I guess the cliché is true, we don't know what happens behind closed doors

My small high school liked to keep secrets. She was like Spencer in the "Pretty Little Liars" series. She had high test scores. Came from a good, clean and respected neighborhood. But had secrets crawling and growing out of every corner. Maybe the "S" all along was met to stand for Spencer Hastings. Or, it was her scarlet letter.

Four years ago, the news at my high school broke out that a student in my grade who wrote a hit list. If you ask anyone in my class we can tell you several names who were on it. It was a small town, news traveled faster than a tweet. It wasn't fast till the tight school hallways were a whisper of gossip. All, of course, our school admin tried playing it down. It wasn't the first time we had received a threat. The year prior, a student had vandalized the girl's bathroom, writing how they were planning to bomb the school. Our high school brushed it under the covers and washed it away with a new slap of paint. The past school year, the school received another threat of a school shooting. Being a past graduate that wasn't a surprising concept, there was always talk how our high school was just waiting to be the next on the list. It was a sick idea, but for a small town that it seemed like everyone had something against it.

But when the journals and plans for an actual assault come about, you can't believe it is your school. Yet alone someone you saw as a friend, classmate and had grown up with him since kindergarten.

The case doesn't say his name, and I won't either. There is no point to draw pain on the past for someone who has grown and made a better life for themselves. But I will still to his initials as the court documents say, CLM.

I had known CLM since kindergarten and probably spent every recess that I can remember running around with him and his peer group in whatever imaginary world we had created for us that day. If someone would ask me, where there any signs, I would honestly tell you no. That there were more signs that the people on the list would have been the ones to do a school shooting. Not him. In fact, I would have argued that he was the sweetest, most gentle boy at our school. And in my eyes, have those traits had become really rare.

So when the news of the list came out, I was in nothing but shocked. My best friend had just started forming relations with him and then one day she just starts asking if anyone had seen him. Of course, we haven't. Cause he was already gone before we knew it. He was already tucked underneath the closet doors of my school. However, it was not long till the rumors and then the truth started coming out. It's a small town, the truth always finds a way out of her grave.

Facebook was filled with posts, sharing the news article and label him as a monster. Endless rants about how he should be locked up. As a 16-year-old, I just kept asking myself why was what he did was any different then what the people on the list had been doing. Four years down the line I am still not going to say, "Yeah, what he did was healthy and totally okay," cause hurting anyone is never an okay concept. However, still to today, I ask myself why do we overlook the idea of how the physical bullying and verbal threats are any different than a written one.

The high school I went to was filled with them. Those kids on the list, yes, I am referencing the kids who later would mock this student even more, where some of the biggest bullies I knew on campus. Again, I am not saying and would never wish that they or anyone would get hurt. Or, even that their names on any sort of list was an okay response, but when are we going to start realizing that the idea behind these acts of violence is not always steamed to a mental issue, however a social one. An issue that we create for ourselves.

The guy I knew wouldn't hurt a fly. But then, we really don't know what happens behind closed doors. A classmate of mine, mixed into gang violence, killed a kid our summer after freshman year. He was the guy who spent gym class with me being gentle and not throwing dodgeballs around. He was someone who always looked peace at mind. But then we never know what happens behind closed doors.

As the hit list re-enters the rumors mills of my retired high school years and I once again find myself reading the reporters words of guns, rounds of ammunition, grenades and written testimonies about they wanted to kill their family. With statements like, "Just to feel all the stress melt away for a moment. I don't know why I think killing will do this, but it just feels right" written in his journal. It's hard to believe that these things happen and are more then a news story.

Cause it's real. And it is scary.

I knew him. And it still feels like the news reports are lying when I see it come up again. And I still feel myself thinking, no there is no way that is him. But it's a different world behind those closed doors. We never really know.