I saw the way he checked the stands last Friday night after he made a touchdown; I waved and gave him a thumbs up. Even with his friends patting him on the back and jumping on him, he directed his view towards me. As he tapped his helmet, I knew he saw his number one fan and smiled with confidence. My support has been unwavering, but it is also honest. One night, he asked me to proofread his history essay. I found a couple of grammatical and conceptual errors, and I contemplated whether I should gush that his essay was perfect or tell him it needed improvement. Then a thought popped into my mind. A few days earlier, when his friends kept saying, “Sorry for your loss, I’m here if you want to talk,” he turned to stone. No thank-you’s or expression of appreciation. Right then, I knew he was tired of pity. When I explained that his essay needed fixing, he was happier than I had ever seen him that week. All of his friends hadn’t been consistent with him ever since his mother passed away. They expressed pity, stopped joking around with him, and pretended to be somber whenever he walked by. Seeing him get lost in the onslaught of condolences, I knew that he needed someone who respected him enough to be both sympathetic and unchanging. Although I could never fill the place in his heart that his mother had left, I hope I gave him a sense of normalcy and comfort when everything else in his life was swept up in a whirlwind of change.