I might appear confident and chatty, but I spend most of my time laughing at jokes I don't find funny, saying things I don't really mean - because at the end of the day that's what we're all trying to do: fit in, one way or another, desperately trying to pretend we're all the same.

Out of the millions and millions of people that inhabit this planet, he is one of the tiny few I can never have.

But I don't want to be fine, not if it means she's going to let go of my hand; not if it means we're going to go back to being polite strangers.

I want to tell her that I can't pull her down. I want to tell her that she has to let go of my hand in order to swim. I want to tell her that she must live her own life. But I sense she already knows that these options are open to her. And that she, too, has made her choice.

Even though I'm surrounded by pupils, there is the invisible screen screen between us, and behind the glass wall I am screaming - screaming in my own silence, screaming to be noticed, to be befriended, to be liked.

It's horrible being ashamed of someone you care about; it eats away at you. And if you let it get to you, if you give up the fight and surrender, eventually that shame turns to hate.

This is the definition of happiness: a whole day stretching out ahead of me, beautiful in its emptiness and simplicity.