Morning is supposed to be routine. A set of motions that keeps the rest of your life from leaking in.
I move through it anyway—eggs, toast, lunch bags—because the alternative is standing still and letting my mind do what it's been doing all week. Replaying. Rewinding. Freezing on the worst frames.
Mark is at the table, shoulders tense, foot tapping hard enough to rattle the chair. Seventeen and already carrying anger that has nowhere healthy to go. He tries to act normal for my sake. He fails for Stephen's.
Nolan stands at the counter with coffee, posture straight, face composed. If you don't know him, you'd call it calm. I know the difference between calm and control. This is control. It's the kind that takes effort every second.
Stephen comes in last.
He's dressed already. Shoes on. Backpack by the door. Hair combed. He looks ready for someone to judge him. He's twelve, and he's walking into a high school full of teenagers who are two, three, sometimes six years older than him. He belongs there on paper—test scores, placements, the neat little proofs that he's "advanced." None of that matters when people are scared.
"Morning," I say, making my voice steady on purpose.
"Morning," he answers.
He sits with his hands on the table. Palms down. Fingers still. Visible. It's a habit now. A choice. A tactic. It shouldn't be necessary.
I slide a plate toward him. "Eat."
He nods and takes small bites. Careful bites. Not because he's picky—because he's measuring himself. I watch him swallow and look away before my face gives me away.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
I don't pick it up. I already know what it is. The school. The district. Another "support" message that reads like a warning. Another set of polite lines that still land as a threat.
Mark glances at his own phone and flips it face down so fast it's a reflex.
Nolan doesn't look at either of them.
Stephen keeps eating.
The silence starts building into something sharp.
Mark breaks it, voice tight. "I'm walking with you."
Stephen doesn't look up. "I know."
Mark's jaw flexes. "If anybody—"
"Mark," I cut in softly, warning him without humiliating him.
He exhales through his nose. "I'm not finishing it."
Nolan finally speaks, voice even. "Both of you keep your heads. Don't give anyone an excuse."
Mark's eyes flash up. "We're not the ones looking for excuses."
"I didn't say you were," Nolan replies. Same level tone. No heat. That's how you can tell he's holding it in.
Stephen pushes his plate away even though he's barely touched it. He stands, shoulders his backpack, and moves toward the door with that practiced steadiness that makes my stomach turn.
I follow him into the entryway. I adjust his collar without thinking, the way I used to when he was smaller and the worst thing waiting outside was a spelling test. My fingers shake a little. I keep them light.
"Text me," I say.
He nods. "I will."
I want to tell him to stay home. I want to lock the door and sit with him on the couch and keep him away from all of it. I don't. I can't be the one who teaches him that fear decides where he's allowed to exist.
Instead I open the door.
Cold air hits us. The street looks ordinary. That's the part that makes me feel insane. Ordinary lawns, ordinary cars, ordinary mailboxes.
Except there's a sedan down the block with its engine running. Someone sits in the driver's seat with a phone held up too high to be texting.
Nolan's eyes flick to it. Mark notices too. Stephen doesn't. Or he pretends not to.
They step out.
Mark stays close behind Stephen, not touching him, but close enough to block a shoulder if he has to.
I stand in the doorway until they reach the sidewalk.
The door closes.
The house is quiet in a way that makes my chest hurt.
I pick up my phone.
The subject line is still there, waiting:
DISTRICT SAFETY & STUDENT SUPPORT MEETING — Mandatory Attendance
I turn the screen off.
'Later,' I tell myself.
'Handle it later.'
And then I start cleaning a counter that's already clean, because my hands need something to do.
_ _ ♛ _ _
I'm across the street from the Grayson house when they come out, pretending my stomach isn't trying to twist itself into a knot.
Seventeen is old enough to be called a "young man" by strangers and still young enough to get turned into a target online in five minutes. I learned that the hard way.
Two nights ago I defended Stephen in a thread. I didn't write anything heroic. I wrote what was true: the footage is clipped, people don't know what happened before the camera started rolling, he's twelve. A kid.
