Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Notes: I actually really love this book, despite being thoroughly irritated by the majority of the characters in it. It's been a while since I've written first-person, but this book calls for it. So. Title suggestions would be very welcome.
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I had never been that way, you know. I had met some men who undoubtedly were, some comfortable in their undeniable difference, wearing it like a gaudy coat, others awkwardly trying to hide it, like tatters in their shirt, tatters that always showed through.
I had nothing against them. I suppose I never gave much thought to them one way or another. I certainly didn't spend my time reviling them, too-loudly railing against them. But I had never been like them, been that way.
And then there came Gatsby, though now I think about it I don't suppose he really counted. Gatsby was larger than life; glitter, flash and brilliance, and more than mortal at times. He was a sunrise of a man—ever-changing, yet ever-beautiful, something that ought to be admired simply for itself.
Life seemed a little less vibrant after he was gone; a little less good. I saw others, others that seemed students of the Gatsby way of life, but never quite the same. They had not his passion, his light. They were dull iron next to gold, and not one of them caught me up in his whirlwind life as I had been caught before.
I never really understood it. I had never been that way before.
But then, it was Gatsby, and Gatsby had always been in a class of his own.
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