Chapter 2:

(i) Expectations.

When I was
younger,
I always
wanted to be
exactly
like
my brother.
As I got
older,
I
wanted to be
the
exact
opposite.
And
I
was.

Why
can't
you be more
like
Cooper?
I knew what that
meant.
Cooper's
first
kiss
was with a
girl
during recess when he was
twelve.
My
first
kiss
was with a
boy
when I was
fourteen.
Cooper took a
girl
to his
first
Sadie Hawkins dance.
I took a
boy
and a
heavy
beating.
Cooper took a
girl
to his
senior prom,
one he would
sleep with
and
never
call
again.
I took my
boyfriend
of two years
and three months,
the one
I called and
Skyped and
missed for an entire school year.
Cooper got caught with a
girl
in his bedroom when he was
seventeen.
I got caught with
my steady boyfriend
in my bedroom,
reading to me
while I
recovered
from eye surgery
when I was
seventeen.
Cooper got caught smoking pot
in a neighbour's
tool shed
with a
girl
(the neighbour's daughter)
when he was
sixteen.
I got caught
holding hands with my
boyfriend
in the privacy of my
own
home
when I was
sixteen.
Cooper got caught
drinking vodka with a
girl
in his dorm room at
Dalton
when he was
eighteen.
I got caught
flipping through
wedding magazines
in my bedroom
when I was
eighteen.
Yet still,
Why
can't
you be more
like Cooper?

(ii) Closure.

He
almost
broke
the one
I
love
most in the
world
and I
tried
to
hate
him for that
and I did,
for a while.
I also
tried
to reach out
and
help
him,
but he pushed
and it was all so
real
again, so I drew
back.

He stepped over that
edge
one day and that was
the day
that I couldn't
hate him
any longer.
I was the one on the
edge
once
and it would have been so
easy
to
just
jump.
I'm
happy
I didn't.
I'm
happy
he
survived.
And that was
the day
I stopped
hating
the faces
that
haunted
my mind and
my dreams.

We're all
fighters
in this world,
trying
to
survive.
How can anyone
hate anyone
for
trying to
survive?

(iii) Freedom.

For the
first
time,
I was
chosen
to
lead.
On stage,
I felt
free.
I was a
bird
in flight,
a whisper
in the
wind,
a floating
cloud
in a
bright
blue
sky.
They
believed in me,
trusted me,
like no one had
before.

(iv) Adrift.

It's almost as if
I was a
ship,
stranded
at sea,
like I'd
fallen overboard and been
on the verge of
drowning.
And then
I made it
to the surface,
splashing,
a splash of
hope,
and just as I was being
pulled
back
under,
another
lonely
ship came,
another
lost
vessel,
trying to
find its way,
looking to be
saved,
sending out an
S.O.S,
firing
hopeless
sparks
into the
uncaring
sky,
and then it saw
me
at the surface,
unaware of my
closeness to
death
and it
believed
I could
save it.
Unknowing,
the other
lost vessel
threw me a
buoy and
took me on board.
And we somehow
saved
each other.

(v) Courage.

Practice
what
you
preach.

I
sent
him
'Courage',
but
I
didn't
send
him
courage,
that
was
all
him.

I
never
practiced
what
I
preached.