She picks up on the first ring.
“Lucas.” Her voice is small. Too small.
“I…” My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. My throat feels thick, clogged. I swallow hard, squeezing my eyes shut. “I don’t know. I feel…”
I want to ask why she told Oliver. I want to ask if she’s seen the news. I want to ask if she thinks Oliver told Alex. I want to ask her to tell me I’m wrong.
And—God help me—I want to ask for a hug.
“Lucas,” she says again, and there’s something in her tone that makes my pulse stutter. “I told him.”
My hearing aid hums faintly as her words hit.
“Told… who?” But my gut already knows.
“I told Alexander what happened,” she says, her voice quiet but heavy, like she’s lowering a weight straight onto my chest. “I also gave him the camera.”
The air leaves my lungs so violently that it feels like I’ve been punched. My grip on the phone tightens until my knuckles burn. The city beyond the taxi window is just smears of color, shapeless and unreal.
“What… do you mean?” The words scrape out of my throat, shaky and raw. “What camera?”
“Lucas, I—” Her voice cracks.
“No, wait.” My hand drags through my hair, tugging at the roots. “You told me you didn’t see the camera. You told me I might be imagining it. Maybe I didn’t record anything. That I might have left it somewhere before I went to the treehouse. So what camera did you give him?”
“Lucas, I can explain,” she says, her voice already breaking. “Please, my love, just—”
“Oh my God…” The words tear out of me, my chest burning like I’ve swallowed fire. “So the camera existed, then? Everything was recorded? You saw what they did to me… You saw what I did to Tim… and now—”
My voice cuts off, strangled. My mind yanks me back to that night—every moment, every touch that felt like acid eating through my skin, how I didn’t fight enough, how I let them use me. How I… hurt Tim.
And now Alex knows.
Alex.
The man I love. The man I am terrified to tell. The man whose eyes I’m not sure I could ever meet again without drowning in shame. Because now he’s seen what I am—filthy. Weak. Unworthy. A curse in human skin.
“Lucas, please, hear me—”
“Mom,” I cut her off. My voice is trembling, raw. My eyes sting; the pressure behind them feels like it’s going to split my head open. I press my palm hard against my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the stupid tears. My throat is a knot. “How many times are you going to break my heart before it’s enough for you? Before you can finally find your peace?”
Her sob cracks through the phone, jagged and desperate, but I’m already ending the call.
By the time the taxi stops in front of Alex’s building, my head is foggy. I step out like I’m walking through water. The familiar doorman greets me warmly, and I nod like a machine, my face refusing to move.
The elevator swallows me whole. My phone vibrates in my palm—it’s a call from Alex. My heart stumbles, breaking into smaller, sharper pieces. I don’t answer. That’s when I see the other missed calls from him, my mother, Maksim, and Tyler.
Been so deep in the spiral, I didn’t even feel my phone buzzing the entire ride here. No sound. No vibration. Just that thick, underwater silence pressing against my skull.
By the time the elevator doors open and I step into Alex’s space, the anxiety clamps down harder, doubling over inside me until my stomach twists so hard I feel like I might throw up.
The air smells like him. His home. That familiar blend of expensive cologne, clean wood, and something warm I can never quite name. Normally, it sinks into my bones and quiets me, like my body recognizes I’m safe here. But now—
Now my body rejects it.
Now it feels like my own skin is pulling tight, like I’m covering myself, protecting myself from the shame flooding in.
Like I shouldn’t even be here. Like I’m dirtying the space just by breathing in it.
