He never asked for anything. Never complained. It hurt me sometimes that I couldn't break his shell, but he always showed another side of himself to people. Who he was but didn't want to be was buried deep down. There was a glint of it in his eyes, but only he truly knew who he really was deep down.
There were a couple of instances where he endured discomfort for the sake of not having to make what he thought was confrontation. One day, I noticed he had visibly irritated red marks on his back. It was only then, after months of this going on, that he told me his bed springs were poking out and aggravating his back. But he never said anything because he thought it was easier to just live with discomfort than be a burden to people around him. In that way, I feel sorry for him. But if I knew him like I think I did, he wouldn't want me to feel sorry for him. He never wanted people to feel anything towards him. He probably didn't like that I had feelings for him. He didn't like being the center of attention so it made him uncomfortable if people congratulated him, he hated drawing in any attention towards himself. Especially in his last few months of life. As far as I know, only the people close to him knew he existed. You could rarely find him at school, and it was hard to get in contact with him unless you had his cell number. He never returned calls back that were made to his house phone and never responded to online chat messages.
He always hid.
He was in theater. But never in any plays. He loved technical stuff. Any time he stayed at school after class was spent, always, in the computer lab. He was the light guy for the theater department and he loved doing it. His face lit up like I'd never seen before when he was doing technicals for the stage. His heart was fully in it, more than he'd put his heart into anything. I only saw him on that stage one time. And it was to leave the auditorium.
I remember his cat. A nice, white cat. The only bit of light in his life. The cat was well mannered and didn't bother anyone that much, kind of like him. It's weird because after he died, I saw white cats all over town. It broke me down. But sometimes mediums say you see animals and it's actually your loved ones saying hello. Maybe the white cats were him. Maybe they were white because it was person to us, but also he was trying to relay some kind of message of cleansing and starting fresh to me. I wonder if it was just me or other people who saw them. I never asked since I thought it might be inappropriate or awkward. Now I enjoy when I see a white cat, it makes me think he's moved on to a better life, wherever that is for him. All I wanted was for him to be happy. I hope he has it now. I know people still curse his name but if they knew him like I did, they'd want it for him too. If only for just a second they could see the good in him. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a bad person for wanting to see the good in him. I can see the bad in the living, but he's bad and dead and all I can see in him is good. A glorified version of who he was before his last moments.
