I first saw him when I was fifteen. During lunch, he sat on this old wooden bench right outside the cafeteria. He sat by himself. He did not eat. He did not smile or move. It was hard to tell if he was even breathing. He aligned himself on the bench so that there was an even space on his right as on his left. He put himself right in the middle of the piece of wood he sat on. He would put his book bag on his right side and a binder on the left, so that there was no way someone could sit down next to him.

I watched as students nervously walked past him, not sure whether to smile or just keep their head down. Either way, he did not flinch a muscle as they trotted their way past him. His eyes were always fixated on a far distant object. It was as if he was trying to catch the first glimpse of a shooting star that would pass by too quickly. If he blinked, he might miss it. All the students knew who he was: The Boy whose Mother Died of Cancer. Or at least that's what everyone called him. Through whispers in the hallway, the word spread quickly. He was the freshman whose world was falling apart. When he was fourteen, the doctors found a tumor in his mom's brain. 12 months. It only took 12 months for the cancer to metastasize and take her whole body. It only took 12 months to take her away from her only son.

People say that when a kid's life goes wrong, the kid starts behaving in unusual ways. They either become 1) self destructive or 2) a bully. But the Boy whose Mother died of cancer was neither. He was just numb. He was not even living; he was just...there.

I heard that the counselors talked to him and that he was going to therapy or something. I began to wonder to wonder about what his life was like.

I think you start to fall in love with someone when you really care about, well, them. You want to know every detail about them, just for the sake of wanting to understand them better. You want to know their favorite books and movies, and the first thing they do when they get home from school, or how they feel about Valentine's Day or the rain. You memorize the small things they do, the things that make them,them. The Boy whose mother had cancer would always find a seat by the window in a classroom. He would sit down at a desk and then slowly, but eventually, his hands would find the string attached to the blinds on the window. He would twirl them around his fingers while listening to the teacher or just staring at the wall. He almost did it unconsciously or absentmindedly. It was quite interesting though. It is that one thing that I waited for him to do every class period. Every time I waited, I was satisfied. The pale hands reached up to fiddle with the string, and I don't know, but there was something beautiful about that.

I wish I could say that one day, he stopped being in his state of numbness. But he never quite did. Even when he did come to the school dance that fall, with me on his arm, and the whole room stopped and stared, he was still The Boy whose mother died of cancer to them; he was the boy that most people did not take the time to honor the name of. He would always be a sob story to them. He was someone they pitied. He was never the hot shot of the grade or the best looking guy. However, I truly believe that even if you are not physically attracted to a person at first, once you memorize the sound of their voice, and all their bad habits, and how they feel about the rain and Valentine's Day and just every little thing about them, they will naturally become beautiful. And the Boy whose mother died of cancer was so beautiful.