The yearbook at the bottom of the pile was not mine. Bound with leather, full-color and featuring a golden emboss of a stately-looking manor on the front, I figured it had to be from Luke’s private school in Dallas – Worthington Academy.

A few turns of thick pages confirmed my thoughts and sent me flipping through endless headshots of well-put-together teens bound for success or at least inherited money and inane messages written in permanent marker.

I stopped on the Class of 2000 which produced Luke Hanratty, a thin bastard from third-generation money with jet black hair that always perfectly fell to the side, dark eyes and years of suppressed rage he hid behind passive indifference. I found his portrait and stared into the face that I loved for almost seven years and felt those same emotions I had before he sent me a text saying it was over. I still loved the guy, even if I hated him.

I found the messages scribbled next to the portraits more interesting than Luke’s senior portrait. It was like an ancient Facebook – portraits of people’s best looks next to their names and their activities, but the best part was the photos which had comments written on them in black ink.

Luke had a lot of thoughts about his classmates and none of them were nice.

FAG…FAT…HORSE FACE…. BITCH….ASSHOLE…

I couldn’t believe I had attached myself for so long to a man so vile. Luke was known for having a caustic sense of humor, but this was over the top. He almost never went home to visit his parents in Dallas. Maybe it was because he hated everyone he grew up with, or vice-versa.

I skimmed through most of the insults, but one particularly caught my eye. A black-haired girl with a pale face and dark makeup named Kirsten Butler drew extra hate from Luke’s pen.

SLUT was written above her head, but that was just the start of it. Her entire profile was covered with a dark X, her name was crossed out – I could only actually read it because the ink had faded, and her eyes were dotted with red marker.

I at first assumed Kirsten was just one of Luke’s high school exes that we never really talked about, but I also recognized that name and that picture of the dark-haired girl half-smiling with the dimpled cheeks. I hit up Google on my phone for Kirsten Butler from Worthington Academy.

The results sucked the breath out of me and confirmed that I was vaguely familiar with Kirsten.

Kirsten Butler went missing from her dorm at Texas Christian University just a few weeks into her first Fall semester in October of 2000 and was never seen or heard from again. No body, no rumors of popping up in another country with a different name, no clothes found on a desolate country road out in West Texas. Nothing.

Kirsten’s case was before the days of social media where she would have become a national celebrity, but she was a brief regional celebrity around Texas and I was vaguely familiar with her case from back when it happened. I had no idea that she went to school with Luke though, let alone was in his class and a most-hated figure of his.