Whatever happened to that? The simple joy of writing? No great novel has ever been written by someone who has been forced to write for twenty minutes at the end of fourth period every single goddamn day. You said you used to write short stories before you got your doctor and became a teacher. I am still not convinced you didn’t fake your degree after spending a few semesters getting high and playing guitar at Hillview Community College. You slap your name on some paper after reading for a couple years and suddenly you’re such a big deal. You know, for someone who claims to have a doctorate in English literature from Brown, you sure do act like a huge douche. Then I’ll switch back and forth whenever I want. Just to spite you I’m going to keep writing in a passive voice. Oh “all great works of literature don’t use passive voice”, huh? Well, Holden Caulfield would like to have a few words with you. “You have talent, Stiles!” You scrawl on the margins, but you circle the title in red ink and give me a C. Maybe I was trying to write my creative writing essay in a passive voice on purpose? Ever thought of that, you inept community college graduate?
Really? A C? My mother is going to kill me, but mostly I’m upset at you. These same kids making honor roll and going to ivy league schools are the same kids who lock me in a supply closet for two periods and who spend the weekends too fucked up to move. No, no one would ever do that! They give PowerPoint presentations to the whole school about how bullying is bad and how you can help stop it, because Hillview High would never, ever have bullies! All by accident of course, because God forbid the school would have peer counselors and football- extraordinaire(s) push around kids in the hallway. I walk down the hallway and people ignore me or push me around. My grades suck ass, my social life sucks ass, even my cello playing sucks ass. But mostly people just call me ‘hey, you!’ I really am a junior though, and I do play cello, but that’s basically where my real life ends, and fantasy begins. Stiles isn’t the the name my parents gave me, but I prefer it. I have tons of friends and I’m super straight and all the girls want to be with me. My name is Stiles, I’m a junior, I’m the most popular kid in school, I play the cello and I want to go to Yale. I get to introduce myself to an inanimate object. The assignment on the board says, “introduce yourself to the pages.'' Well, whoop de do. He stared and I stared back and then I looked down at this book. Nope, Harris looked up from his desk and we made eye contact. Maybe I could just get away with just staring at my desk for a while. Great, now I’m explaining myself to a notebook. I don’t even want to be in this dumb class, but the guidance counselor messed up my schedule so now I’m here instead of some other boring class, like woodshop or PE or something. Harris made the entire handy-dandy class do.
Not even a journal, just another stupid assignment Mr. This is not a stupid diary, okay? It’s just a journal. It is not, no matter how much everyone else thinks it is. Stats: Published: Updated: Words: 38639 Chapters: 9/10 Comments: 42 Kudos: 82 Bookmarks: 17 Hits: 1674