Chapter 42 #4
“And if you can’t look at him the same afterward,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper now, “if your feelings for him fade when you see what they did to him… I won’t blame you. But promise me this— Don’t give them mercy.”
She steps back.
I look down at the small camera in my hand. It feels heavier than it should, like it holds not just video, but the shredded pieces of Lucas’s soul—my pulse pounds against my ribcage. My grip tightens around it.
“I’m sorry I have to give you this burden,” she says softly, her arms wrapping tightly around herself, like she’s bracing for something to shatter.
“It’s not a burden…” I murmur, lifting my head slowly. “Not if I get to fuck someone up.”
I straighten, standing tall, every inch of me laced with purpose now. Kathryn watches me through red, glassy eyes.
“I’m never leaving your son, Kathryn,” I say, steady and sure, like a vow written in blood. “He’s stuck with me. For life. And soon… he’s getting my last name.”
She gasps softly—barely audible, but I hear it.
Then I turn, walking toward my car, the camera in hand like a loaded weapon. The weight of it anchors me.
***
I sit rigid in my chair, alone in my home office, the faint hum of the overhead light the only sound in the room.
My eyes are fixed on the small pink camera resting on the desk in front of me.
I haven’t looked away from it since I set it down.
Part of me is afraid that if I do—even for a second—it’ll vanish, like it was never there.
And maybe that would be easier. Maybe disappearing would be kinder than what it holds inside.
Earlier today, Kathryn placed it in my hand as if it weighed the world.
And maybe it does. It holds pieces of him, of Lucas.
The softest, happiest parts… and the ones that were shattered and never put back together.
Somewhere in this device is the night that destroyed him, the night that turned silence into safety and people into shadows.
I don’t know how I’ll handle watching it. I don’t know how I’ll handle knowing.
Because this isn’t just anyone, this is him. The boy I’ve come to cherish in ways I never thought I could. The one whose absence suffocates me, whose voice lives in my mind even when he isn’t speaking. I adore every part of him. Even the broken ones. Maybe especially the broken ones.
After leaving his mother’s place, I picked him up from his driving lessons.
He was smiling, that shy, beautiful smile that only seems to appear when he forgets how much of the world he’s learned to fear.
He talked the whole way home, telling me about the instructor who’s finally patient with him, how he’s learning to take control behind the wheel.
Every word was laced with quiet pride, and I sat there gripping the steering wheel, feeling something bloom in my chest. I’d kill for that smile.
For him to keep smiling like that forever.
When we got home, he asked me to make the butter chicken again—the one I cooked the other night.
He begged with that look that always makes my knees weak, and of course, I said yes.
While we ate, he told me the car model I’d gotten him was too much for a college student.
I almost laughed. If only he knew how restrained I’d been to get him something more than that.
The only reason I got that specific car was because, weeks ago, long before we were even together, I saw it on his phone’s lock screen.
I asked, and he’d mumbled something about Audi being his dream brand. That was all I needed to know.
After dinner, we showered together. I couldn’t stop touching him, my hands and lips memorizing every inch of him, as I leave Promises, Pleas, love, and adoration in every touch. Letting him know that I can’t breathe right without him. That I’m staying. That nothing, nothing, can make me leave.
Later, in bed, when we were both worn out and tangled beneath the sheets, he pressed a sleepy kiss to my jaw and whispered, “Goodnight, Alex.”
And now…
Now I’m here, sitting alone, and I can still feel the ghost of that kiss like a bruise.
I look down at the camera again. My fingers twitch.
I’m afraid of what I’ll see, of how it might gut me.
But more than that… I’m scared of how long he’s carried it alone.
And I know, with cold, unwavering clarity, that if what’s on that tape is what I think it is… then someone out there needs to pay.
I take out the memory card from the camera, my fingers steady despite the heaviness in my chest. Sliding it into the side of my laptop, I click through the folders until I’m in.
Dozens of image files pop up first, then a collection of videos—maybe twenty or more in total.
