The Perks of Being A Wallflower

I don't know if I will have the time to write any more letters because I might be too busy trying to participate. So if this does end up being the last letter, I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school, and you helped me. Even if you didn't know what I was talking about or know someone who's gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don't happen. And there are people who forget what it's like to be 16 when they turn 17. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening. I am here and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are infinite.

A Prodigal Son

Why is it your school? Why am I always in the wrong? Why do I have to listen to you when you have zero to say? Because I'm young? All my life I've been young. So I never get a turn? This school is lost, if you ask me. You're lost. But everybody talks to me like I'm the one. You know, I should change. Why should I change? I've never even gotten to find out who I am and you want me to change? That's crazy! You tell me I'm bad before I even get to be anything. What the hell is that? Original sin or something. I’ve read Plato. I read him on a park bench in the Bronx and let me tell you something. Plato, he wasn't afraid. Diogenes, he wasn't afraid. Socrates, he wasn't afraid of anything. They were men. Why are you the headmaster and I'm the student? Do you understand? I have to earn your respect but you don't have to earn mine? What is that? It's you that wants the A before you even start. But when I say the same thing, I’m nuts, right? I’m not gonna cry. I’m gonna find my place in this world, count on it. And this school has been a miracle for me, but not because of you, because somebody, Mr Hoffman, finally saw me. And more than that, somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good. And you wanna throw me out of that? Then you know what I say? I’ve never met your God. And I don’t want to.

The Breakfast Club

It’s like me, you know, with my grades… like, when I, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I, when I look in at myself, you know? And I see me and I don’t like what I see, I really don’t. ‘Cause I’m stupid… ‘cause I’m failing shop. See we had this assignment, to make this ceramic elephant, and um… and we had eight weeks to do it and we’re s’posed ta, and it was like a lamp, and when you pull the trunk the light was s’posed to go on… my light didn’t go on, I got a F on it.  Never got a F in my life… When I signed up, you know, for the course I mean.  I thought I was playing it real smart, you know. ‘Cause I thought, I’ll take shop, it’ll be such an easy way to maintain my grade point average… Have you seen some of the dopes that take shop? What do you care what I think, anyway? I don’t even count, right?  I could disappear forever and it wouldn’t make any difference… I may as well not even exist at this school, remember? And you… don’t like me anyway! God, you’re so pathetic! Don’t you ever… ever! Compare yourself to me!  Okay? You got everything, and I got nothing, right? School would probably shut down if you didn’t show up! I like those earrings Claire. Are those real diamonds, Claire? I bet they are… did you work, for the money for those earrings? Or did your daddy buy those?I bet he bought those for you!  I bet those are a Christmas gift! Right?  You know what I got for Christmas this year?  It was a banner year at the old Bender family! I got a carton of cigarettes.  The old man grabbed me and said “Hey! Smoke up Johnny!” Okay, so go home’n cry to your daddy, don’t cry here, okay?

Turtles all the way down

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve said that. But you know what I mean. Like, what are my parent’s names? What are their jobs? When was the last time you were at my apartment - five years ago? We’re supposed to be best friends Aza and you don’t even know if I have any pets! You have no idea what it’s like for me, and you’re so, like, pathologically uncurious that you don’t even know what you don’t know. You just have no clue. It’s all so easy for you. I mean, you think you and your mom are poor or whatever but you got braces. You got a car and a laptop and all that, and you think it’s natural. You think it’s just normal to have a house with your own room and a mom who helps you with your housework. You don’t think you’re privileged, but you have everything. You don’t know what it’s like for me, and you don’t ask. I share a room with my annoying eight-year-old sister whose name you don’t know and then you judge me for buying a car instead of saving it all for college, but you don’t know. You want me to be some selfless, proper heroine who’s too good for money, but that’s nonsense Aza. Being poor doesn’t purify you or whatever the heck. It just sucks. You don’t know my life. You haven’t taken the time to find out, and you don’t get to judge me. You think it’s hard for you and I’m sure it is from inside your head, but… you can’t get it, because your privileges are just oxygen to you. I thought the money, I thought it would make us the same. I’ve always been trying to keep up with you, trying to type as fast on my phone as you can on your laptop and I thought it would make us closer, but it just made me feel… like you're spoiled, kinda. Like, you’ve had this all along, and you can’t even know how much easier it makes everything, because you don’t ever think about anybody else’s life.

