I stared at him.
“What?”
He shrugged.
“It’s my reunion too.”
There was no anger in his voice.
No bitterness.
That surprised me.
Because ten years earlier, something like this would have crushed him.
Evan had never been popular in high school.
He wasn’t bullied in the obvious way.
No one shoved him into lockers.
No one threw food at him in the cafeteria.
It was subtler than that.
He was simply overlooked.
He ate lunch alone more often than I knew at the time.
He rarely got invited to parties.
Teachers sometimes forgot his name even after having him in class for months.
Classmates formed their circles and somehow Evan always seemed to be standing just outside them.
He was quiet.
Thoughtful.
The kind of boy who listened more than he spoke.
And at eighteen, he believed being unnoticed meant there must be something wrong with him.
I remember one evening during his senior year when he came home, dropped his backpack by the door, and went straight upstairs.
