The Perks of Being a Wallflower

up, and like I told you, he never hits. But it didn’t work. So, they brought me to the hospital where I stayed when I was seven after my aunt Helen died. They told me I didn’t speak or acknowledge anyone for a week. Not even Patrick, whom I guess visited me during that time. It’s scary to think about.
    All I remember is putting the letter in the mailbox. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a doctor’s office. And I remembered my aunt Helen. And I started to cry. And the doctor, who turned out to be a very nice woman, started asking me questions. Which I answered.
    I don’t really want to talk about the questions and the answers. But I kind of figured out that everything I dreamt about my aunt Helen was true. And after a while, I realized that it happened every Saturday when we would watch television.
    The first few weeks in the hospital were very hard.
    The hardest part was sitting in the doctor’s office when the doctor told my mom and dad what had happened. I have never seen my mother cry so much. Or my father look so angry. Because they didn’t know it was happening when it was.
    But the doctor has helped me work out a lot of things since then. About my aunt Helen. And about my family. And friends. And me. There are a lot of stages to these kinds of things, and she was really great through all of them.
    The thing that helped me the most, though, was the time I could have visitors. My family, including my brother and sister, always came for those days until my brother had to go back to school to play football. After that, my family came without my brother, and my brother sent me cards. He even told me on his last card that he read my report on Walden and liked it a lot, which made me feel really good. Just like the first time I saw Patrick. The best thing about Patrick is that even when you’re in a hospital, he doesn’t change. He just cracks jokes to make you feel better instead of asking you questions about feeling worse. He even brought me a letter from Sam, and Sam said that she was coming back at the end of August, and if I got better by then, she and Patrick would drive me through the tunnel. And this time, I could stand in the back of the pickup truck if I wanted to. Things like that helped more than anything.
    The days when I received mail were good, too. My grandfather sent me a really nice letter. So did my great aunt. So did my grandma and Great Uncle Phil. My Aunt Rebecca even sent me flowers with a card that was signed by all my Ohio cousins. It was nice to know that they were thinking about me just like it was nice the time Patrick brought Mary Elizabeth and Alice and Bob and everyone for a visit. Including Peter and Craig. I guess they’re friends again. And I was glad they were. Just like I was glad that Mary Elizabeth did most of the talking. Because it made things feel more normal. Mary Elizabeth even stayed a little later than the others. I was so happy to have a chance to talk with her alone before she left for Berkeley. Just like I was happy for Bill and his girlfriend when they came to see me two weeks ago. They’re getting married this November, and they want me to go to their wedding. It’s nice to have things to look forward to.
    The time it started to feel like everything was going to be all right was the time when my sister and brother stayed after my parents had left. This was some time in July. They asked me a lot of questions about Aunt Helen because I guess nothing had ever happened to them. And my brother looked really sad. And my sister looked really mad. It was at that time that things started to get clearer because there was nobody to hate anymore after that.
    What I mean is that I looked at my brother and sister, and I thought that maybe someday they would be an aunt and uncle, just like I would be an uncle. Just like my mother and Aunt Helen were sisters.
    And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn’t do or what they didn’t know. I don’t know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. Maybe if my grandfather didn’t hit her, my mom wouldn’t be so quiet. And maybe she wouldn’t have married my dad because he doesn’t hit. And maybe I would never have been born. But I’m very glad to have been born, so I don’t know what to say about it all especially since my mom seems happy with her life, and I don’t know what else there is to want.
    It’s like if I blamed my