He hadn’t planned to post it.

It started late at night, phone in hand, half-scrolling, half-nostalgic — the kind of mood that crept in when the world finally went quiet. Damiano found the old folder by accident. Grainy videos. Bad lighting. Worse angles. Two teenagers who thought they knew everything.

You and him.

You, laughing too loud, flipping off the camera. Him with messy hair, voice cracking as he tried to sing something dramatic in your parents’ kitchen. Clips from train stations, cheap apartments, backstage hallways that smelled like sweat and cigarettes. Moments that were never meant to survive this long.

He stitched them together without overthinking it. No fancy edits. No captions trying too hard. Just a simple timeline — growing up side by side, getting older, staying the same in the ways that mattered.

He posted it at 1:47 a.m.

By the time you woke up, your phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.

You lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, dread and fondness mixing in your chest. Then you opened Instagram.

There it was.

A compilation of your entire shared life, set to a song that felt too on the nose. Teenagers sneaking looks at each other. Early twenties exhaustion. Now — quieter smiles, deeper lines, the kind of love that didn’t need to prove itself.

You scrolled through the comments without meaning to.

“They’ve been together forever.”

Your throat tightened.

You found him in the kitchen a few minutes later, leaning against the counter, coffee untouched, scrolling like he was bracing for impact.

“You posted it,” you said.

He looked up immediately. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, not defensive, just honest. “Because we’re twenty-seven. Because we survived being idiots. Because I didn’t want to forget.”