Chapter 3: The Name on the Screen
Leo's hand moved toward the phone.
Then stopped.
"Leave it," I said.
He looked at me.
Then at the phone.
The screen had already gone dark, but I'd seen the name before it did.
Tyler.
Tyler was Leo's best friend.
Had been since fifth grade.
They played on the same soccer team, sat at the same lunch table, spent half their weekends at each other's houses.
"Is that who you were texting at the restaurant?" I asked.
Leo didn't answer.
"Leo."
"Yes," he said quietly.
I reached over and turned the phone face-up.
The notification was still visible on the lock screen.
Not the full message.
Just the first line.
*Dude that was hilarious, did you get a video of—*
I pushed the phone back across the table toward him.
"Pick it up," I said.
"Read me the rest."
"Mom—"
"Read it to me."
His jaw tightened.
He unlocked the phone.
His eyes moved across the screen and something in his face shifted — not guilt exactly, not yet.
Something closer to the first moment a person realizes they've walked into a room they can't back out of.
"It says—" He stopped.
"Out loud."
"It says, 'did you get a video of the retard waiter.
send it send it.'" His voice dropped to almost nothing on the last three words.
The kitchen felt very small.
"Did you?" I asked.
"Did I what?"
"Get a video."
He set the phone down.
"No."
"Look at me when you answer."
He looked up.
"No.
I didn't.
I was just — I was texting him about it.
I didn't record anything."
I believed him.
That almost made it worse — that he hadn't needed to record it, that the cruelty had been casual enough to do without documentation.
I picked up the hospital photo of Daniel.
Set it in front of Leo.
"Your grandmother took that picture," I said.
"He'd just been told his heart was getting worse.
He still smiled for the camera because he didn't want her to cry."
Leo stared at the photo.
"He knew people laughed at him," I said.
"He told me once.
He said he could always tell.
He said the worst part wasn't the laughing.
It was that the people doing it never thought about him afterward.
He said he thought about them.
He wondered what he'd done wrong."
"Mom, I didn't—"
"You did," I said.
"You sat at that table and you made a boy who was working as hard as he could feel like a joke.
And then you texted your friend about it.
And your friend wanted video."
Leo's eyes were wet.
He blinked hard.
"I didn't think about it like that."
"I know you didn't," I said.
"That's the problem."
I stood up and went to the kitchen counter.
I needed a moment with my back to him.
I filled a glass of water I didn't drink.
"Your Uncle Daniel came to every single one of your birthday parties until you were four years old," I said.
"You don't remember him.
But he remembered you.
He called him 'my Leo' when he talked about you.
He had a photo of you on his nightstand."
I heard the chair shift behind me.
"I didn't know any of that," Leo said.
"No." I turned around.
"Because I stopped talking about him after he d*ed.
Because it hurt too much.
And maybe that was a mistake.
Maybe if I'd told you about him sooner, tonight would have gone differently."
Leo was crying now.
Not loudly.
Just tears running down his face that he wasn't bothering to wipe.
His phone buzzed again.
May you like
We both looked at it.
Another message from Tyler.