Within an hour, someone had my school name in the replies. My yearbook photo. My mom's Facebook. A DM with a picture of my street sign and three words: WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.
I deleted everything so fast my hands shook.
I didn't feel brave. I felt stupid. And guilty. Because it didn't just land on me—it added heat to Stephen's name. It made him trend harder.
So I'm here in person, because online means nothing if you won't stand next to someone when it matters.
"Hey," I call, forcing my voice to sound normal.
Stephen nods at me. Hat pulled low. Backpack straps tight in his hands. Face controlled.
Mark doesn't bother with normal. He looks past me, scanning the street.
"Ready?" I ask.
Stephen shrugs. "Yeah."
We start walking.
The neighbourhood is awake in that half-winter way—people leaving for work, kids drifting toward bus stops. It should be boring.
It isn't.
A guy in a driveway pauses with his coffee halfway to his mouth and stares at Stephen too long. A woman across the street tugs her kid closer without saying anything. A curtain shifts. A phone lifts and dips again.
Mark moves closer to Stephen by inches, always positioning, always watching angles. He isn't trying to be subtle.
I try to talk because silence feels dangerous.
"So… first period's gonna be a mess," I say. "Everyone's gonna—"
Mark cuts in, low. "Don't."
I swallow. My throat feels dry.
Stephen keeps walking as if he can't hear any of it. Or as if he hears everything and refuses to react.
Three blocks from the school, I hear an engine coming too fast.
Mark hears it first. I know he does because his head turns before mine, his whole body tightening in that alert way that says he's already running scenarios.
A dark car rounds the corner hard.
Window down.
Someone leaning out.
And then the sound hits—sharp cracks, fast. Gunshots. Real gunshots.
My brain stops being useful.
I freeze in the middle of the sidewalk, waiting for pain that doesn't arrive yet.
Mark moves.
He steps in front of me instantly. Broad back, squared shoulders. His hand grabs the front of my hoodie and yanks me down hard.
"DOWN!" Mark roars.
I hit the pavement. Palms scrape. Knees slam. My breath punches out of me.
The next shots come immediately, and I hear fabric tear above me.
Mark's hoodie jerks as rounds hit it. Not him—him, too, but not the way it would hit a normal person. The cloth takes it first. His shoulder shifts with the impacts. There's a hole ripped in the sleeve and another near his side, and then the bullets drop away, flattened, skipping across the street.
Stephen takes one step forward and the air around us changes.
I don't have a better way to describe it. It's pressure. It's a boundary.
The next volley doesn't reach Mark.
It doesn't reach me.
It doesn't reach anyone behind us.
Rounds stop in mid-air and then fall. Straight down. A scatter of metal hitting asphalt near Stephen's shoes.
Stephen's face changes.
It's quick, but it's there: cold anger, controlled and sharp. His eyes lock on the car. His jaw tightens. His hands are open, fingers spread.
He takes another step.
I see it in his posture. He's about to go.
He's about to end it.
Mark sees it too.
Mark turns his head just enough and grabs Stephen's forearm hard. "No," he snaps. "Don't."
Stephen doesn't look at him. His eyes stay on the car. His breathing stays measured, but his fingers tense.
More shots. More rounds stall and drop.
The car fishtails, tires screaming, and tears off down the street. It vanishes around the next corner.
Silence slams in for half a second.
Then the neighbourhood erupts—shouting, screaming, doors slamming, someone yelling to call 911. A dog losing its mind.
I push up onto my elbows, shaking so hard my arms barely work.
Mark stays crouched over me, still shielding. His breathing is steady, but his eyes are wild with anger.
Stephen stands in the open. Bullets on the ground near his feet. He forces his hands back into a neutral position slowly.
Mark's gaze snaps to the sidewalk across the street.
A man is filming us.
Not the car.
Not the shooter.
Us.
Mark lifts his hand and points straight at the phone. "Put it down."
