In This Diary - The Ataris

Here in this diary I write you visions of my summer.

Outside, the sky raged. He looked away from the slicing lightning, put his pen back to the page. He’d picked out a pretty diary, one a girl ought to like, and he hoped she’d like it.

It was the best I ever had.

He reached down, scratched the scab that was forming over a weal from Father’s cane.

There were choruses and sing-alongs and that unspoken feeling --

That I wanted to die.

He couldn’t write that.

Of knowing that right now is all that matters.

The only moments that mattered were when she was beside him, smiling, laughing, being his friend even if she didn’t know he loved her desperately, the way a shadows loves the light.

She wouldn’t take it well when she found out, and he wanted to make this as painless as possible for her.

Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up.

He was done growing up, and adulthood was the stark realization that he would never escape his father unless he made the ultimate sacrifice, and he’d sacrifice himself before he’d sacrifice her.

These are the best days of our lives.

(Lyrics from "In This Diary" by the Ataris; see them here; music video is here)