I walked over and placed the silver laptop on his desk. I gently touched the side of his jaw where the bruise was starting to turn yellow.

“I am so sorry, Tyler,” I said. The tears finally came, hot and fast. “I should have listened to you.”

He did not say I told you so. He did not look angry. He just stood up and wrapped his arms around me.

“It is okay, Mom,” he whispered. “I knew you would see the tape.”

That afternoon, the police arrived at our house. Ethan was sitting on the porch when they pulled up. They arrested him for assault and harassment.

Richard spent the next three days screaming at me, calling me a traitor for not helping him cover up what Ethan had done.

“You ruined his future!” Richard yelled at me in the kitchen.

I did not yell back. I just walked to the hallway, picked up his suitcases, and set them on the front porch.

“You have until five o’clock to get your things out of my house,” I told him. I locked the storm door right in his face.

Richard moved out that night. He and Ethan are currently living with Richard’s brother in Lansing. Ethan lost his track scholarship, and he is facing community service and juvenile probation. Richard tried to call me to beg for money for a lawyer, but I blocked his number.

The house is different now. It is much quieter, but it is a good kind of quiet. Tyler doesn’t have to hide in his room anymore.

Yesterday, Toby and his mother came over to our house. Toby was holding a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. He walked straight up to Tyler and gave him a high-five, grinning from ear to ear.

Tyler smiled, opening his silver laptop to show Toby a drawing he had made. It was a picture of a superhero wearing a faded blue winter coat.

I sat at the kitchen table, watching them laugh. For the first time in four years, I felt like I could finally breathe.