Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.

Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing.

I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn't have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. "Dante's my friend.

We all fight our own private wars.

But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.

I hated being volunteered. The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea.

And it seemed to me that Dante's face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness. Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?

I renamed myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was Air. I thought it might be a great thing to be the air. I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

I had a feeling there was something wrong with me. I guess I was a mystery even to myself.

Sometimes, you do things and you do them not because you're thinking but because you're feeling. Because you're feeling too much. And you can't always control the things you do when you're feeling too much.

Your smile is back.' That's what Dante said. 'Smiles are like that. They come and go.

Why do we smile? Why do we laugh? Why do we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

I had a rule that it was better to be bored by yourself than to be bored with someone else. I pretty much lived by that rule. Maybe that's why I didn't have any friends.

I don't always have to understand the people I love.

Sometimes, all you have to do is tell people the truth. They won't believe you. After that, they'll leave you alone.

I have always felt terrible inside. The reasons for this keep changing.

It was good to laugh. I wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh until I laughed myself into becoming someone else.

This is my problem. I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I'm not so sure I want to return the favor.

I had learned to hide what I felt. No, that's not true. There was no learning involved. I had been born knowing how to hide what I felt.

Senior year. And then life. Maybe that's the way it worked. High school was just a prologue to the real novel. Everybody got to write you -- but when you graduated, you got to write yourself. At graduation you got to collect your teacher's pens and your parents' pens and you got your own pen. And you could do all the writing. Yeah. Wouldn't that be sweet?

Scars. A sign that you had been hurt. A sign that you had healed.

I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.