That afternoon, I stood at the repair shop trying to loosen a rusted bolt on an old pickup truck while Mr. Harmon, my supervisor, talked to a customer at the counter. Usually work helped because engines had no interest in rumors. A part was either broken or it wasn't. This time my hands kept shaking. Someone from Vanessa's social circle had told a neighbor that I had become aggressive toward her. The neighbor's nephew worked two blocks away and repeated it at the shop. Mr. Harmon called me into his office. I thought he was going to fire me.
Instead he shut the door and said, "I've known you since you couldn't lift a tire. Is there something you need to tell me?" I told him there had been an accusation, that it was false, and that I was staying with my aunt. I said I understood if he felt uncomfortable having me around. He looked offended. "I asked because I care whether you're safe," he said. "Not because I needed an excuse to lose a good worker." He didn't promise to fix my home life. He handed me a shop rag and told me to finish the pickup before closing. For the first time that week, an ordinary instruction felt like a gift.
That evening, Vanessa called me from Dad's phone. Her voice was different from the one she had used in front of him: flat, precise, almost bored. "Your father is willing to send your things to Denise," she said. "It would be best if you stopped trying to cause trouble."
"Where is he?"
"Busy. And hurt. You should think about what you've done to him."
"I haven't done anything to him. You're the one who lied."
She gave a soft sigh. "You don't have proof of anything, Jordan. You're eighteen. Nobody is obligated to let you live at home forever." Then she hung up. I recorded the date and exact time in the notebook Denise had given me. She was right about one thing: my being eighteen made this complicated. But being old enough to leave a house did not make her story true, and I decided I wasn't going to apologize for an assault that had never happened just to be allowed back inside.
He opened the security app that night after Vanessa went upstairs. The camera above the living room arch was listed as disconnected from the network. An icon showed its last cloud upload had been Sunday afternoon. For a few minutes he thought that was the end of it. Then he remembered helping me install the memory card the previous winter. The camera had local storage specifically so that a lost internet connection wouldn't stop it from recording. The installer had called it a backup, and Dad had insisted on paying for it because he hated depending on one system.