Flipping through the pages of a diary are where you find long forgotten moments, faded feelings. Flipping through the pages of a diary, you find yourself —OR— words from the diaries of Campbell and Atticus.
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September 20, 2010
I think you're going to be my best friend. I've never had a best friend before. I haven't even had a friend at all in years. Everyone thinks I'm too different now. It bothers me sometimes.
I had a best friend in kindergarten. One day she stopped talking to me and at break when she ate her crackers, I walked up to her and asked her what was going on. She told me her mom said we couldn't hang out anymore. Since I was five then, I accepted it. But now that I'm ten, I think something was off.
But I have a friend now. Or at least I hope you'll be my friend. Because I do see you becoming my best friend.
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June 28, 2012
Dear Atticus,
I never got the chance to thank you. I didn't have to go in the pool. I was dreading that part, honestly. But instead, you just talked to me, and I didn't have to get into the water.
You didn't look back over your shoulder though. Why did that hurt so much? Why do I spend so many hours thinking about a tiny unreciprocated gesture?
My parents are fighting as I write this, over another thing that doesn't matter in the long run.
But thank you. Genuinely.
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July 12, 2012
I feel like pulling myself out of my skin. I want to leave nothing behind but my flesh prison and a puddle of sadness that I think I'm long overdue to get rid of anyways.
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October 21, 2014
Dear Atticus,
High school sucks.
My history teacher refuses to call me my preferred name (my parents haven't changed my name in the school system, you see) and all the kids in class laugh about it.
I miss you terribly. But you're moving on. I should have expected that, I guess. Friendships always fall apart. You're too good to hang out with me anyways. I only hope your new friends are nice to you.
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October 25, 2014
Dear Atticus,
I cut my hair. It might have been a mistake, but I was trying to find that feeling of myself. I was trying to find the feeling of you saying my name and replicate it. My parents are angry, and I wish the earth would swallow me whole. But my hair doesn't look that bad, so that's a plus, right?
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December 9, 2014
I think I like my friend. Well, actually, I think I've liked him for a while. But I'm just noticing the feelings now. I want to talk to mom about it, but we haven't talked about feelings since dad passed. We haven't talked about much of anything since dad passed away, actually. If dad were still around though, I would talk to him about Campbell. Everything would be less difficult if dad were still around. My mom is a good person, a loving person; however, her love faltered and cracked when her husband died. And a bunch of little pieces of her love went missing. I don't know how difficult it would be to lose a husband. But I know what it feels like to lose a parent, and to have the other one slip away. I should be experiencing all these little milestones in life with my mom, and instead my heart cracks under the weight of having to mourn two parents.
Mom hasn't left bed in a week. Her office keeps calling, but she hasn't answered. I'm worried about her. I need a parent right now, and at the same time my parent needs me. Somebody help me, please. It's all too much. Somebody show me how to live my life without being tied down in an endless field of emotions that I have to face all by myself.
My sunlight is faltering, I'm faltering. And I'm in love with a boy.
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January 2, 2015
I'm so miserable. Last night all these feelings started to build up within me and I thought they might burst. Nighttime is weird. It allows you to feel things that you've been putting off, stars illuminating all the cracks. For me, that meant so much sadness I thought I might die. Instead, I just rolled over and went to sleep, hoping that in the morning I wouldn't be so miserable anymore.
When the morning came, misery had subsided to a dull ache. But what's better— feeling everything too much or feeling everything not enough?
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March 16, 2018
Dear Atticus,
Can't you do better than me? I am all pain and sadness, sad eyes and bruises on my soul. You are sunshine and I am a shadow who threatens to seep all the warmth out of your bones. Don't you deserve better than me?
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April 11, 2021
I wish I could make Campbell less sad. On days when he stays in bed and burrows beneath blankets, I want to pull the sadness away. I want to take him somewhere the sadness will never find us again.
My dad would like you, I find myself wanting to tell him.
My dad would like the way that Campbell views the world, all existential and sharp edges that soften only when love is present.
My dad would also tell me that no amount of love I give would cure mental pain, but I still wish that I could. Because Campbell helped me with mine, and I owe it to him. Don't I?
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December 31, 2028
Dear Campbell,
I think I have loved you for all my life. I think I will love you for always.
YOU ARE READING
campbell's guide to the universe
Teen Fiction❝we'll survive, you and i❞ ➸ f. scott fitzgerald the story of a boy named campbell told in snippets from the ages of seven to twenty-seven; the tale of enduring transphobia, dealing with a divorce, the death of a parent, falling in love, and maybe...