Ginny and Georgia

Some feelings are like old familiar friends. Depression’s like that for me. When I’m not in it I don’t remember it. I remember it’s bad. I remember the darkness, but it’s… different to feel it again. It’s the difference between remembering what a room looks like and actually walking through the door. Being inside it again, feeling it. When the episode starts, it can be slow at first. An intrusive thought. “I don’t wanna be here” but then it’s gone. You bat it away like a fly or a bad smell. When it hits you fully though, when you’re finally in it, it’s everything. It’s who you are, you’re nothing else. On the outside you look the same, smiling and pretending is so much work, but inside, it’s a different story. You start to hate yourself. You’re so alone, so unbelievably alone. And you can be with someone you love but you’re not really with them. We think we know what’s going on with other people but we don’t. You never really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head. Everyone is fighting a battle you can’t see. We all have blind spots. And you know it’s you, and it’s also exhausting. So goddamn awful and exhausting and it’s helpless. It’s a void and existing takes so much energy, you wanna sink into a hole or into nothingness where no one talks to you and you don’t have to smile or talk or…be. Anyway it’s familiar. I’ve been here before, gotten out of it before, but the getting out part becomes the room that you remember but aren’t in. And that’s what’s scary.

The Fault In Our Stars 1

Dear Mr. Van Houten

"I'm a good person but a horrid writer. You're a horrid person but a good writer. We'd make a good team. I don't want to ask you for any favours, but if you have time - and from what I saw, you have plenty - I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I've got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars.  (Okay maybe I'm not such a horrid writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.)  Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we are not likely to do either. People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten it's triumphant. It's heroic. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I walked in behind the nurse and got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die before I could tell her that I was going to die, too. I just held her hand and tried to imagine a world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her. You don't get to choose the ones you hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

10 Things I Hate About You

I hate the way you talk to me. And the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car; I hate it when you stare. I hate your big, dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick,  It even makes me rhyme. I hate it– I hate it when you’re always right, I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly, I hate the way I don’t hate you, Not even close, Not even a little bit, Not even at all.

Looking For Alaska

“Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the already-dead, so I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life. And then I messed up and The Colonel messed up and Takumi messed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there’s no sugar-coating it: she deserved better friends.

When she messed up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe in it in spite of having lost her.

I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of the smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think, that maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled.

But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska’s genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirely. There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed.

Although no one will ever accuse me of being a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself - those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible,” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born and we cannot die. Like all energy we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

So I know she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison’s last words were, “It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I know it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.”

The Fault In Our Stars 2

My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won't be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because like all real love stories, it will die with us. As it should. I'd hoped that he'd be eulogizing me, because there is no one I'd rather have. I can't talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this. There is an infinite between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many days of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.

Class Action

My name is Dennis Gandleman. Around this school I am the object of ridicule from most of the students, simply because I have an extremely high IQ. It’s 176. My father wanted me to enroll in a special school that deals with geniuses like myself, but Mother was firmly against that. She wanted me to have a normal education, and not be treated as some kind of freak…which is ironic, because that’s exactly what is happening to me here. The whole concept of education is a paradox: High school is supposed to celebrate education and knowledge, but what it really celebrates is social groups and popularity. In a perfect world, a kid like me would be worshiped because of my scholastic abilities, instead of someone who can throw a forty-yard touchdown pass. I suppose I could complain, and bemoan the unfairness of it all. But I am bright. I know something that the others don’t…that, once we leave high school and enter the real world, all the rules change. What matters is power. Financial power. Power that comes from making a fortune on cutting-edge computer software. Software that I am already developing. (Pause) Some call me a nerd. I call myself…ahead of my time. See you on the outside.

Fences

I live here too! I ain’t scared of you. I was walking by you to go into the house cause you sitting on the steps drunk, singing to yourself. I ain’t got to say excuse me to you. You don’t count around here any more. Now why don’t you just get out my way. You talking about what you did for me… What’d you ever give me? You ain’t never gave me nothing. You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you. All you ever did was try and make me scared of you. I used to tremble every time you called my name. Every time I heard your footsteps in the house. Wondering all the time… what’s Papa gonna say if I do this? What’s he gonna say if I do that? What’s he gonna say if I turn on the radio? And Mama, too…she tries…but she’s scared of you. I don’t know how she stand you…after what you did to her. What you gonna do…give me a whupping? You can’t whup me no more. You’re too old. You’re just an old man. You crazy. You know that? You just a crazy old man…talking about I got the devil in me. Come on…put me out. I ain’t scared of you. Come on! Come on, put me out. What’s the matter? You so bad… Put me out! Come on! Come on!

Stargirl

I don’t know why I do a lot of things lately. I bet you find that too, right? And it’s because we don’t think. We just do. We don’t take a step back and process. Everything’s so instant these days. How can we? Dinner in minutes. A thousand photographs in one burst. You have to “like” something this second. You have to know how you feel about everything. You can’t be unsure or confused or change your mind. There’s no time to figure out who you are. You have to know right now.

