Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World (Aristotle and Dante, #2)

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The end. And the beginning. The beginning of what? For me, a life of trying to figure out who to trust and who not to trust.

I was just going to get a diploma handed to me. I was supposed to take that baton and begin my race toward wherever the hell I was going.

Now I wished I’d never run into it. No one had ever told me love didn’t come to stay.

And if the raft collapsed, we would dive into the waters of that stormy sea—and swim our way to shore. We had to make it to shore for Sophocles and all the newly arrived citizens of the world. We had learned that we were all connected, and we were stronger than any storm, and we would make it back to the shores of America—and when we arrived, we would throw out the old maps that took us to violent places filled with hate, and the new roads we mapped would take all of us to places and cities we’d never dreamed of. We were the cartographers of the new America. We would map out a new nation. Yes, we were stronger than the storm. We wanted so much to live. We would make it to the shore with or without this ragged, broken raft. We were in this world, and we were going to fight to stay in it. Because it was ours. And one day the word “exile” would be no more.