Shattered.
Broken.
Gone with the Wind.
There are many ways I can describe I’m feeling right now.
Shocked.
Disbelief.
Nightmarish.
I honestly can’t say I expected this.
Any of this.
The hurt.
The pain.
The feelings.
He was…well.
There.
Smart.
Precise.
Spiffily dressed.
First non-annoying guy I’d ever met.
Kind.
Pretty darn cute, if I may say so myself.
When you talked, he listened.
Calm.
But extremely fierce about his beliefs.
I can’t think too much about it.
My eyes are beyond puffy already.
The first time we met him, we were kind of leery.
A Spanish looking kid who was incredibly quiet and shy.
He was more like a shadow that year.
There, but just barely.
Then he came to our 8th grade class.
Boy, it was on.
He was constantly picked on by the guys, unfortunately.
I always had a feeling that maybe he should’ve been born a while ago.
Like the late fifties or something.
He was an old soul.
Everything was ironed, creased, or classy.
Like his special coat with the buttons on the shoulder that the guys would undo all the time just because he didn’t like it.
I told them to lay off.
They never listened, but you know it’s the thought that counts.
During the play, I told him a lot.
Almost everything.
He was always there to listen.
If you wanted, he’d give you output.
But mostly he’d just listen.
I think that was one of his gifts.
Listening.
He’s there for cheering up.
He was the person you went to to get a load off your mind.
I remember that awful tussle that he went through with the ‘courtly love thing’.
Woo, I’m not sure we ever stopped teasing him for that.
One of my best memories is when he said he would memorize a Shakespeare’s sonnet in Spanish, then recite it to the girl he liked.
I told him I wanted to be there when it happened.
I never got to see it happen.
He was the sweetest guy I’ve known.
I’ll never forget the hour and a half he and his friend debated over whether or not you had to be baptized to be saved.
Best hour and a half that was ever wasted in that class.
I liked him.
I denied it for a while.
I couldn’t figure out why.
And now I want to rip my diary to shreds for wasting so many pages on you-know-who.
That dirt bag didn’t deserve it.
His brother was right, a little bit, for all who know of the 8th Grade class trip.
Still.
He was the perfect gentleman.
And one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had.
I’ll never forget him, not as long as I live.
And I fear I’ll be a little unfair by comparing every other guy I meet to him.
