Valentine’s Day 2008
A 27-year old man walked into a lecture hall to show the world he thought nobody truly loved him. Earlier that day, he called his girlfriend to say goodbye.
I was less than 15 minutes from being in Cole Hall at the time of the shooting. In the time it took me to make a short walk back to my dorm room, he walked in and it was already over.
If Steven had showed up even a few minutes earlier, I would have been in the room.
If he had walked in from the back instead of the front, I would have been one of the six.
Who knows if I walked past him heading back home.
I know people who were there.
A friend of a friend, did not walk out of that hall.
I stood at the veil of her dark, empty room weeks later. Empty and silent, just carpet, as if nothing had existed in that space at all. Standing there, I saw her parents collecting her things in my head.
I hung up with my mom and entered my room in Douglass Hall. Moments later, I learned of the shooting when my roommate, JP, came in and told me he saw lots of police with big guns like the movies moving through another building. I thought he was pulling my chain.
I turned on the TV and it had already hit the news.
I tried to call my parents but the phone lines were dead.
When the phone lines worked again, I listened to a phone call from my dad and heard fear in his voice for the first time ever, asking for me to call or text so he knew I was OK.
My friends and I gathered in the common area on our floor waiting and making calls to ensure each of the Foreign Language Residence Program students were safe.
One by one, people returned. Some left for home right away.
That night, a small group of us huddled up with some pizza and watched Ratatouille in my room, crammed onto a bed together, eyes on a small, cheap TV.
Days later, I saw the black and red cleaner vans entering the campus and later driving away as I walked back from soccer.
I was lost in the song Dig by Incubus for weeks prior to February 14, 2008, listening to it on repeat walking back and forth across the cold winter campus.
Some days I would walk in front of the hall past the fountain and pond. Other days, I would walk behind the hall past the last door Steven would walk through.
Try to give space, listen, and love people as best you can.
You never know what’s going on inside their head.
And you never know when it could be the last time you see them.
I wish I could have tossed Steven a light grenade before it all happened.
He was a husky too.