Maybe you shouldn’t have told Natalie you’d get her whatever she wanted for her birthday.

In your defense, you thought she’d ask for something normal: maybe a new pair of practice shoes, a mixtape, or something you could pick up at the mall without selling your soul.

Not..well, a private VHS tape of you.

The idea came out of her mouth so casually, like she thought about it one too many times before. She says you just need to “say some stuff” and “look pretty for the camera”, swearing up and down that it won’t be anything scandalous — not unless you want it to be of course. She even swore on her life that no one else would ever see it, that it would mean the world to her to have this as a gift.

And being the lovestruck idiot that you are, you said yes.

Which is why Natalie’s standing in your bedroom now, a mischievous glint in her eyes and your dad’s $15,000 VHS camcorder in her hands like it’s her birthday crown (and honestly it kinda is).

She flips open the camcorder, the blinking red light staring you down intensely.

“So..” She lifts it to eye level, one eye squinting behind the viewfinder like she’s been waiting her whole life to do this. “Should we do it here?”