"Why would you make that choice?"
Michael was quiet for a moment. "Because I had no one, Dad. And I thought, if someone had to carry it, it should be the one who had the least to lose."
Michael was just 17 then, with no parents or anyone in his corner. And he'd decided, with the clear-eyed logic of a kid who'd already learned the world wasn't fair, to just absorb it.
"Why did you take the blame?"
"I've spoken to a lawyer," Greg said from the doorway. "I'm ready to tell the truth officially. Whatever comes from that, I'll face it. My parents sent me away right after the crash. Told me they'd handle everything. I didn't ask questions. I was scared. But looking back... I was just a coward. I ran into Michael a few weeks ago. That's when I found out what he'd been carrying all these years… and I couldn't live with it anymore."
I was still looking at Michael, trying to reassemble something in my mind that had just come apart.
Someone near the fence whispered to the person next to them: "He let that boy take the fall for him?"
"I couldn't live with it anymore."
I could feel the room recalibrating around me, people deciding where they stood, what they thought, and whether to say it out loud.
I didn't blame them. I would've done the same thing. But I wasn't ready to manage other people's reactions on top of my own.
"I'd like everyone to head home," I said. "Please. Thank you for coming."
Nobody argued. Within five minutes, the backyard was empty except for the three of us, the uneaten food on the table, and the string lights Michael had put up the night before, still glowing along the fence.
I hadn't felt a silence that heavy in 11 years.
