Chapter 6: Donna Makes the Call
She came to our room within ten minutes of my husband hanging up.
She watched the video standing up, one hand on the back of the chair, her face doing the careful thing it does when she's processing something professionally rather than personally.
When it finished she set the phone on the table and was quiet for a moment.
"Right," she said.
"Okay."
"You've seen things like this before," my husband said.
"Not exactly like this.
But close enough." She sat down.
"The screenshot of you — that changes the category.
This isn't just a boy with bad opinions on the internet.
That's targeted content involving a real, identifiable person.
Depending on the platform's jurisdiction, that could meet the threshold for a formal complaint."
"What kind of complaint?" I said.
"Online harassment, at minimum.
Possibly more, depending on what else is in those videos." She looked at my husband.
"You said there are threads linking to this channel from other schools?"
"At least six that I found.
There may be more."
"Then this needs to go beyond the school.
This needs to go to the platform directly, and potentially to police, if the content meets the threshold." She paused.
"But first — Ethan."
"What about him?" I said.
"He was in the group chat.
He watched the videos.
He may have known Tyler was on that promenade." She looked at me steadily.
"I'm not saying he set it up.
I'm saying we need to know exactly what he knew and when."
I nodded.
I'd been thinking the same thing since my husband said it twenty minutes ago.
"I'll talk to him," my husband said.
"We both will," I said.
Donna looked between us.
"Do you want me there?"
My husband considered it.
"Yes.
He respects you.
And if he hears it from someone who works in this area, it might land differently."
We found Ethan at the hotel pool, sitting on the edge with his feet in the water, scrolling his phone.
He looked up when he saw the three of us coming and something in his face changed — not guilt, exactly, but a kind of bracing, the way you look when you know a conversation is coming that you've been waiting for.
He put his phone in his pocket before we reached him.
"Did you know Tyler was on the promenade yesterday?" my husband said.
No preamble.
No warm-up.
Ethan looked at the water.
"He texted me.
When we were walking up from the beach.
He said he was nearby and asked where we were going."
"And you told him."
"I said we were walking the promenade before dinner.
I didn't think—" He stopped.
"I didn't think he was going to take a photo."
"But you knew he had the channel," my husband said.
"You knew what kind of content he made."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"So when he texted and asked where your mother was going to be—"
"I didn't think it through," Ethan said.
His voice cracked.
"I know how that sounds.
I know.
But I genuinely didn't think he was going to—"
"Ethan." Donna's voice was quiet but it stopped him.
"I need you to listen to me carefully.
What Tyler did — taking that photo, putting it in a video, posting it publicly — that's not a prank.
That's not lads being lads.
That has a name, and it has consequences.
Do you understand?"
Ethan looked at her.
"Yes."
"And your mum is in that video.
Her face.
Her body.
Without her knowledge or consent." Donna let that sit for a moment.
"How does that make you feel?"
Ethan looked at me then.
Really looked at me — not away, not past me, but at me.
"Sick," he said.
"It makes me feel sick."
"Good," Donna said.
Not unkindly.
"Hold onto that feeling.
Because that's the part of you that knows right from wrong.
And that part of you is going to help us fix this."
She told him what needed to happen.
The platform report.
The school.
Possibly more.
She explained it clearly, without drama, the way she must explain things to frightened teenagers in her professional life every day.
Ethan listened to all of it.
Then he said: "I want to be the one who reports the channel.
Not just because Dad said so last night.
Because I want to."
My husband looked at him for a long moment.
May you like
"All right," he said.
"Then we do it together."
