That’s not stupid. That’s just being nineteen and having a heart.
The heart’s not the problem, Tyler. The heart is the best thing about you. He’s the problem. Men like him look for exactly the good things in you and use them as the door.
You didn’t get fooled because you’re foolish.
You got targeted because you’re kind. There’s a difference, and I never want you to forget it.”
PART 4
The days after were hard in a way I hadn’t expected.
Tyler didn’t just lose a boyfriend. He lost the story he’d been telling himself — the first-love story, the “someone finally chose me” story. And he had to grieve that while also being grateful he’d been saved from it, and those two feelings do not sit comfortably together.
There was also a harder conversation, and we had it a few days later, on the back porch.
“Mom,” Tyler said. “When you locked him down there. And I yelled at you. I said you were doing it because I’m gay.”
“I remember.”
“I really thought that, for a second. That you’d been pretending to be okay with me this whole time and it finally came out.”
I chose my words carefully, because this mattered more than the scammer, more than the money, more than any of it.
