The door clicked open, and the familiar scrape of boots echoed across the floor. He stepped inside, arms full of takeout, humming a careless tune to mask the day’s weight. But the quiet was wrong. She was sitting there, still, eyes locked on his phone lying on the bed between them, screen facing down like a silent accusation. “Hey… what’s going on?”

No answer. Just that thick silence, heavy enough to press against his chest. His heart hammered, dread rising like bile. Slowly, his fingers reached out and flipped the phone over, unlocking it. The video was already waiting, staring him down like a living nightmare. He froze. There they were, him and her best friend, naked, close, tangled in sheets under warm, dim light. But it wasn’t some clumsy mistake or blurry, accidental capture. The camera was steady, the angles deliberate. The way their hands roamed, the way his voice whispered low and familiar, soft teasing tones that should’ve been hers alone, echoed through the speakers. It was intimate, too intimate. There was no drunken stumble, no accidental glance. This was planned. Recorded. Kept.

His throat tightened as he swallowed the reality, he wasn’t just cheating, he was sharing something sacred with someone else. With her best friend. The way he looked at her in the video, tender, like this wasn’t the first time, felt like a gut punch. He saw the tension in her face, the numbness. He could almost feel the weight of the betrayal bearing down on him, mirrored in the dull ache in his own chest. The familiarity in his voice on the tape, soft whispers, the way he spoke when they were alone, was now a cruel reminder of everything he’d broken. He wanted to apologize, to explain, but the words tangled up in panic and shame. “Shit,” he breathed out, jaw clenched. “Fuck… I—”, but there was no excuse.