Holden Sheppard

And he's not really doing that great with his education.

There's parallels with my actual characters in my book.

So Zeke is the smart kid.

There's other boys who are not, and they're probably not going to get anywhere.

But in terms of myself, it was just really touching.

I really identified with Philippe in terms of...

He's a gay writer from a small town.

I'm a gay writer from a small town.

But the thing that actually crushed me was the Thomas character.

I had an experience when I was younger.

I'm not going to go into it.

But it reminded me of that when I actually shut down

a French guy who I met in Europe.

And I didn't proceed with that, what could have been a relationship because I was straight.

And that's what made me cry because he passed away recently.

And I kind of figured at some point I would be able to explain that I'm sorry, but it's just because I was too messed up.

And actually it hit me because this is not possible for the character in here.

And it's not possible for me to ever redeem that or apologize for that.

I love this, everyone should read this, but you know, like it's so short, you can read it really quickly.

No, it's beautiful, it's very touching.