The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

want to date you.” I don’t know why I said it, but it seemed right. Patrick just smiled cocky and said, “Of course.” Then, he peeled out down the road.

I stared at my reflection and the trees behind it for a long time. Not thinking anything. Not feeling anything. Not hearing the record. For hours. Something really is wrong with me. And I don’t know what it is.

But because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody.

“God, that kid is such a fucking freak,” I heard one of the boys whisper when I was halfway down the hall. He said it more factual than mean, and Susan didn’t correct him. I don’t know if I would have corrected him myself these days.

The thing that Brad yelled at Patrick. “Faggot!” Brad’s football buddies start laughing. A few tables got quiet as Patrick turned around. He was mad as hell. I’m not kidding. He stormed up to Brad’s table and said, “What did you call me?” God, he was mad. I’d never seen Patrick like that before. Brad sat quiet for a second, but his buddies kept egging him on by pushing his shoulders. Brad looked up at Patrick and said softer and meaner than the last time, “I called you a faggot.”

Brad said, “Tell him I’m sorry.” Sam replied, “Tell him yourself.”

We didn’t do anything other than kiss. And we didn’t even do that for very long. After a while, his eyes lost the glazey numb look from the wine or the coffee or the fact that he had stayed up the night before. Then, he started crying. Then, he started talking about Brad. And I just let him. Because that’s what friends are for.

And this time he didn’t try to kiss me like he had every night. He just thanked me for being his friend. And drove away.

“I would die for you. But I won’t live for you.” Something like that. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people.

but he just keeps asking me questions about when I was younger. The thing is I feel that I’m just repeating the same memories to him. I don’t know. He says it’s important. I guess we’ll have to see.

The song is called “I’m Going Home.” In the movie, Tim Curry, who plays the character, cries during that song. But Patrick was smiling. And it felt just right.

Then, he asked me about girls, and I told him how I really loved Sam, and how I wondered what the lady who wrote The Fountainhead would say about how I came to realize that I loved her.

Then, we were quiet for the rest of the song. She held me a little closer. I held her a little closer. And we kept dancing. It was the one time all day that I really wanted the clock to stop. And just be there for a long time.

So, I just watched her pack, and I tried to notice as many details as I possibly could. Her long hair and her thin wrists and her green eyes. I wanted to remember everything. Especially the sound of her voice.

“Charlie, don’t you get it? I can’t feel that. It’s sweet and everything, but it’s like you’re not even there sometimes. It’s great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn’t need a shoulder. What if they need the arms or something like that? You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things.” “Like what?” I asked. My mouth was dry. “I don’t know. Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want. Like on the dance floor, did you want to kiss me?” “Yeah,” I said. “Then, why didn’t you?”

It’s just that I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don’t like, I’ll tell them.”

But I wasn’t talking to Sam anymore. I was talking to someone else.

Except maybe my aunt Helen. But she’s gone. And even if she were here, I don’t think I could talk to her either. Because I’m starting to feel like what I dreamt about her last night was true. And my psychiatrist’s questions weren’t weird after all.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I know other people have it a lot worse. I do know that, but it’s crashing in anyway, and I just can’t stop thinking that the little kid eating french fries with his mom in the shopping mall is going to grow up and hit my sister. I’d do anything not to think that. I know I’m thinking too fast again, and it’s all in my head like the trance, but it’s there, and it won’t go away. I just keep seeing him, and he keeps hitting my sister, and he won’t stop, and I want him to stop because he doesn’t mean it, but he just doesn’t listen, and I don’t know what to do.

So, please believe me when I tell you that I felt terrible after Michael died, and I saw a girl in class, who didn’t notice me, and she talked all about you to a friend of hers. And even though I didn’t know you, I felt like I did because you sounded like such a good person. The kind of person who wouldn’t mind receiving letters from a kid. The kind of person who would understand how they were better than a diary because there is communion and a diary can be found. I just don’t want you to worry about me, or think that you’ve met me, or waste your time anymore. I’m so sorry that I wasted your time because you really do mean a lot to me and I hope you have a very nice life because I really think you deserve it. I really do. I hope you do, too. Okay, then. Goodbye.

So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel

okay about them.

And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.

As we went into the tunnel, I didn’t hold up my arms like I was flying. I just let the wind rush over my face. And I started crying and smiling at the same time.

And that was enough to make me feel infinite.

And I will believe the same about you.