Diana Peterfreund

I hadn__ gone to Andover, or Horace Mann or Eton. My high school had been the average kind, and I__ been the best student there. Such was not the case at Eli. Here, I was surrounded by geniuses. I__ figured out early in my college career that there were people like Jenny and Brandon and Lydia and Josh__ruly brilliant, truly luminous, whose names would appear in history books that my children and grandchildren would read, and there were people like George and Odile__ho through beauty and charm and personality would make the cult of celebrity their own. And then there were people like me. People who, through the arbitrary wisdom of the admissions office, might share space with the big shots for four years, might be their friends, their confidantes, their associates, their lovers__ut would live a life well below the global radar. I knew it, and over the years, I__ come to accept it.And I understood that it didn__ make them any better than me.

Because I know from experience that sometimes it's only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.

Sometimes you met someone that changed the pattern, who wormed their way past the cracks in your heart, caulked them up, sealed themselves in, and stayed there. Sometimes they did it by insisting you meet them at every step, as Jamie had done to me.

There was that word again.Mature. Was this what maturity was? Giving up on the things we wanted because we knew we__ never get them?

I have a question for you, but it__ kind of...um, personal._ __es, I__ gay._ __ou really are a fan of saying that, aren__ you?_ __nce you start, you just can__ stop.

There are a few things that even sarcasm can't protect you from.

Amazing how being bathed in arterial blood can wash out any lingering romantic disappointments.

No one is innocent in the tide of history. Everyone has kings and slaves in his past. Everyone has saints and sinners. We are not to blame for the actions of our ancestors. We can only try to be the best we can, no matter what our heritage, to strive for a better future for all.

I don't need to see the trail to know you're at the end of it. My grandfather's compass may not work, but mine is still true.

...You are my compass star." And he was hers.

P__amie!_ I called. He waded back toward me. ____ starting to think my name is Pajamie._ __our name should be Pajerky. You said it wasn__ deep._ __ajerky?_ He gave me a skeptical look. __hat__ Pathetic._ __e__l see how smug you are once I__ on dry land.

I can wait in silence no longer, but I__ afraid I__ already too late. I am trapped between agony and hope__elieving I have no right to speak, but knowing more how much I__ regret it if I did not. Tell me I__ not wrong. Tell me that, this time, you will accept my offer. Because I__ making it again. I want you with me, Elliot. It__ all I have ever wanted. I offer you everything I have__y world, my ship, my self__erhaps they will be enough to replace what I know you would be giving up if you came with me.

Sometimes it's only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.

This whole time, I wasn't waiting for something in particular. Just someone who wanted me.Not sex.But me.