A/N: (Please read!) In the style of Flowers for Algernon and the spirit of Instant Star (Canadian teen soap operas...gotta love 'em.), all 25 of these journal entries are named after song titles. I didn't want to date these because I've already done that with "The Last Days of Dave and Meryl" and wanted to try something brand spankin' new. The songs picked where picked purely because of their titles and not because of the meaning of the song. I had to pull a few of them out of my ass but most of them fit the entries pretty well. And it should be noted that these journal entries are not day-by-day. I think I've dropped enough key words in the entries for that to be clear, though. Happy reading, don't forget to review (if you want to, of course...), and I'll be listing the artist that each song is by in my profile as I post them.

This Boy

Entry 1

Mei Ling suggested I keep a journal for myself while I'm going through the process of documenting Dave's life, at least until the first draft is finished. I guess that means she's getting tired of me. Sometimes, I call her to vent but most of the time she's busy. I really don't have anyone else to talk to. I wouldn't dream of burdening a small child or a dying man with all my woes. So, I figured I'd give the journal thing a try.

About a week ago, I began asking Dave about his experiences, pre-Shadow Moses Island incident. He's been surprisingly cooperative but that doesn't necessarily excite me because it means he's getting too weak to feel like fighting me about it anymore. We don't talk about it in our 'sessions' for too long, 20 or 30 minutes at a time. He still occasionally has nightmares about Zanzibarland so I'm trying to be careful to not stir up too much there.

Sunny is starting to ask questions about what we've been doing. She knows that Dave is very sick and that I'm writing a story about him and I'm sure she knows he's going to die soon but I haven't had it in me to sit down and ask her. I need to do it soon, though. She cares about him a lot and though he won't admit it, he's grown really fond of her as well. On the days where his symptoms are the worst, she spends the whole day with him like she's guarding him. He stopped smoking so she doesn't hide his cigarettes anymore but she still gets him anything he needs and falls asleep in the chair in his room at night. As strange as it sounds, it makes me feel better when she watches him though I know it's a juvenile and naive way of trying to protect him. It's still more than I feel like I can do for him right now.