Some stories never leave you.
This story reflects on a college friendship and includes themes of identity and loss. Shared with care, and in memory of someone whose story deserved to be seen.
For David.
If You Listen, You Will See Them
It was the fall of ’79, and I was settling into my second year at a small Christian university tucked somewhere between earnest prayer and outdated linoleum. The dorm was called “New Man’s,” though nothing about it felt particularly new. Two stories, cinder block walls, a communal payphone, and a central lounge with a television that buzzed louder than the dialogue. Donna Summer’s Bad Girls played repeatedly from one of the rooms, until someone finally yanked the plug.
It was Jimmy Carter’s last full year in office, gas was rationed by license plate number, and every Saturday night we crammed into the lounge to watch Gilda Radner save us from ourselves.
If you lived on the ground floor, you got to know thirty other guys by their towel-walk gait and cereal preferences.
I was studying chemistry, pre-med, nose deep in molecules and momentum. Serious student, straight-laced—on the outside, at least. Inside, things were more... fluid. But I wasn’t ready to uncork any of that yet.
That’s where David comes in.
He was a year ahead of me. Quiet. Almost vaporous. Moved like a breeze through the hallway—graceful, a little nervous, always aware of his angles. David had a way of smiling that seemed borrowed—something he’d learned to do in pictures or family functions, where a real smile might’ve said too much.
He’d knock on my door almost every day. Just a tap or two. Always polite. Always hopeful. I think he saw something in me—some flicker of understanding I hadn’t even named yet. I was a good listener, and he needed one.
Little by little, his story came out. He was from the Carolinas, from a conservative banking family where both parents held top roles at their respective institutions. Their love came with caveats, I gathered. David had been placed at our college like a delicate glass figurine—protected under the guise of faith, tradition, and watchful eyes.
He told me about a man he loved. Spoke about him in gentle tones, like you’d talk about a song that saved your life. It had been real, that much was clear. He showed me photos of their wedding—tuxedos, flowers, two grooms standing in borrowed joy. He wore a ring, gold with a message inside, though he never let me read it. Said it was private. Sacred. I understood.
I never told David I was struggling too. Not then. Maybe I should have. Maybe he was hoping I would. But I stayed silent, offering only an open door and a warm chair.
That Easter, the dorm closed and we all scattered home like confetti. I returned with laundry and lecture notes, ready for spring semester, when Rick—another dorm mate—pulled me aside. He looked like someone trying to hold glass in his hands.
David was gone.
He had taken his life over break.
The air left the hallway. I don’t remember much after that—just walking to class with my head down, lost in the crack of every sidewalk line. Grief is a disorienting thing. It rearranges the furniture of your heart.
Then, a tug on my arm.
It was my math professor. Also a counselor, I would later learn—someone who had worked closely with David.
He didn’t say much at first. Just looked at me—steady, kind—the way someone does when they’re about to hand you something breakable.
And then, without a word, he pulled me into a hug. Solid. Warm. No rush.
When he let go, he said this:
“David felt safe with you. You gave him comfort. Trust.
You are not meant to carry this weight alone.”
I’ve never forgotten that.
David’s story—his real story—wasn’t in the obituary. It was in those late-night conversations, in the way he held onto that ring, in the quiet hope that someone might see him and not flinch.
I saw him. And now, so will you.