I stood frozen, unable to speak, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

An elderly woman was sitting on a chair beside the checkout counter, covering her face with her hands as she cried. A man wearing a security uniform stood nearby, while several customers gathered around a shopping cart filled with bags of groceries, bread, milk, and diapers.

But the person who caught my attention the most was Theo.

My fifteen-year-old brother stood beside the checkout counter, holding a small piece of paper between his fingers. His head was lowered, and his shoulders were tense. I knew that posture better than anyone. It was the way he stood whenever something unexpected happened and he believed he had made a mistake but couldn’t understand how to fix it.

I hurried toward him.

“Theo, sweetheart, look at me. Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?”

He immediately lifted his head.