“I had a theory that our school was divided
by how we were programmed to live.
There were those of us like
Kitty, Ashok, and Laurel,
careful and contented,
pragmatic and happy.
They existed to wake up tomorrow,
always a new day,
because wasn't that the way we were
supposed to exist
as humans?
To keep living.

Then there were those of us who lived
differently.
Jordan, Miranda, and me.
We charged forward.
We took risks.
We strived for greatness
in every moment,
because every night we fell asleep thinking
this was it;
there wasn't going to be
a tomorrow.

But every morning
when the alarm clock went off,
we would lie in our beds,
shocked
that despite everything we did
the previous day
to run our bodies
into the ground,
we continued
to wake up.

Ben was one of us.
He hid it so well,
and I loved him
and I hated him
for being this way.

He pretended he was happy
when he was sad.
He pretended he didn't care
about anything,
not college,
not grades,
quite often,
not even me.

He pretended everything
would magically work
in his favour.

He denied that he understood me at all.
"Why do you have to study all the time?
Why can't you come over?"
he would plead on the phone.

But he aced the same tests as me.
He studied when no one was looking.
He fretted about his future
when no one was around.
He worried about his worth
alone,
like the rest of us.

pages 229-232”