The weeks that followed were orderly, which is how I prefer hard things. Officer Brennan took my statement, and my father was cited for filing a false report. Base security attached the Gate 2 incident to the plastic-bagged letter, and the judge granted the restraining order without raising his voice.
Nobody on that lawn needed me to shout. Ramon’s reputation as a respected principal quietly thinned, the way a story does once the evidence is sitting in a folder. My mother called once, late at night, and said she was sorry she had not been braver. I told her I believed she was.
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