I keep a journal, but not like the one Dr. Fletcher had me keeping. Dr. Fletcher was my psychiatrist second semester of freshman year, when I had my “blue days.”

She was a friend of Dad’s from his college days. My roommate called him after the ambulance took me to the infirmary and then to the hospital where they closed up my arm and then immediately committed me. He drove down, and I don’t think he ever told Mom about what had happened.

Anyway, when I started seeing Dr. Fletcher, she wanted me to write down my feelings. That’s how it started.

I kept writing after I graduated and stopped seeing her. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t like I wanted to kill myself as much as I used to. So the journal became David’s diary. I mean, it’s fictional, of course. But….

But he went to State, like me. He’s getting his Master’s now. He’s athletic and charming and sensitive, and has a nice girlfriend who doesn’t like me very much (she gets along with Mom really well, though, which is what matters).

It’s what I have.