The man hesitates.
Mark's voice goes lower. "Put it down."
The man lowers it, muttering, backing up.
Mark looks at Stephen. "Camera," he says, short.
Stephen's eyes flick to the man filming, then back to the street where the car disappeared. His expression stays controlled, but the anger doesn't fully leave. It sits behind his eyes.
Mark turns back to me and checks me fast—hands on my shoulders, my arms, my side—rough, practical.
"Are you hit?" he snaps.
"No," I choke out. "No, I'm okay."
His eyes flick to Stephen. "You?"
Stephen shakes his head once.
A siren starts in the distance.
Mark swallows hard. "We're going."
"To school?" My question sounding insane.
"Yes," Mark says. "We don't run home. We don't give them that."
Stephen's eyes meet Mark's for a second. Something passes between them—agreement, restraint.
We start walking again.
My legs feel wrong. My stomach keeps trying to climb into my throat.
Mark stays between me and the street without thinking. That should just feel protective.
For half a second, my stupid brain does something else with it.
He's right there. He's solid. He's furious for you. He just—
I catch myself and feel my face heat.
'Jesus Christ, William.'
I look down. I force my thoughts back into place. Mark is my best friend. He's not mine. Being gay doesn't mean I get to turn every intense moment into a crush.
We reach the school, and phones are already out. People are already talking.
Not about the shooter.
About the Graysons.
"He was there when it happened."
"Of course he was."
"Did you see the bullets drop?"
"Dude, that family—"
Mark's shoulders tighten. His fist flexes once.
Stephen keeps his face neutral and walks straight through the gate.
I follow, throat tight, trying to keep my breathing steady.
And I realize, with sick clarity, that nothing I said online mattered.
What matters is what people want to believe.
_ _ ♛ _ _
I see them before they see me.
That's the benefit of standing at your classroom door with a clipboard. People assume you're supervising. They don't assume you're watching for weakness.
They walk in buzzing today. It's not normal morning energy. It's excited. Sharper.
"Did you hear?"
"Someone shot at them."
"Mark got hit."
"Stephen stopped bullets."
They say it like gossip. Like entertainment. Like proof.
Then Stephen Grayson appears at the far end of the corridor.
Hat low. Backpack straps tight in both hands. Steps measured. Eyes forward.
Twelve.
The district keeps reminding us he's twelve. The emails keep repeating it like it's supposed to make me feel responsible in a warm, maternal way.
It doesn't.
It makes me feel trapped.
Because if something goes wrong, the district won't stand in the hallway. I will. If a parent sues, my name will be in the report. If a kid gets hurt, everyone will say staff failed to supervise. They will say we weren't trained. They'll say we didn't follow protocol.
And they'll still leave him here.
They dropped a problem into our building and called it "support."
I watched the bridge footage. I watched it again. I watched the freeze frame people keep using, the one where his face looks hard and unreadable. The comments under it were disgusting.
And familiar.
People always want someone to blame. People always pick the easiest target and call it morality.
Now there's new footage. New angles. A shooter, bullets stopping, Stephen not panicking. People are already cutting it into something they can repeat.
What they repeat is never the truth.
Stephen walks closer.
Kids make room around him. Not polite room. Space that says stay away. Phones lift. Some pretend they aren't recording. Some don't.
A boy steps out near the lockers, face tight with anger. He points at Stephen.
"You," he says, voice cracking. "My dad was on that bridge. He got hurt. He still can't work. And you're just walking around like nothing happened, while my sister lost her legs because of you, and my mum now dead because my dad cant work."
Good.
Make it personal. Make it righteous. Give the crowd a reason.
Stephen stops.
He turns his head slowly. Controlled. Eyes on the boy.
No flinch. No scramble to make the right face.
That's what people hate most. Not violence. Not power.
Composure.
"I'm sorry your dad got hurt," Stephen says.
The boy's face twists. "That's it? Sorry?"
"I don't know what fixes it," Stephen answers.
