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That evening, Alejandro barely touched his dinner.
Normally, he was the first person to complain if there wasn’t enough food.
That night, he pushed his plate around with his fork.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“I’m just tired.”
“You’ve been quiet all afternoon.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
He stood up.
“Can I go to bed?”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
He hugged me before leaving.
That was unusual too.
Alejandro wasn’t a child who hugged people every five minutes.
I watched him walk down the hallway.
Something about the way he moved bothered me.
He was slightly stiff.
His left arm stayed close to his body.
He was wearing a mustard-colored sweatshirt even though the apartment was warm.
“Why are you still wearing that?”
“I’m cold.”
I didn’t question it.
I wish I had.
The next morning, I was making coffee when someone knocked on our front door.
Not a normal knock.
Three hard blows.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
I froze.
My husband was already at work.
I walked toward the door and looked through the peephole.
Two police officers were standing outside.
My heart started racing.
I opened the door halfway.
“Yes?”
A male officer, probably in his forties, looked at me.
“Are you Alejandro’s mother?”
My hands immediately went cold.
“Yes.”
Behind me, I heard footsteps.
Alejandro appeared in the hallway.
The moment he saw the uniforms, his face went white.
The officer looked at him.
Then at me.
“Ma’am, we need to speak with you and your son.”
“What happened?”
The female officer beside him spoke gently.
“We would prefer to discuss it with you here.”
I stepped outside.
“Is my son in trouble?”
The male officer shook his head.
“That’s not exactly why we’re here.”
He opened a folder.
Then he removed a transparent evidence bag.
Inside was a small piece of twisted metal.
I recognized it immediately.
It looked like part of a wheelchair brake.
“This came from Elena’s wheelchair,” he said.
I looked at Alejandro.
His eyes dropped.
The officer continued.
“Your son was present when Elena was attacked.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Alejandro started crying.
I turned toward him.
“What does he mean?”
The officer’s voice remained calm.
“Your son hasn’t told you everything.”
I felt dizzy.
“What happened?”
The female officer introduced herself as Officer Salgado.
The man was Officer Ramírez.
Ramírez explained that several days earlier, Elena had been leaving school when three older students followed her.
At first, they only shouted insults.
Then one kicked the wheel of her chair.
Another grabbed the brake.
The third stepped in front of Elena and mocked the way she moved her arms.
Alejandro had been walking behind them.
He saw what was happening.
And he intervened.
“He told them to stop,” Officer Ramírez said.
“Twice.”
I looked at my son.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He didn’t answer.
Officer Salgado said softly:
“Let him explain.”
Alejandro wiped his face.
“Julián grabbed Elena’s brake.”
“And then?”
“Fabián pushed her.”
I covered my mouth.
The area where they had been standing had a sloping sidewalk leading toward the street.
There were cars.
Buses.
Motorcycles.
The wheelchair’s brake was already damaged.
Without it, the chair began moving downhill.
“Elena screamed,” Alejandro whispered.
“I ran.”
“What happened?”
“I grabbed the chair.”
He looked at his injured arm.
“I fell.”
My voice broke.
“That’s why your arm was hurting.”
He nodded.
“It wasn’t bad.”
Officer Salgado looked at him.
“It was bad enough that you could have broken something.”
I turned toward the officers.
“Who hurt him?”
Ramírez opened another page in his folder.
“One of the boys pushed him after he fell.”
I felt anger rise through me.
“They hit my son?”
Alejandro shook his head.
“Only once.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at me.
And then he finally said the words that explained everything.
“Because they threatened Elena.”
He swallowed.
“They said if we told anyone, they’d wait for her again.”
My anger disappeared.
Fear replaced it.
Alejandro hadn’t been hiding the truth because he didn’t trust me.
He had been hiding it because he was thirteen years old and believed he had to protect someone.
But there was still one question I couldn’t understand.
Why had he sold his guitar?
And the answer was about to become much bigger than I expected.
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