Another. A video this time. The screen flickers, then fills with motion: Nathan’s voice, warm and teasing, saying “Look at you, Reaver. Still pretending you’re not in love with me.” And I’m laughing—laughing—like I didn’t know how it would end, like I didn’t know the same lips saying that would one day ruin me with a whisper.
And still—I smile.
Tears burn behind my eyes but don’t fall. Because for the first time in days, I can fucking breathe again.
My Nathan. The one before the tape. Just two boys in a room no one knew about. Just love, unrecorded, even when the camera was on.
I don’t mean to find it. I’m not looking for that one. But my fingers move on their own, chasing the edge of the ache, like if I keep digging deep enough maybe I’ll find the beginning—maybe I’ll find the second right before it all started to rot.
And then there's the file. It has no label, just a timestamp.
I know what it is before I even tap it open.
My stomach flips and my mouth goes dry, but I hit play anyway.
The video loads in a slow bleed of motion and breath, the dim lights of a hotel room spilling across the screen, bodies tangled together in soft sheets. It isn’t posed, isn’t directed, isn’t filmed for anyone but us. Nathan’s voice is quiet and sweet, drunk on the moment, and mine is softer too—shy in a way I didn’t know I could still be.
I’m on my back. He’s over me. One of his hands is tangled in mine, fingers laced. The other is trailing down my chest like I’m something fragile. He kisses my throat like he owns it. Like he worships it.
“Look at me,” he whispers in the video, and I do. I always did.
My knees pull up around his hips. I say something—God, I don’t even remember what. Some joke, probably. Something stupid. And he laughs. He fucking laughs, then pushes in deep and kisses the words off my mouth.
It’s real.
It’s so real.
I watch myself arch into him, watch the way I reach for his shoulders like they’re the only thing keeping me alive. Watch the way he says “Mine,” over and over like a vow, a brand, a prayer.
And I remember thinking this is what love is. This is what forever feels like. This is safety.
And now—Now it’s a goddamn grave.
The tears fall before I realize it’s happening. First one. Then more. Then I’m fucking crying—full-body, quiet, violent tears that shake me apart while the video plays on, while he fucks me on the screen like he loved me.
Like he didn’t end me. Like he didn’t ruin everything with that same mouth, those same hands.
I curl around the phone and I watch the whole thing. Every second, until the screen goes black and I’m left alone with the silence and the burn of what it meant.
I should turn it off. I should. The second it ends, the second my own voice stutters out in a broken moan and the screen fades to black, I should close the app, lock the phone, bury it under my pillow, throw it across the fucking room—anything.
But I don’t. I just lay there on the floor, curled sideways like something broken at the bottom of a drain, thumb hovering over the screen like I don’t have control of my own body anymore. Like my muscle memory is stronger than my shame.
I hit play again and it starts all over. The bed creaks. Nathan’s laugh, low and quiet. My voice answering. The shuffle of sheets. His fingers trailing down my stomach.
“You want it like this, baby?”
My throat tightens, but I don’t stop it. I don’t look away. I watch myself say yes—watch my eyes flutter, my hips tilt, my mouth fall open around a gasp that’s not quite a word. Watch him press into me slow, greedy, soft in a way he never was when anyone else was watching.
It’s the same every time. Same voice. Same angle. Same filthy, sweet little things.
“You feel so good around me.” “Don’t ever leave me.” “You were made for this, made for me, look at you, Julian—fuck, you’re perfect—”
And I do look perfect. My mouth open, pink and desperate, whispering please, whispering more, saying his name like it means something.
I hit play again. And again. And somewhere between the third and the fifth rewatch, I realize I’m getting hard. Stomach tight, hips twitching. I’m sweating again, breathing too shallow, watching my own legs wrapped around a ghost. Watching my back arch. Watching my mouth drop open as Nathan drives into me.
The sound of it—our skin, our moans, our mess—it all feels like someone’s dragging me down by the spine into a place I should’ve burned when I left it.
