thewonder-child:

I first noticed him because of the smile. He hit me over the head with it two weeks into freshman year in high school, when we both found ourselves building castles out of bent index cards at Kids’ Day. He wasn’t even in my group. He was in the group next to me, dutifully stacking card after card as quietly and carefully as he could. Silence. Concentration. Serenity. Lighty had told us not to speak, and in the late afternoon, it was easier than we all had expected. I remember the sunlight streaming through the musty rec center windows and the way the late summer sweat shone on our faces. I took a handful of the worn index cards. Connections. We were supposed to connect our castles with other groups. I started a bridge leading to nowhere. Card after card after card, I looked up to find him doing the same in my direction. Without a word, we met each other halfway. Later on, we were praised by the Peer Helping goddess herself. “I saw these two make a connection first, great job!” We looked at each other at the same time and smiled. God, that smile. A real, honest-to-god, I’m-happy-to-have-had-this-moment-with-you smile. I had never really noticed him before, but there he was in front of me now. Vlad. We built a bridge. 

I’m trying to remember better times when I’d talk about him to anyone who’d listen, because he was cute and ambitious and a good guy and he was a senior who genuinely smiled at a freshman and I was starstruck. I’m trying to remember when I’d pass him and his girlfriend on the senior steps making out, hoping that she really appreciated him. I’m trying to remember stumbling into him and his friends at the bowling alley, being two years older and wiser not stopping me from being shy and not saying hello as he nodded to me in acknowledgment. I’m trying to remember Friday afternoon, when I was flipping through our old yearbook and pointing to his picture. “I loved him, he was so cool.” All I can remember now is my sister on the phone this morning, still talking as she walked into my room. “Dina’s going to be so upset.” She held the phone away from her face and told me what happened. 

I’m really trying to look back to better times. I really am. All I can see now, though, is the eerie dead of the night as he walked along the highway. The white of his skin against the darkness of 3 AM. Why?! Why did this have to happen? Here I am, still trying to make sense of it all, trying to grasp that the world is now one less of a great person. It’s raining hard, but now I know it rains for him, for the loss of someone who smiled his smile and changed everything. I’ll never forget him. Rest in peace, Vlad.