who has to go to a shrink? How did I become the crazy one? I have to be the first one in the history of our family and our school to go to therapy?" I bristle. "I'm pissed I can't just get over stuff the way everyone else seems to."

I purse my lips resolutely and fold my arms tight against my boobs. Your ball, Susan. She just nods and squints like she has no clue what to do with me.

I've asked God and Jesus and all their other relatives to "wash away my sins," but it doesn't feel like Jesus is living inside me—­I can't even imagine what that would feel like. I'm so full up with me, me, stupid me.

"Mmm ... ," she finally grunts. "I see."

Fighting the near-­constant urge to roll my eyes all the way to the back of my skull, I snatch up and devour a Werther's.

Excerpted from Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker. Copyright © 2019 by Morgan Parker. Excerpted by permission of Delacorte Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.