Home

2013 and 2014 were some big years for me. In those two years I struck my best marks in high school, rising above the Honor Roll to the High Honor Roll. My final grade on the Senior Project—mine was a comprehensive review on the history of war crimes and crimes against humanity and how the United Nations could curtail them in the future—received a full A. I was even the Student of the Year in the Subject of History, something I was very proud of. To this day, I still haven’t read the gift that came with that award: Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia: Fifth Edition. Sometimes, when I glance at my massive blue bookshelf, I see its maroon jacket and the miniature image of a young man in a long coat and shako with his head bent over a book. It was in this time frame I suffered my first two true heartbreaks. The first was in 2013 after a tantalizing and tumultuous courtship of a girl in the class ahead of me. She was short, brown-haired, wore glasses, pursued art, and had an issue with acne.