Chapter 2: The Video

By the time the sun came up, more than two million people had seen my face.

Not because I’d done anything remarkable. Not because I’d won an award or broken a story or accidentally gone viral for something funny.

Two point three million people had watched me discover, in real time, that my boyfriend was kissing another woman.

The internet had already given me a name. Not Iris Bennett, senior sports journalism major at Northbridge University. Not the girl juggling classes, deadlines, and a future she was still trying to build.

Just The Girlfriend.

The one standing a few feet away while Northbridge’s hockey star celebrated a championship by locking lips with someone who definitely wasn’t her.

The worst part was that I didn’t know any of that yet.

At two-thirty in the morning, I sat on the floor of my dorm room’s tiny bathroom, staring at a cracked tile beside the shower. The room was barely large enough for one person to turn around comfortably, but it was private, one of the few perks of having a single-occupancy room during my final year. My phone lay beside me, vibrating itself across the linoleum every few minutes as Mason’s name repeatedly lit the screen.

Thirty-two missed calls.

Nineteen texts.

Three voicemails.

I hadn’t listened to any of them.

Every new notification felt less urgent than the last. Exhaustion had settled over me like wet concrete.

A knock sounded at my dorm room door, followed by another, then a rapid series of impatient thumps.

“Iris!”

Ava.

I closed my eyes.

“I know you’re in there.”

I considered pretending I wasn’t.

A few seconds later, she added, “I brought food. And if you don’t open this door, I’m eating all of it myself.”

Despite everything, a laugh escaped me. It vanished almost immediately, but it was enough to get me moving. I pushed myself off the bathroom floor, crossed the cramped room, and unlocked the door.

Ava stepped inside, carrying a takeout bag and the expression of someone arriving at the scene of a natural disaster.

“Oh, honey.”

“I hate when you say that.”

“You look like you’ve been crying for six hours.”

“I’m fine.”

“You also said Mason Hart was the love of your life.”

I winced. “Okay. Fair.”

She dropped the food onto my desk and pulled me into a hug before I could avoid it. That was Ava’s specialty. She treated emotional boundaries as friendly suggestions. For a moment, I stood there resisting out of principle, then my resolve collapsed, and I hugged her back.

Unfortunately, so did the tears.

Half an hour later, we were sitting on opposite sides of my narrow dorm bed with a carton of fries between us. Ava was actually eating. I kept picking one up and forgetting it existed. Outside, the hallway had gone quiet as most of the building slept, leaving only the hum of the air conditioner and the occasional vibration of my neglected phone.

“I still can’t believe he did it,” Ava said.

Neither could I.

The scene replayed every time my mind drifted—the championship celebration. The crowd is roaring. Confetti pouring from the rafters. Mason’s hand against the redhead’s neck.

The kiss itself hurt, but what lingered was how natural he’d looked. Comfortable. Like nothing about the moment surprised him.

Ava’s phone buzzed.

She glanced down and immediately went still.

That got my attention.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Ava.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

That phrase had never once introduced good news.

I held out my hand.

Reluctantly, she passed me her phone.

The video was already playing.

The arena. The celebration. Mason is kissing the woman.

Then the camera shifted slightly and found me standing nearby, frozen in place as the realization hit.

The clip lasted eighteen seconds.

Eighteen seconds was apparently all the internet needed.

I checked the view count.

Four hundred thousand.

I refreshed.

Higher.

Again.

Higher.

“What is this?”

My voice sounded oddly detached.

Ava rubbed her forehead. “I was hoping you wouldn’t see it tonight.”

Too late.

There it was, preserved forever in high definition, and my worst moment packaged as entertainment.

The comments underneath were somehow worse than the video itself. A few people sympathized. Most treated it like a spectator sport.

Poor girl.

How embarrassing.

She looks like she’s buffering.

Not him cheating during the championship celebration.

Look at her face.

I stopped scrolling before I found out how much crueler strangers could get.

“This can’t be real.”

“It’ll die down.”

She said it quickly enough that we both knew she didn’t believe it.

The internet loves public humiliation. Especially when it belonged to someone else.

I refreshed again. