When you leave home after high school, the people you left behind go on with their stories. We used to have the privilege of forgetting, but a place like Facebook can reveal the role you’ve played in another person’s narrative. This happened to me two years ago when I accepted a friend request from a classmate named Kurt Howell. We hadn’t seen each other or spoken in over twenty years, but in a digital space that required no direct communication we could reacquaint in a convenient and comfortable way. I didn’t expect that opening that door would shine a light on the love-starved person I was at seventeen.

Those first months of Facebook friendship with Kurt were barely on my radar. His occasional posts about his kids or deer hunting were unremarkable. He was the same person I remembered: Kurt and his older brother Andy had been good-looking athletes, popular kids who were polite, charismatic and charming. They were football stars, prom courtiers, and college-bound honor students with blue eyes and curly brown hair. They wore red varsity jackets with “Howell” embroidered on the back. I remember those jackets vividly, especially Kurt’s. My former best friend, Lisa, – his girlfriend back them – wore it everywhere.

Kurt’s occasional posts stirred a memory of some secret conversations held between us. This was in 1984 or so. I had a funny phone in my bedroom styled in a 1920s fashion with art deco numerals circling the rotary dial. It had a thick, awkward receiver. To speak in it, I lay on my bed with one cheek pressed into a pillow with the phone balanced on the other side of my face, the pink bedspread and canopy creating a pit of privacy.

The first time Kurt had called my house, I was flattered that he wanted to know more about me. I told him what my life was like at home, why I wanted to get away after I graduated, and what my dreams were. For a while, he called every night. We would go over homework or gossip about people we knew. Sometimes I talked to him about Lisa. She was doing some things – such as talking to boys from other schools – that he wasn’t aware of, so I told him who the boys were and what she said to them. I never mentioned the calls to anyone. When I saw Kurt at school, he was walking Lisa down the hall or working his charm on a teacher or group of friends. Our relationship existed only in a safe space of telephone wires. Even though I questioned that, I didn’t want it to go away.

Eventually, of course, Lisa found out. “You told Kurt everything,” she sobbed one night. I realized that Kurt had played my insecurities to uncover Lisa’s misdeeds. The guilt and shame started then, and I had to wonder what kind of person I was to betray a good friend. It’s only now that I understand I was just a typically selfish human.

It’s only now I understand the danger I was in.

Through the portal of Facebook so many years later, I learned that Kurt had graduated from a mortuary science program and opened a successful funeral home. For decades, he had been tending to and burying the dead of our small hometown. He and his partner were well-regarded citizens providing a necessary service. None of this was surprising -- Kurt had always been popular, and even the day-to-day handling of corpses wouldn’t change that.

Then he was arrested.

My newsfeed took off with angry and indignant postings from his friends and current girlfriend. A sad mugshot of Kurt was published on my screen -- it revealed a scraped-up, unshaven, older and tired version of the boy I once knew. He was in a prison-orange smock opened to reveal a tattoo on his left pectoral muscle. He looked regretful and very guilty.

Kurt, whose given name is Kenneth, had been charged with shooting into his ex-wife’s apartment with a .357 revolver. According to the newspaper story everyone was sharing, he might have killed her, his children and maybe himself if not overtaken by his teenage son and former sister-in-law. He had been drunk that night, I learned on his Facebook page. He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, his friends were saying. They claimed it was blown out of proportion: His ex-wife was a manipulator trying to get Kurt’s money, someone said. Many people “liked” that comment. He was not a criminal, others mentioned. In fact, he didn’t even have a speeding ticket on record.

At the helm of Kurt’s page was his girlfriend Tara. As the weeks passed, she provided news updates, described Kurt’s emotions going into the trial, the trial dates themselves, and – finally – the verdict and the final outcome: Charged with six felony charges, Kurt was given a sentence of six years and nine months. It was the lightest he could receive, and it could have been much worse. I looked at Tara’s photos. She was stylish, blonde, and bright-eyed with an energetic smile. Her love for Kurt was strong:

It has been 87 days so far since I've been able to hold your hand, hug you tight, and kiss your lips.... I miss my handsome man. Counting down the days until I see you again!! — with Kenneth Kurt Howell Jr.

Kurt is serving him time now, and Tara doesn’t make many posts on his behalf anymore. A new photo in her album shows her with a different man, one she claims “is the best.” I don’t blame her for moving on. Seven years is a long time, and Kurt is just at the beginning of his sentence.

Fortunately, I’m done with mine.