The room is silent.
Alejandro does not move.
You wait.
He watches the crash again.
Then again.
The third time, he closes the laptop.
His face is empty in a way that scares you.
“I didn’t imagine it,” he says.
“No.”
“He did this.”
“Yes.”
“My family knew.”
You cannot answer.
Because maybe they did.
Maybe they didn’t.
But they knew enough to look away.
Alejandro’s hands begin shaking.
For a moment, he looks like he might break.
Then he turns his wheelchair toward the braces.
“Help me stand.”
“Alejandro, not tonight.”
“Help me stand.”
His voice is not loud.
It is worse.
It is filled with three years of stolen life.
You fasten the braces.
He stands for thirty-two seconds that night.
Then he takes two steps.
Then three.
Then he collapses into your arms, shaking with rage and grief.
You hold him on the floor while he cries for the first time without hiding it.
Not quietly.
Not beautifully.
He cries like a man mourning the version of himself his own brother tried to kill.
You cry with him.
Because you understand something then.
Your family took you out of school and called it survival.
His family locked him upstairs and called it protection.
Different mansions.
Same cage.
From that night on, Alejandro changes.
He trains harder.