The crowd tightens. Phones rise higher. Someone laughs, quick, excited, the sound kids make when they want something to happen.
I could step in.
I don't.
I shouldn't have to be the one who gets between a crowd and something they're determined to do. I shouldn't have to be the one who risks a parent complaint, a district email, a meeting where they say my name.
If the students handle it, it stays student business.
If he gets hurt, the district will finally be forced to remove him.
Suspension. Transfer. "Alternative placement." Anything. Gone.
I don't say that out loud. I never will.
But I think it clearly enough.
Mark Grayson shifts behind Stephen, furious, tight, looking ready to explode.
"Back up," Mark snaps.
The boy scoffs. "Make me."
Phones lift higher.
The boy shoves Stephen's shoulder.
Stephen rocks back half a step and steadies.
No reaction.
That doesn't calm them down.
It feeds them.
Mark's hands clench.
Stephen lifts a hand toward Mark's wrist—not grabbing, just touching.
Mark stops immediately.
That makes something twist in my stomach. Not fear.
Resentment.
Because it looks like control. It looks like Stephen giving the signal and Mark obeying.
The boy shoves again, harder.
Stephen's hand lifts instinctively—
—and then drops. Fingers curl inward as he forces it down.
I see restraint.
I decide it's a threat.
Because that's what the crowd wants, and crowds decide what's true.
"Come on," the boy says. "Do something. Show us."
The hallway leans in. Faces bright.
And the thought in my head is simple and ugly:
'Hit him.'
Not one hit. Not a warning. I want the kind of beating that leaves bruises in places cameras can't ignore. I want him to look like a child afterward, small and damaged enough that the district can't keep pretending this is "reintegration."
I want him gone.
Then I hear footsteps down the corridor.
Vice Principal Hargrove.
My stomach drops.
Not because I'm worried about Stephen.
Because I'm worried about being seen doing nothing.
My face snaps into place. My voice turns bright.
"Alright," I call, loud and clean. "That's enough. Phones away. Everyone to class. Move."
They hesitate. Of course they do. They want it to continue.
"Now," I say, sharper. "If I see a phone out, I'm taking it."
That gets them moving. Complaints, mutters, disappointed looks. The circle loosens.
I step forward and put my body between Stephen and the crowd, perfectly staged. Perfectly defensible.
Hargrove arrives and sweeps his eyes over the dispersing students. "What's going on?"
"Nothing serious," I say smoothly. "Just some excitement. Handled."
His gaze lands on Stephen and tightens—not hatred. Liability.
"Stephen," Hargrove says. "Office. Now."
Stephen nods once and starts to move.
He doesn't argue.
He doesn't ask why.
He doesn't look at me as he passes.
For a second, I see his hand trembling at his side—small, involuntary—then it stills.
Hargrove leans in toward me, voice low. "We need staff visible today. District's already calling. Meeting tonight."
"I know," I say, keeping my smile soft. "I'll be visible."
He nods and walks away.
I stay at my door and watch the hallway pretend it never happened.
Inside my head, the thought returns, calm and awful:
'Next time, nobody better walk out at the wrong moment.'
_ _ ♛ _ _
From the end of the hallway, it reads cleanly: students arriving, a confrontation, a teacher dispersing a crowd, an administrator directing a student to the office.
Up close, it's messier.
Stephen Grayson stands near the lockers with his hat brim low. His posture is straight. His hands stay open and visible. His face is neutral in a way that invites projection.
Mark Grayson stands behind him, tense, scanning, jaw tight. His anger reads as familiar to the watching students. It reads as human.
Stephen's restraint reads as something else.
Phones angle toward them. A few students hover just out of reach, pretending they're late.
Vice Principal Hargrove gestures toward the office.
Stephen turns away from the office route and walks toward the nearest bathroom instead.
Mark shifts as if to follow.
Stephen reaches back and touches Mark's elbow—brief contact, precise. Mark stops.
Stephen goes in alone.
The door swings shut.
