The whispers started before Ethan Bennett even reached the graduation stage.
In a packed auditorium at Willowcrest High School, hundreds of phones rose into the air as students prepared to receive their diplomas. Families leaned forward, cameras focused, and the room filled with the nervous excitement that comes with the end of high school.
Then Ethan walked onto the stage.
He was eighteen, graduating with his classmates, and wearing a bright red beneath the auditorium lights.
Some people stared.
Someone whispered.
A student near the graduates lifted a phone and appeared to record him with a grin.
But Ethan kept walking.
In the third row, his mother sat gripping the graduation program tightly in her hands.
She knew something almost no one else in the room understood.
