It was his smile that got me first. Not because it lit up his face, but because of what was hiding behind it. Because I knew that smile, I had perfected it a long time ago.

He didn't think anybody knew. And I let him revel in that. But the sweatshirts in the blistering heat and the broken looks that so often flickered across his face, even for the most fleeting of seconds, were familiar to me.

When that sleeve of his accidentally slipped up one day as he handed out books for the teacher.

And when he'd sit alone with his headphones in, picking at a lunch he didn't seem to want, I'd watch from where I sat alone with my headphones in, picking at a lunch I didn't want much either.

Life went on and the boy with the broken smile stopped coming to class.

Now I am here and he is up there or maybe nowhere at all. Maybe we could have helped each other.

But I didn't try.

Maybe he just needed someone, anyone at all.

I fell in love with the boy with the scars. Maybe I should have told him, maybe that could have changed how things are now.