held up their phones.
I saw one boy from Aaron’s graduating class lean toward his friend, grinning as he recorded Aaron walking down the stage steps.
My son saw all of it.
Still, he kept going.
I sat in the third row, the only person in that entire room who knew why he was wearing the dress.
Two weeks earlier, Aaron had told me his plan.
It was two in the morning, and neither of us had been sleeping much.
I found him sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of untouched tea.
The house had felt painfully quiet for weeks.
Every room reminded me that someone was missing.
When I walked in, I noticed a piece of red fabric folded over Aaron’s knees.
My stomach dropped.
“Aaron.”
He looked up.
His eyes were exhausted.
At eighteen, he
had always resembled his twin sister so strongly that some days, looking at him hurt.
“What are you doing with that?”
He glanced down.
“I want to wear it to graduation.”
For a second, I thought I had misunderstood.
“You want to what?”