Most of them are short, some just a few minutes long, and they are all labeled with Random names.
“Cooking Disaster.” “Skate Fail.” “Makeup Tutorial,” “Tyler learning how to twerk,” And then, the last one, tucked at the very end, stands out.
It has no name.
Just a date.
And I know.
It’s that night. The night, everything went silent in Lucas’s world. The night his voice—his laughter, his light was taken from him.
I don’t click on it.
Not yet.
Instead, I go back to the beginning. To the first video.
If I’m going to do this, I want to see him before the silence, I want to know the version of him who could hear his own laugh, I want to see who he was before that night, the version of him that existed before the world carved scars into him, the version I never got to meet.
So I click play.
The screen bursts to life, and so does he—a fifteen-year-old Lucas.
And for the next few hours, I don’t move.
I watch him.
Chaotic. Radiant. Loud.
His laughter fills the room like sunlight through a window I didn’t realize was open.
There’s a video where he tries to do a mascara tutorial but can’t stop laughing at himself.
His hands keep shaking from giggles, eyeliner smudged across his eyelid like war paint, eyes sparkling with mischief.
Another where he’s trying to do Tyler’s makeup, but Tyler won’t stop laughing—his face a mess of crooked contour and mismatched colors while Lucas shouts, “It’s not even that bad! ”.
There’s a video of him baking in what looks like a cramped trailer kitchen. He sets the camera down confidently, starts narrating like a pro, and then promptly burns something.
Then there’s the spicy ramen challenge: he and Tyler, red-faced and sweating, both pretending they’re totally fine while their eyes scream for help. They argue over who will reach for milk first, trying to act tough, then both crack at the same time.
Another clip is titled “Day in My Life Vlog (gone wrong lmao).” It’s a beautiful disaster—jump cuts of him dropping things, tripping, forgetting he was recording, narrating his breakfast like he’s in a cooking show, then falling off a roller skater as he and Tyler double over in laughter.
In one, he stands in front of a mirror for a “Rate My Outfit” video. Half the time, he roasts himself:
“Why does this shirt make me look like Squidward?”
But then, with a smirk, he spins and says, “Ten out of ten. Would kiss me.”
There are shaky videos of him sneaking the camera into school—angled from under desks or inside lockers. Whispered giggles between classes. Goofy faces. Friends singing loudly and terribly. Chaos in the hallways. Inside jokes I don’t understand. More clips of him being chaotic as usual.
Then the second-to-last video is him alone in his small bedroom.
No laughter this time. Just soft light, quiet eyes, and a teddy bear tucked into his arms like it’s the only thing holding him together.
“I think Nate hates me now,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Because I wouldn’t kiss him.”
He shifts, eyes dropping, hands curling into the bear’s fur.
“I want my first kiss… and sex… to be special. With someone I really like. Someone I trust.”
He looks at the camera, like he’s speaking to someone only he believes will ever see this.
“So… to whoever I end up giving my first kiss and my first time to—just know you’re one lucky motherfucker. Because that means I love you. And I trust you. And I’ll be yours forever.”
My chest blooms.
Because I am that person.
His first kiss. His first time. His trust.
And suddenly I don’t feel worthy.
And I ache with the unbearable joy of being loved by someone like him. Someone who, once upon a time, could light up a room just by existing.
I rub a hand down my face and drag it through my hair, my breath caught between grief and awe.
If someone had shown me these clips without context, I would’ve thought Lucas was just some loud, chaotic, beautiful boy.
The kind who drove people mad with his energy and then pulled them right back in with a smile.
And now…
I drag the cursor to the final video. The one with no name. The one with the date.
My hand trembles slightly over the touchpad. I’ve never been nervous in my life, not even when I stood over men who deserved to die. But right now? My stomach is coiled, my chest too tight. Something in me already knows I’m about to watch the moment that broke the boy I love.
I take a breath—a deep, slow one.
And I press play.