Here’s what I know about Kevin Brantley: When the shooting happened, he was a sophomore; he kept his head shaved and always wore band T-shirts; and in elementary school, he stuck gum in Sarah’s hair on the bus and tried to blame it on someone else.

I reached out to the other survivors to see if anyone else knew him better. The first person to reply was Miles. This was our text exchange.

MILES: I knew him. Hated him.

ME: Yeah? Why?

MILES: He found a picture of my dad’s mug shot on the internet. Not sure how. He printed it and brought it to school. This was in eighth grade. Right after I moved here.

ME: That’s awful.

MILES: I kicked his ass before he could show anyone.

ME: That’s good? I guess?

MILES: We both got suspended. Not proud of it but don’t really regret it either. He was a jerk.

ME: Sounds like it.

MILES: Guessing that’s not the kind of story you were looking for, huh?

ME: LOL. No. Not exactly.

I decided to share it, though. Not because I have any desire to make Kevin seem like a bad guy when he’s not here to defend himself. But because of another issue I’ve seen with how we talk about victims. They’re all treated like angels after they die. Every description talks about how friendly and fun-loving and kind they were, even if that wasn’t always the case.

But most of the people who died that day were kids. And sometimes kids are jerks. That doesn’t make them less worthy of mourning. It just makes them people. Acting like the dead were always perfect and innocent just distances them from us even more. Maybe it’s just me, but knowing these people were flawed makes them more real.

Anyway, I did get another take on Kevin Brantley. This time it was from Eden, who responded via email.

Kevin was my lab partner in chemistry. I did most of the work. But he wasn’t so bad. He saw me drawing in class once and asked if I’d teach him. He said he wanted to design his own T-shirts one day. I said no because … well, you know how I am with people. But he offered to pay for some lessons, and I needed the money for art supplies.

We met once a week during lunch for about two months. He was kind of loud and a little lazy, but he was nice to me. Actually, he’s the only guy who has ever asked me out. I don’t think he really liked me. He just wanted a girlfriend. It was the last day of our drawing lessons, and I told him I was gay. Which wasn’t something I told a lot of people at the time.

I kind of assumed he’d be gross about it. Make some jokes or say something homophobic. But instead he just said, “That’s cool. So is my brother,” and dropped it.

He sat next to me in Ms. Taylor’s class. We didn’t talk a lot, but sometimes he’d slide over a notebook with one of his drawings and ask what I thought. Rosi was the one who was good at things, not me, so having someone want my opinion because they thought I was good at something? It meant a lot.

I don’t know if you’d call Kevin and me friends. But yeah. I definitely remember him. I wonder if he ever would have made those T-shirts he talked about.