Story code: ST-001094
Part 2: The Fracture on the Screen
We crawled out of the Oakridge Prep parking lot and joined the heavy suburban traffic. In the backseat, Connor’s whimpers quickly escalated into a demanding chant. “Mom, they won’t give it to me! You said I could have Avery’s! You promised!”
“Hush, Connor, sweetie,” Brenda said, her eyes flitting to the rearview mirror before snapping back to me. Her voice lost its sweet, public warmth, hardening into a sharp whisper. “You are being incredibly selfish, Avery. Everyone back there saw how ungrateful you are. I do everything for this family, and you can’t even help your little brother after he gave up his favorite thing for your education?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned around in my seat and looked directly at Connor. “Connor, let me see the tablet you’re holding.”
Connor pulled the device closer to his chest, his face flushing red. “No! It’s mine!”
“If you sold his tablet to pay my fees, Brenda, then what is that in his hands?” I asked, pointing to the rectangular device he was trying to hide under his school jacket.
Brenda cleared her throat, her eyes darting left and right as she navigated a turn. “That’s his old, broken one. The one he’s forced to use now because we had to sell his good one. It’s practically useless, Avery. You know that.”
“Let me see it, Connor,” I repeated, my voice firm.
Reluctantly, Connor loosened his grip, and I caught a clear view of the screen. It wasn’t just cracked; it was devastated. In the very center of the display was a deep, spiderwebbed impact crater, the glass shattered into tiny, concentric rings that radiated outward to the plastic bezel. It was a very specific kind of damage. The fracture point was circular, concentrated, and exactly the size and shape of a ten-year-old boy’s fist.
I looked at the impact mark, then looked up at Connor’s hand, which he quickly hid behind his back. The physical evidence contradicted Brenda’s tidy story of sacrifice and financial hardship. This wasn’t a tablet that had been sold, nor was it a simple accident from a drop. It was the result of a violent outburst.
I remembered the incident from two days ago. I had been sitting in my own car, parked in the driveway directly behind Brenda’s SUV, waiting for the engine to warm up. I remembered the violent shaking of the SUV’s cabin and the muffled sounds of screaming. Connor had thrown a massive tantrum because Brenda refused to buy him a hundred-dollar microtransaction pack for his favorite game.
“That screen didn’t break from a fall, Brenda,” I said, turning back to face the road. “And you didn’t sell anything to pay my fees. He smashed it himself, didn’t he?”
Brenda’s breath hitched, and she refused to look at me, keeping her eyes glued to the bumper of the car ahead of us. The silence in the cabin grew suffocating as the lies began to unravel.