Tyler Hsu. Soccer pro, veteran in speech and debate; he was practically my idol. He had a mop of dark hair, a lean, muscular build, and boxy rectangular glasses that always fell off of his face. At school, he would wear a white-button down shirt and khaki slacks. The only things that weren’t formal were his black, beaten up tennis shoes, and his black puffer jacket. And, I kinda sorta maybe liked him.

But that’s not the point. The point was, his dream was similar to mine, except he had a bit of a head start.

He has been hired twice to be a keynote speaker about this term called, failing up. Apparently, he can get his audience really excited.

Tyler wanted to be well known, like those people we know about from Ted-Talks. And people say that I’m ambitious!

But, the point was, that he is another person living here that wanted to move away to the big cities. He never said so, but everyone could tell, with the way he looked at the walls in the classroom, and the way he walked around like he couldn’t wait to get out of here, it was clear that he didn’t want to be here longer than he needed to be. Just like me. But, like everyone, Tyler has a dark side.

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I remember there was one time when Tyler gave his speech about global warming and climate change to the class; I had already gone, public speaking and presentations were a breeze for me. But, if you remembered, it should have been easy for Tyler as well. So why was he so nervous?

It was easy to tell. He was touching his hair, pushing up his glasses, shifting back and forth. He was really nervous. But why?

I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that he was looking out of the window most often. Was he looking for someone? Or was he making sure somebody wasn’t there?

This would all lead to more questions. Was Tyler in trouble? Was somebody looking for him? Who?

I had set this aside for a very long time, but I decided to come back to it after watching some creepy murder documentaries. I concluded that, since most of the extreme stuff just doesn’t happen in Avis, Tyler was probably just looking out for a bully. Or was he?

So, the truth was, I really knew nothing about Tyler. And while I wanted to learn more about him, I just couldn’t bring myself to try and get to know him.