He just nodded once.S
That hurt more than anger would have.
Because he had every reason not to make my guilt easier.
On the drive home, I left the radio off.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Normally, silence made me nervous.
I filled it with questions.
This time, I waited.
Finally, I said, “Will you tell me what this year was actually like?”
Lucas looked out the window.
I didn’t immediately add another question.
I didn’t explain myself.
I didn’t defend what I had done.
I waited.
Eventually, he started talking.
Slowly.
He told me running wasn’t about becoming popular.
“It made my head quiet.”
He changed his clothes because Tyler had made him ashamed of how he looked.
The haircut had been about looking in the mirror without hearing someone else’s voice.
“I wasn’t trying to become another person,” he said. “I was trying to feel like myself again.”
I tightened my hands around the steering wheel.
He told me about lunch periods spent avoiding certain hallways.
Messages sent late at night.
Jokes that followed him online after school.
Teachers who saw pieces but never the whole pattern.
The day Ava laughed.
The shame afterward.
And the moment he realized Ava wasn’t laughing because she enjoyed hurting him.
She was trying to survive too.
So he reached out.