Have you ever seen a flower grow? I mean, of course not. It’s nearly impossible to wait for anything that takes that long. But if you did, it would change you. It would slow you down. It would remind you that real things take time. And it’s magic, too, isn’t it? I mean so are 1,000 photographs in one burst. But a flower. You plant a seed in the ground and a whole world develops and stretches out and opens up. It’s easy to get confused when we’re moving so fast and to think we’re doing the right thing when really we’re not. But if we’re lucky we could find a balance. We could take a step back. We could take a breath. The next time that you see a flower sticking up out of the ground or in a vase, just remember that part of what makes it beautiful is how long it took to grow.

Princess Diaries

Hi, um…hello. I'm Mia. I'm really no good at speech-making. Normally I get so nervous that I faint or run away, or sometimes I even get sick. But you really didn't need to know that.… But I'm not so afraid anymore. No, my father helped me. Earlier this evening, I had every intention of giving up my claim to the throne and my mother helped me by telling me that it was okay and by supporting me like she has for my entire life. But then I wondered how I'd feel after abdicating my role as Princess of Genovia. Would I feel relieved, or would I feel sad? And then I realized how many stupid times a day I use the word 'I.' And probably all I ever do is think about myself.… Sorry, I'm going too fast. But then I thought, if I cared about the other seven billion people out there, instead of just me, that's probably a much better use of my time. See, if I were Princess of Genovia, then my thoughts and the thoughts of people smarter than me would be much better heard, and just maybe those thoughts could be turned into actions. So this morning when I woke up, I was Mia Thermopolis. But now I choose to be forevermore, Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia.

Everything Will Be Different

I am so resolved. I am so ready. There is a world and I will see it. And you won’t stop me. I will have adventures. I will be like an explorer. I will make new friends. I will fall in love. I will be like Christopher Colombus or Francis Drake or like Magellan or whatever. Because there is a world and I am determined. And when I come back? If I come back? No one will recognize me. I will be like a movie star or like a famous person and no one will recognize me and I will see through everyone. I will see through everyone. Even you. I will look right through you and you will look at me, and you’ll think to yourself who the hell is that and I will just smile at you. I’ll just smile and I’ll mumble something like profound or something really famous like like what someone famous would say because that’s who I’ll be because I’ll know a lot more, I’ll know a hell of a lot more when I come back. Or maybe I’ll just say “Screw you” because I can see through you. Screw you. Under my breath. To the wall. To the goddamn wall. I’ll see through you to the goddamn wall and you won’t even know that you’re nothing to me. And I’ll say screw you and you’ll think Is she talking to me? And you won’t even know. You are a ghost to me. And I don’t care. Everyone is a goddamn ghost. Everyone. And I’m the only one. I’m the only one who means more than you or anyone else.

One Way Conversation

You don’t understand, you don’t ever hear what I’m trying to say to you. It’s always a one-way conversation. First, you come at me and complain about all the things you think I’m not doing and you do this to get me angry because you think by getting me angry it’s going to somehow make me work harder for what I want in my life and you’re wrong. I’m sorry, but you’re so wrong. That’s not the way to help me move forward. It’s not. Can’t you ever just be my friend and support me by giving me encouragement? Do you have any idea how impossible what I’m going after already is? Do you? it’s so damn hard and I can use some kindness… just some; you’re my mother, you know, I—all I ask is that you stop trying to get so damn strategy-oriented with me and instead work with me, give me sound advice, if you have any, ’cause coming down on me doesn’t help. I’m not asking you to hand-feed me, but be there for me the way I need you to be…there.… You happy? Now you know what’s bothering me.

Can't Hardly Wait

Oh my God. Listen to you: “I ain’t no phony.” Hey, you know what? There’s a mirror up there. Take a look — you‘re white. Anyway, why do you care what I think of you? You haven’t spoken to me since sixth grade. I know exactly who you are. You’re Kenny Fisher who used to play “Bionic Man” with me in my basement. You’re Kenny Fisher who used to sleep over my house and needed to leave the hall light on all night. You‘re Kenny Fisher who used to buy me a card every Valentine‘s Day and a bag of those chalky hearts with the little words on them. And you’re Kenny Fisher who suddenly became too cool to hang with me once we hit junior high. Because I had glasses, because I was smart, and because I didn’t look good in those skimpy little bodysuit tops all the popular girls were wearing. And anyone who can ditch their best friend like that, in my opinion, is a big phony.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

They bought it. Incredible! One of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second. How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this? This is my ninth sick day this semester. It's getting pretty tough coming up with new illnesses. If I go for ten, I'm probably gonna have to barf up a lung, so I'd better make this one count. The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom. I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh, you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. I do have a test today. It's on European socialism. I mean really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European so who gives a damn if they're socialists. They could be fascist anarchists and it still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car. It's not that I condone fascism or any 'ism' for that matter. Ism's, in my opinion, are not good. A person should not believe in an'ism,' he should believe in himself. I quote John Lesson: 'I don't believe in the Beatles. I just believe in me.' A good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off of people.

