Autumn leaves dance in rhythmic spirals until they collide and hit the dirt. The sun’s golden rays shine like a prism between the leaves still hanging on. Despite our front row seats to nature’s show, he doesn’t seem to notice; he has other things on his mind.

He leans over me, grabs a switchblade from the glove box, and twirls it in the palm of his hand. A swastika carved into the handle makes me wonder how deep his WWII interest really goes.

We’re discussing society’s inability to understand the suffering that drives teenagers to commit suicide – or worse – murder their classmates.

“People find it difficult to relate to a pain they’ve never experienced,” he sighs. “Should they relate though? Yes, they should understand on some level. But, in a way it’s good most people can’t relate because that means they haven’t had to go through it, and that’s a good thing.”

He’s not talking about ordinary pain like the emotional rollercoaster of a bad break-up. He’s talking about the agony of enduring daily abuse at school that crushes your sense of self-worth and reduces you to a shell of a person, completely dead inside.

He knows this pain intimately. Four years prior, two of his friends committed suicide after killing twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School. After the shooting, he was wrongly accused of helping plan the massacre and some accused him of being a “third shooter.” Though he wasn’t involved, he wasn’t surprised to learn his friends were responsible. He knew exactly why they did it. Everyone did. He experienced the same abuse that pushed them over the edge.

Although several years had passed, Columbine wasn’t over for him and it wasn’t the only storm he was battling. Eleven months after watching those autumn leaves dance, he would commit suicide and leave behind two young children. Although, at the time of our conversation, his youngest child wasn’t born yet and would still be in diapers at the time of his father’s death.

“I can relate,” he taps the steering wheel with the knife’s intricately carved handle, “and the memories of what happened to me at that damned school will remain with me for the rest of my life. I just hope my child’s life is better than mine. I hope she can never relate to the horrors that people like us have gone through.”

Leaning back in the driver’s seat, he sighs with a defeated smile. “So many people think they know what really happened at Columbine.” He shakes his head. “They’ve read reports, books, and articles written by people who didn’t go to Columbine – people who never bothered to interview any of us. I gave a couple interviews in the beginning, but when the official narrative changed, my experience no longer fit their agenda. They stopped airing my interviews and never contacted me again.”

I sigh in agreement with this great truth. He wasn’t the only student ignored by the journalists and authors chosen to deliver a new and improved “official” narrative to the world.

He continues:

“Most people are in denial and they will remain that way. They know the truth, but they refuse to face it.”

Denial is an understatement. About a week after the massacre he witnessed an entire nation rally behind an invented narrative dismissing the severity of abuse he and his friends (including the shooters) experienced firsthand.

Reporters and journalists began to “debunk” the “bullying myth,” a move that contradicted numerous student interviews describing daily abuse the shooters and their friends endured. Some students openly admitted to abusing the shooters on camera and in print. One student was quoted in a national publication saying the shooters deserved to be abused because they were “weird.”

He was bewildered when, out of nowhere, all previously reported incidents of abuse were dismissed, downplayed, and invalidated in favor of a new and final narrative: Eric Harris was a classic psychopath who wanted to kill everyone and didn’t care if he died trying; Dylan Klebold was suicidal and settled for a suicide-murder mission to escape his pain. Neither Eric nor Dylan were relentlessly bullied as previously reported. What little bullying they did experience was typical for any school. Bullying didn’t cause or contribute to the anger, rage, contempt, and suicidal ideation that led to the shootings, therefore bullying played no part in the massacre.

He watched helplessly as “experts” with fancy titles dismissed the truth like magicians with a wave of their hand. These are not the facts you are looking for. Nearly everyone bought it. Strangers across the world began to believe bullying played no role in the massacre because so-called experts said it didn’t.

Just like that, the multitude of firsthand accounts of severe abuse at Columbine – incidents that would get an adult arrested on felony charges – were reframed and swept under the rug.

The shooters didn’t have it that bad. Being called ‘faggot,’ loser,’ and ‘freak’ is just part of high school – the shooters should have just ignored it. Getting shoved into a locker isn’t a big deal; everyone gets slammed by an upperclassman at least once. Dylan got called ‘stretch’ in gym class, but they could have called him something worse. Students threw garbage at them and broke glass bottles at their feet, but it didn’t happen every day.

When someone falsely told the principal they brought drugs to school, it was just a harmless prank – surely the culprit didn’t know they’d be humiliated by getting searched. The jocks left threatening notes in their lockers, but who doesn’t get threatened in high school? Paper is harmless, nobody got hurt. Okay, so a student crossed the line by throwing a cup of fecal matter at them… and someone threw ketchup-covered tampons at them in the cafeteria, but it wasn’t the end of the world and it certainly wasn’t a good reason to kill people.

These constructed narratives made it sound like Eric and Dylan killed people because someone called them names. To reduce their motives to such simplicity is to miss the entire point. He knew, as did all of their friends, that the shooters were reacting to the fact that nobody did anything to stop the abuse. They saw a hopeless future where “adult” society, aka “the real world,” would only be an extension of high school. And it’s hard to say they were wrong about that.

The abuse was real. These new narratives were false. He knew the truth. How could he forget? He lived it every day. Although, with the exception of private conversations he didn’t put any effort into clearing the air. He wasn’t like that. He knew the impossibility of changing people’s minds. Let ‘em think what they want. They’re not looking for the truth.

If you wanted the truth, he’d give it to you. If you didn’t want the truth, that was your problem.

I knew firsthand how nonchalant he was about correcting people’s mistaken beliefs. We met when he offered to provide me with accurate information about the Trench Coat Mafia for my research website. He was casual about the offer, asking if I was interested in what he had to share, rather than telling me everything I published was wrong.

He stares out the front windshield rhythmically tapping his right palm on the side of the steering wheel.

“People who didn’t even go to Columbine convinced the majority of the world that bullying didn’t happen, and Eric and Dylan were just angry and depressed for no reason. What the hell do they think made them so angry in the first place?”

He sighs out of his nose, shaking his head. He gazes out the driver’s side window for several seconds lost in thought.

“Actually, they’re right. It wasn’t bullying. It was abuse. When people talk about bullying it makes you think of overturned lunch trays, food fights, and shoves in the hallway. Calling it “bullying” diminishes the level of abuse we all suffered. If I had gone to the police after someone threw that glass bottle at us, they wouldn’t call it bullying – they’d call it assault… a real crime.”

I nod silently in agreement.

“People want to believe it’s a perfect little world where the birds chirp and there is no pain or cruelty, and that is not reality,” he said. “Pain is necessary for life. It can’t end. However, the frequency of intentional pain will decrease as mankind and society evolve. At least one can hope.”

Although his words sounded hopeful, his whole being radiated defeat – absolute defeat. Like there was no way to win the battle the world had waged against him. He was a different person than he had been prior to the massacre. Apathy had crept into the cracks of his smile and stubble replaced his long, golden hair.

And now he’s gone.

Joseph Benjamin Stair committed suicide on September 13, 2007. He was twenty-seven years old. He left behind a wife, a sister and a brother, two small children, and a world that would have benefitted greatly from his wisdom.

Click here to read Chapter 6: Confessions of a Former Columbiner