At dinner, my parents demanded I apologize to their golden son or lose my education. I said, “Alright.” By dawn, I was packed. My brother’s face drained white: “Please tell me you didn’t send it.” Dad froze. “Send what?”

I stood. My knees trembled, but my voice stayed calm. “Alright.”

Dad smiled like he had won. Brandon actually winked at me.

By sunrise, my room was packed into two trash bags and my old suitcase. I had slept maybe twenty minutes. At 5:48 a.m., Brandon rushed into my doorway barefoot, pale as milk, holding his phone like it had attacked him.

“Please tell me you didn’t send it,” he said.

Dad appeared behind him in his robe, irritated. “Send what?” Parenting

Then Mom screamed from downstairs.

Part 2
Mom’s scream was sharp and high, the kind that makes every fight in a house stop breathing.

We ran downstairs. She stood in the foyer in her nightgown, staring through the front window. A black sedan was parked at the curb. Behind it sat Aunt Renee’s silver SUV, and behind that, a police cruiser.

Brandon muttered a word I had never heard him say in front of our mother.

Dad turned slowly toward me. “Ava. What did you do?”