Written but never sent, part one

There's someone I know. Someone who probably doesn't know me. I seem to know him more than he knows himself. I know everything about him, and I know nothing at all. There's someone I know who has blind friends around him. Friends who laugh too loudly and speak without care. Unable to understand the difference between pain and laughter. Friends who mistake attention for care, jokes for love, and noise for connection. They orbit around him but they never truly see him. They mock what they don't understand, celebrate the shallow, and drown him in their nonsense while he stays silent, smiling just enough to survive it. To hide it. I watch him follow along, and I see the hurt tucked behind his words that trail behind. This is a truth that only I can see. I seem to worry and care for him more than the people he spends his time with the most. He races to keep up. It is interesting to me. Almost strange. It is interesting that I am the one unnoticed and so far away, but caring, recognizing, and understanding him from across the room. The one so far away, yet I see him. I recognize him. I understand him. From across the classroom. Across people. Past lives. Through faces. Into hearts. There's someone I know who spends his time surrounded. He spends his time with noise, stupid mistakes, and friendships that rot beneath the surface. He lets them speak for him, lets their voices drown his own, because being alone might feel worse than being surrounded by the wrong people.