The hallway exhales, disappointed and relieved at the same time.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The bathroom is loud.
Not loud like yelling—loud like everything has teeth.
The fluorescent lights buzz so hard it feels like they're inside my skull. The sink drips in a slow, patient rhythm that makes my stomach twist. Somewhere in a stall, someone's shoe taps like a code I can't crack.
And outside the door—
Outside the door is the worst part.
I can hear them. Not words, not always. Just the sound of bodies. Heartbeats. Breaths. The friction of fabric. The tiny electric click when a phone camera focuses.
It's like being in the middle of a crowd even when I'm alone.
I stand at the sink and grip the edge so hard my fingers ache. The porcelain is cold. It anchors me, kind of. The mirror shows my face, and my face looks wrong.
It looks like their story.
It looks calm.
It looks like I don't care.
My stomach rolls. I swallow and it doesn't help. My throat feels too small for my own breath.
I turn on the water. The rush is too loud. I turn it down until it's a thin stream. The sound changes but it's still too much. Everything is too much.
I stare at myself. I try to make my eyebrows do the right thing. I try to make my mouth soften. I try to look like someone who deserves not to be hit.
My hands shake.
"Stop," I whisper, but it's not to anyone else. It's to me. It's always to me.
If I make the wrong face, they say I'm lying.
If I make no face, they say I'm a monster.
If I cry, they say it's fake.
If I don't cry, they say I don't have feelings.
Sometimes I think they already decided what I am and they're just waiting for my face to confirm it.
I press my palms to the sink and lean forward until my forehead almost touches the mirror.
The buzzing gets louder.
I can feel my heartbeat everywhere—in my chest, in my throat, in my fingertips. My ears pick up the rhythm of other people outside, too. It's not like normal hearing. It's like being trapped in everyone's bodies at once.
A laugh outside the door. Short. Mean.
My vision warps at the edges, like the mirror is breathing. The reflection flickers for a second and my face looks… stretched. Not different, just wrong in a way I can't explain. Like the glass is telling on me.
My stomach lurches. I gag and catch myself, hands scrambling for purchase. My knees wobble. The floor feels too far away.
Mom, I think.
I want to call her so badly it hurts. I want her voice to land on me and make everything stop shaking. I want her hand on the back of my neck the way she does when I'm sick, like she can press the panic out of my bones.
But if I call her, they'll say I'm manipulating. They'll say I'm running to my mommy because I got caught being what I am.
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the tile. It's cold through my pants. My backpack bumps my shoulder. I keep it on because taking it off feels like admitting I might not go back out.
My hands are in front of my face, trembling. They look too small and too strong at the same time. Kid hands. Not-kid hands. I hate that I can't separate those things.
I breathe in for four counts the way Mom taught me. Out for four. In again.
Outside the door, someone's footsteps slow. Pause. Then move away.
They're listening.
They're always listening.
I squeeze my eyes shut and the lights still buzz through my eyelids. I can't turn it off. I can't turn anything off. My body is a radio stuck between stations, picking up everything.
I don't know how I'm supposed to look.
That thought lands like a weight. It's not dramatic. It's just true.
The boy's face flashes in my head—red eyes, pointing finger, the way his voice broke when he said his dad couldn't work. I can hear it again, like I recorded it. I can hear my own voice answering, calm and even, and I want to slam my head into the wall because I sounded like a robot.
But if I hadn't sounded calm, what would I have sounded like?
Angry? They would've loved that. Scared? They would've called it an act. Anything real is just fuel.
I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. My skin feels hot. My throat burns like I swallowed sand.
I could stay here.
I could hide in the stall and wait until the bell stops ringing and the day moves on without me.
But hiding becomes proof, too. Proof that I'm guilty. Proof that they were right to be afraid.
And Mark—
Mark looked like he was going to explode. He always looks like that lately when it's about me. Like he's holding the world back with his teeth. If I don't go back out, he'll go back out alone, angry, and they'll point at him and say, 'See? That's what that family is.'
