A/N: I wrote this for my English class, I hope you enjoy it [: Leave a review and let me know what you think.
Childhood is a precious thing. There are hardly any in my generation whose early years were not tainted by the bitter gall, the fearful agent of death that was the war. All though my years at Devon, it loomed about our heads like a dark cloud—something that we could choose to ignore; that we could push to the back of the minds—but it remained lurking. There were good times; times when we basked in the separate peace that was so connected with Devon. But even within our world set apart from the war, there were battles. When the war finally penetrated our walls, most of us settled for the simple and easy hatred that was directed at an invisible enemy. Others were not so fortunate. Leper, the naturalist—Leper, whose innocence and ignorance I scorned—he was destroyed by the war. Last week, I attended his funeral. It was small—only his family, and a few of us from Devon. He is the reason I am here.
Devon remained much as I remembered it. Each tree was exactly where I had left it. I don't know why Devon's unchanged state struck me so. Its unfeeling rigidity in appearance surprised me. Perhaps I had expected that Devon, like me, would have changed. I had changed in many ways in the last fifteen years.
I made my way across the Far Common with no clear purpose in mind. My feet carried me to the First Building. The inscription above the Main Door in Latin held a new meaning for me—"Here Boys Come and Be Made Men". Had Devon made me into a man? Perhaps. Or, perhaps it was the war, coincidentally overlapping.
I climbed those white marble stairs with care—those stairs that went unnoticed years before, that now carried a sharp sense of poignancy. I turned the handle on the door leading to the Assembly room. I stood as the door swung ajar, staring into the musty darkness, broken only by the fading rays of sunlight shining through the unwashed window. Memories washed over me in waves.
It was in this room that lives were changed on my account. If it had not been for my misplaced zeal for justice, Finny might still be alive today. In my mind at that time, the situation could only be righted by gathering the cold, hard, facts. Phineas's denial was something I could not bear to watch. My teenage judgment failed to see that I could not force him to believe something, even if it was the truth. In trying to do so, I sent him into the hysteria that caused his second fall. Every time I think of Devon, of Leper, of Finny—I wonder if things would have been different had I acted differently. I wonder if Leper would have enlisted in the first place, if we had been more kind to him. I wonder if Finny would have fallen if I hadn't forced the truth upon him. I will never know how things would have changed, or whether I had the power to change things. Life can be cruel—we all have to learn to live with regrets, unanswered questions.
I walked out of Devon, changed once again.