He Said He Needed Space. What He Needed Was Rescue.
When my 14-year-old son Mason asked if he could live with his dad after the divorce, I said yes. Not because I wanted to let him go—I didn’t—but because I believed that space might help him reconnect with his father. Eddie had always been the fun parent—the midnight pancake maker, the soccer-dad-in-a-backward-cap. He promised he was ready to be more present, more responsible. I wanted to believe him. I needed to.
At first, everything seemed okay. Mason called often, sent goofy selfies of movie nights and lopsided waffles. I clung to those photos like lifelines, smiling even as my heart ached. But slowly, the messages dwindled. The calls stopped. His replies shrank to one-word texts.
Then came the silence.
That’s when the teachers started reaching out.
His English teacher emailed about missing assignments. His science teacher called on her lunch break, saying Mason seemed disconnected, like he wasn’t really there. But it was the math teacher who said it plainly: he’d been caught cheating. And he looked… lost.
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