Not the sharp, official knock of administration.
A hesitant one. Two soft taps like a question.
I turned, and there stood Leo, eyes red-rimmed, hood up. Next to him was a woman with tired hair pulled back in a hurry. His mother, I guessed. Her hands were rough. Not from nail salons. From work.
He froze when he saw me, like he wasn’t sure I’d still be here.
“Mr. Miller,” he said. His voice cracked on my name.
His mom stepped forward. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I didn’t know where else to go. He wouldn’t stop talking about you.”
Leo’s jaw tightened, embarrassed.
She kept going anyway, like moms do when they’re holding their breath for too long. “They called me today. The school. They said he was involved in an incident and—” Her voice wobbled. “I thought I was going to hear the worst.”
Leo stared at the floor.
I looked at him. “You holding up?”
He swallowed. “I… I didn’t want to be like that.”
His mom squeezed his shoulder so hard it almost hurt to watch. “He hasn’t been sleeping. He’s been… in his head.” She glanced around the shop, the tools, the clamps, the honest mess of it. “Yesterday he came home and set that wood block on the kitchen table like it was… like it was proof he still existed.”
Leo reached into his backpack and pulled out the oak. Still glossy. Still warm-looking.
He held it out to me with both hands.
“You can keep it,” he said quickly. “If you get in trouble because of me.”
The words hit me harder than any comment thread.
I didn’t take it. I just put my hand on the block for a second—felt the smoothness we’d earned—then pushed it gently back.
“You keep it,” I told him. “It’s not evidence. It’s a reminder.”
His mom blinked fast. “They’re saying online you locked kids in a room with him.”
I nodded. “I did.”
Her face tightened, scared and angry all at once—at me, at the school, at life. “Why?”
Because I saw him. Because I knew the difference between a kid breaking and a kid becoming dangerous. Because I trusted my gut more than a flowchart.
But I didn’t say any of that. I just said the simplest truth.
“Because I didn’t want him to become a headline.”
Leo flinched, like the word headline stung.
His mom stared at me for a long moment, measuring. Then she let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in her chest for months.
“Thank you,” she said, voice low. “For not treating him like a monster.”
Leo’s shoulders sagged a little, like someone had finally set down a weight he’d been carrying alone.
Then his mom reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.
Not the fancy kind. A plain white one. The kind you use when you don’t have time for aesthetics.
“It’s… it’s from him,” she said, pushing it toward me. “He wrote it last night.”
I didn’t open it yet. Envelopes have a gravity to them. You don’t rip them open like junk mail.
Leo shifted on his feet. “They’re… doing a meeting,” he muttered. “Tonight. About you. About the woodshop. About everything.”
I felt my stomach drop. “A board meeting?”
He nodded. “People are coming. Parents are mad. Some parents are… not mad.”
His mom’s mouth tightened. “Some parents want your job. Some want to build you a statue.”
That was the controversy right there, standing in my shop in the shape of a teenager and his exhausted mother: people couldn’t decide what to do with an adult who didn’t fit neatly into the boxes anymore.
Leo looked up at me, eyes finally meeting mine the way they had yesterday.
“I’m gonna go,” he said, voice steadier. “And I’m gonna tell them the truth.”
Click the button below to read the next part of the story.⏬⏬
