Two months ago, I marched to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's office alongside Mayor Sylvester Turner, Chief Art Acevedo and other teenagers who had organized the Houston March For Our Lives with me; an estimated 15,000 people marched behind us. We chanted as we walked, arms linked together, sweating under the glaring Texas sun. It wasn't long before we were standing under our senator's building. I stood up on a scaffolding trying to quiet the crowd. Most people were still marching at this point — I found out later that the crowd stretched back to Tranquility Park, where we began. I was scanning the mass of people, reading the homemade signs, when I suddenly realized what they were saying.

"Where's Ted Cruz? Where's Ted Cruz?"

Over and over again. Standing on that platform, listening to the chanting crowd, I turned around and looked up at my senator's building.

CROMLEY: Adults cannot fully understand the post-Parkland movement

EDITORIAL: Now it's happened here

Cruz was in Houston that day, and his staff knew we were coming. I had reached out to his office multiple times about meeting to discuss school safety, with no response. Fifteen thousand of us were on his doorstep, asking to be heard. Asking that one question which to this day I still don't have a satisfying answer to: Where was Ted Cruz? The people wanted to know — I wanted to know. If a march of his constituents this big couldn't get his attention, what would?

I felt abandoned by my senator. I had worked so hard to share my message in a world where children are told to be seen and not heard. When I brought that message to him, he had refused to listen.

Last Friday, I saw what it took to get Ted Cruz's attention. I saw the pictures of him visiting Santa Fe, wiping away tears. He had remained silent as we pleaded for safer communities. Now he mourned in front of cameras, after yet another school shooting.

EDITORIAL: Parkland students give us hope that real change is coming to our nation's gun policy

PULITZER FINALIST: We, the (gun) people

I've learned a few things about politics in the last few months. But the most important lesson came when my senator refused to even acknowledge gun violence, but showed up to mourn with a community ravaged by its effects as if we'd forget his earlier silence. Politics, it seems, is about smoke and mirrors more than anything else. My senator wouldn't talk to kids in March, but he was willing to mourn them in May.

Where was Ted Cruz when kids were rallying outside his door because they didn't want to die in a school shooting?

Where was Ted Cruz before Santa Fe, when he should have been taking action to prevent another tragedy like Parkland?

Where was Ted Cruz when it mattered?

Survivors of the Parkland shooting started the Never Again movement. Its message has been picked up by kids like me across the nation. For a brief, shining moment, as I marched with my friends through the streets of downtown Houston, I had believed the promise of Never Again. I know better now.

EDITORIAL: No more moments of silence

RELATED: Can Americans ditch guns the way we ditched cigarettes?

It did happen again. And it will happen again. Because our representatives aren't listening to the desperate pleas of parents, students and teachers. Because our president, our vice president, our governor and our senators all spoke at the NRA convention to the people who brought guns to our marches to scare us and grin at our fearful glances. It will happen again, because my senators did nothing when the children of this state asked for safer schools and will most likely continue to do nothing even after the deaths from last week.

ALSO: The least Texans can do is vote for safer schools

It will happen again until the public says enough. We need to stop forgetting so quickly about tragedies and we need to stop letting politicians get away with inaction. When we stand up, when we use our ballots to say enough is enough — maybe then real change will be made. Maybe then "Never Again" can become a reality.

To all those affected by the tragedy in Santa Fe, a message from fellow Houstonians, March For Our Lives organizers, and students across the nation: We are heartbroken and will continue to pray for you and your community. We stand with you and hope for a brighter future.

Cromley is sophomore at John Cooper School.