Many saw it coming. Ethnically charged graffiti began appearing on buildings around town. The local newspapers published the locations of bomb shelters. A classmate told me not to sleep in my bedroom because it faced military barracks.

I dismissed these warnings, just as I ignored all other signs of coming doom. In my 12-year-old mind, our town of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was too beautiful and the people too good to one another for there to be a civil war here. Besides, that spring was promising to be the greatest time of my life: I was happily in love for the first time.

I had noticed Marko at school and was attracted to his mischievous eyes and playful smile. One afternoon, while walking home from a piano lesson, I spotted him coming down the hill on his skateboard. He stopped just short of running into me. I don’t remember us saying much. We just stood there and smiled. But that’s all it took to seal the deal of our mutual affection, and we became inseparable.

Marko was in fifth grade and I was in sixth; he was short and I was tall; he was Croatian and I was Serbian. Soon, our ethnic groups would find themselves on the opposing sides of a bloody civil war. But for the moment, none of that mattered.