“You know this is going to be everywhere, right?”
“What?”
Patricia tilted her head toward the crowd.
Phones.
So many phones.
The speech had been recorded from every angle.
Within minutes, clips were already spreading through parent group chats, student accounts, and local community pages. By evening, the video would have hundreds of thousands of views. By the next morning, national pages would share it with captions like: “Valedictorian Stops Graduation to Honor Mom Humiliated by Stepmom.”
But at that moment, Mariana did not know any of that.
She only saw Miguel running down the aisle toward her.
He was tall now, taller than Damian, taller than the little boy she still carried in her memory. But when he reached her, he folded into her arms as if he were six years old again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Mariana held him so tightly the sunflowers crushed between them.
“No, mijo. No. You did nothing wrong.”