The Puffs

I never wanted to be a Puff. Every member of my family? Puffs. We’re like THE Puff family. But I’ve always known that I was different. There’s nothing even special about Puffs. Loyalty? Being really nice? A bunch of lame, awful failures doomed to be stupid walking personality-less nobodies that no one will ever care about ever? Ugh. My mom was a Puff. But she was different. She became something bigger. She made the name Jones finally mean something other than a bunch of . . . Puffs. I thought . . . I knew . . . I would be different too. But . . . after all my hard work to make myself not a Puff, what do you know? The hat puts me with the Puffs. I did everything. I mean, I even changed my accent just so I wouldn’t sound like my Puff family. (Beat) Sorry to bring the mood down. Sorry to make things so . . . Serious. I feel the need to hug. Don’t tell anyone.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Blue,

I’ve been writing and deleting and rewriting this email all weekend, and I still can’t get it right. But I’m going to do this. So here we go.

I know I haven’t written in a while. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.

So, first I want to say this: I know who you are. I mean, I still don’t know your name, or what you look like, or all the other stuff. But you have to understand that I really do know you. I know that you’re smart and careful and weird and funny. And you notice things and listen to things, but not in a nosy way. In a real way. You overthink things and remember details and you always, always say the right thing. And I think I like that we got to know each other from the inside out.

So, it occurred to me that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about you and rereading your emails and trying to make you laugh. BUt I’ve been spending very little time spelling things out for you and taking chances and putting my heart on the line.

Obviously, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, but what I’m trying to say is that I like you. I more than like you. When I flirt with you, it’s not a joke and when I say I want to know you, it’s not just because I’m curious. I’m not going to pretend I know how this ends and I don’t have a freaking clue if it’s possible to fall in love over email. But I would really like to meet you Blue. I want to try this.

Just wanted to make that perfectly clear.

So, what I’m trying to say is that there’s an extremely insane carnival in the parking lot of Perimeter Mall today, and it’s apparently open until nine.

For what it’s worth, I’ll be there at six thirty. And I hope to see you.

Love,

Simon

Nobody In Particular (book

Rosemary, female, ~17

You've got me. You’re not going to lose me. Not as long as you're on this earth. There's nowhere they can send you that I won't follow. You ... how can I even explain how much you mean to me? You've redefined what happiness is. Each night, I climb into bed excited because when I wake, I get to live another day knowing you. And I know I let you get hurt last night, but I swear right here and right now that will never happen again. I won't allow it, because watching you in pain is a thousand times worse than bearing it myself, and I simply don't care what gets thrown at me anymore. The only thing that matters is you, Danni. I wanted to become a better person, but you make me good. I don't think I realized it before, but I do now. I need you, and I need the version of me I become when I'm with you. If I lose you, I lose me, and I will fight for you until I'm broken and bloodied if that's what it takes. I love you. I'm in love with Danni Blythe. I will always be in love with Danni Blythe. Make it the front-page news for all I bloody care.

You've Reached Sam

Hey - so, I’m not sure if I should do this… or if it will even work. I probably should have said this to you over the phone, but we ran out of time. Or maybe, the truth is, I was scared you would think of me differently. That is, if you knew why I picked up the phone that first time. Before we hung up, you said something that made me feel a bit guilty. You said I picked up your call that night because you needed me. I guess part of that is true. But that isn’t the reason I answered. The truth is… I picked up because, because I needed you. I needed to hear your voice again, Julie. Because I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget me. You see, I took you to all those places - like the fields, to see the stars that night - so that you’d always remember. So that whenever you looked up at the sky at night, you’d think of me. Because I didn’t want to let you go yet. I never wanted to say good-bye, Jules. And I never wanted you to either. That’s why I stayed as long as I could. So don’t blame yourself for anything. It was me that was keeping you from your life. Maybe it was a bit selfish of me. But I was just so scared you’d forget. I realise now I made it a lot harder for you to move on. And I hope you forgive me for that. Remember back in the fields, when I asked what you wanted… if you could have anything? Well, I want those things too, Jules. I want to be there with you. I want to graduate with you guys. I want to move out of Ellensburg and live with you and grow old together. But I can’t. But you still can. You can still have all those things, Julie. Because you deserve them. And you deserve to fall in love a dozen times, because you are kind and beautiful and who wouldn’t want to fall in love with you? You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me. And when I think about my life, I think of you in it. You are my entire world, Julie. And one day, maybe I’ll only be a small piece of yours. I hope you keep that piece.