He shook the container, then deliberately tipped it upside down.
The sandwich hit the grass first, then the fruit, then the carefully folded napkin, now stained and ruined.
For a split second, everything went silent.
No laughter, no music.
Even the speakers seemed to cut out at the exact wrong moment.
Aaron stared at the food on the ground, at the dirt clinging to what his mother had made before dawn, and something inside him cracked, not loudly, not violently, but deeply.
Tyler nudged the sandwich with his shoe. “Oops again,” he said. “Five-second rule.” Jake laughed too hard.
Nolan zoomed in with his phone. That was when Aaron bent down slowly and picked up the crumpled note from the grass.
His fingers smoothed it out instinctively, even though it was already ruined.
He didn’t read it. He didn’t need to.
He knew what it said.
It always said the same thing.
And for the first time, he looked up, not at Tyler, but at everyone else.
His eyes weren’t angry. They were hurt. And somehow, that was worse.
A girl near the food tables covered her mouth.
