The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

I guess he stood up to his bully. And I guess that makes sense.

“Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.”

“I feel infinite.”

I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it was, but truthfully, it’s not the same unless you’re driving to your first real party, and you’re sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain.

“You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

guess she didn’t know how much she talked or how much I listen.

Sam looked at me soft. And she hugged me. And I closed my eyes because I wanted to know nothing but her arms. And she kissed my cheek and whispered so nobody could hear. “I love you.”

On that piece of white paper, Sam wrote, “Write about me sometime.” And I typed something back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. I just typed. “I will.”

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

“I was just trying to be a friend,” I said. “But you weren’t, Charlie. At those times, you weren’t being his friend at all. Because you weren’t honest with him.”

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 later that night to be with my family at dinnertime and have things just be like they always were. That was the amazing part. Things just keep going. We didn’t talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough.

But mostly, I was crying because I was suddenly very aware of the fact that it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my face. Not caring if I saw downtown. Not even thinking about it. Because I was standing in the tunnel. And I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite.

You sent letters to random addresses. Some of them were forwarded along to me. Maybe some of them weren’t. I don’t know if I got all of them. But I got enough of your letters to realize something extraordinary. And if you could see the boxes and boxes of letters that I have received for the last twenty years, you would know what I know. Once and for all. Forever and always. You are not alone.

You would be shocked to know how many people understand EXACTLY what you are going through. That doesn’t mean that what you are going through is somehow less. Meaningful. Special. Unique. On the contrary, it means that what you are going through is more. It is important. It deserves to be seen, spoken of, and understood.

So, just in case this ends up being my last letter, I want to answer one question. The question I have been asked the most since your letters found their way to me. “Whatever happened to Charlie?” And I can tell you what happened to Charlie in three words… He made it. And so will you.