The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Charlie starts the letter with the simple topic of nice weather: “I just listened to music and breathed in the day, and remembered things. Things like walking around the neighborhood and looking at the houses and the lawns and the colorful trees and having that be enough” (42). He also mentions Mary Elizabeth, who has been a Buddhist since July, and how she explained Zen to him: “[I]t makes you connected to everything in the world. You are part of the trees and the grass and the dogs” (42).

Although Charlie intends to keep his promise to Patrick, he writes his “friend” about how Patrick and Brad first started seeing each other. Charlie details how they were alone at a party and just locked eyes and started kissing. Patrick said that “it was like the weight of the whole world left both their shoulders” (43). Patrick and Brad never see each other in public, but they frequently see each other in secret.

Bill gives Charlie a “B” on his Peter Pan essay and says that Charlie’s “sense of language is improving along with [his] sentence structure” (46).