I don't want him to burn for me.
I don't want Mom to get that call.
I don't want Dad to go quiet in that way that means he's deciding things.
My stomach flips again. I breathe through it. I push myself up, palms sliding on the wall. My knees are shaky like I'm learning to walk.
I step to the mirror.
I practice again.
I lift my eyebrows a little. I soften my mouth. I try to look sorry without looking fake. I try to look human without looking weak.
It doesn't work.
I don't know what "works."
The bell rings somewhere far away, muffled through walls and fear. It's a clean sound. It doesn't care.
I grab my backpack straps and pull them tighter. The pressure on my shoulders feels like armour.
I turn the water off. The sudden quiet is worse, but I take it anyway.
My hand hovers near the door handle.
Outside, I can hear the hallway breathe.
I open the door and step out.
I go back.
Not because I'm brave.
Because if I don't, the story wins without me even being there to contradict it.
_ _ ♛ _ _
When they come home, I hear the front door and my body reacts before my mind does. Relief hits first, sharp enough to sting.
Stephen steps inside and sets his backpack down carefully. He takes his shoes off and lines them up. He moves with that same controlled precision he used this morning, and it makes my chest tighten.
Mark follows, shoulders tight, eyes hard. He tosses his keys into the bowl too loudly.
Nolan comes in last, face composed, gaze tracking the room and the boys in the same sweep. He doesn't ask questions in front of Stephen. He never has.
"Food," I say, because food is something I can do.
Stephen sits when I tell him to. He eats because I'm watching, because he knows I need him to be okay in a way I can see.
Mark keeps glancing at his phone, scrolling, jaw clenched. He isn't trying to be polite about it anymore.
"People are saying he caused the gunshots," Mark mutters, voice rough. "Because he was there."
I set a glass down harder than I mean to. "He didn't cause anything."
"I know," Mark says. "They don't care."
My phone buzzes again.
I pick it up. Same subject line. More people cc'd now. Titles I recognize.
Student Safety Meeting — Required Attendance
To discuss accommodations, risk protocol, and supervised reintegration strategies.
The district recommends training resources and supervision supports for all parties involved.
All parties. As if my son is an object they have to manage.
I read it aloud anyway.
Mark's chair scrapes back. "They want to put him on a leash."
Nolan's expression doesn't shift much, but I see his fingers tighten once against the counter. "They want liability coverage," he says quietly.
Stephen keeps chewing. Eyes on his bowl. He doesn't look up.
I reach across the table and touch his wrist.
He flinches—tiny, involuntary—then settles when he realizes it's me. That flinch stays with me. It sits in my throat.
"Finish eating," I tell him. "Then shower. Then bed."
"I'm not tired," he says automatically.
His voice is calm.
His eyelids are heavy.
Mark opens his mouth to argue with the universe. Nolan gives him a look. Mark shuts it, breathing hard through his nose.
After the shower, I hand Stephen clean pyjamas anyway—the ones with planets on them, because he's twelve and I refuse to let the world take every normal thing. He sits on the couch with a blanket over his lap.
"I'm fine," he says, because he thinks that's his job.
I don't push. I sit near him. I let the room be quiet.
His head dips forward within minutes.
His hand still holds the spoon from the ice cream I gave him because I didn't know what else to offer. It slips slowly until it rests against his leg.
I kneel beside him and brush his hair back.
In sleep, his face stops performing.
In sleep, he looks exactly what he is.
A tired boy.
A twelve-year-old who should be worried about grades and friends and stupid school stuff, not risk protocols and meetings and strangers filming the moment his brother stepped in front of bullets.
I keep my hand on his shoulder, steady contact, as if I can anchor him to the world by force of will.
On the counter, my phone stays lit with the email open—polite words, sharp meaning.
I don't close it.
I don't pretend those words are harmless.
I sit there until the spoon finally slips from his fingers and taps softly against the floor, and the sound is small and ordinary and it makes my throat tighten because ordinary shouldn't feel like this.