I tried calling to talk to you, but I just got a recording directing me to your website, and then when I tried to type what I wanted to say in the “contact us” box it was too long, so I hope this letter finds you. I suppose you all are busy with the rebuilding or reorganizing, so I won’t take much of your time. I want to explain why I don’t think I’m fit to continue at the school, but also to say how much I appreciate everything you tried to do for me. It was an honor to see my work posted online and to receive the Tad Tucker “Inspiration” scholarship, and I mean that more sincerely and more deeply than it sounds. The idea that anyone thought I had something to say and that anyone would want to read it has meant a great deal to me.

You are probably thinking that the protests and the article and my feelings about the reading are the reason I’m leaving, but that isn’t it. The main reason I am leaving and think you should give the scholarship to somebody else is what happened after the storm, not before. It was what happened after the storm that made me rethink things, that made me realize that Marianne Stuart was right to go to the papers, if wrong in the way she started the school.

I want to cancel the interview that you have scheduled for me with ABC News. When you told me about it, I was still too surprised to tell you what I thought, to tell you no definitively. You know that feeling you get, when something seems so wrong that you don’t even feel that it could possibly be about you? You leave your body and go … somewhere else?

I know it would be better to tell you this over the phone, but like I said, I tried, and I’ll send this overnight so you have some notice. I will make a written statement of what happened, though, so you can have it for your records and for insurance purposes and for my records, too. I hope that will be good enough.