I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don't want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundered different people most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn't worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs - here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.
I like writing, but I like a lot of things. Maybe out of those things, I'm best at writing. Maybe it's what I like best of all. Maybe it's where I've always felt most at home. Or maybe the writing part of me is over. Maybe there's something else I'm supposed to do instead. I don't know.
The Parents, as my mother and father refer to Mr. Finch and Mrs. Finch, are insisting it was an accident, which, I guess, means we're free to mourn him out in the open in a normal, healthy, unstigmatised way. No need to be ashamed or embarrassed since suicide isn't involved.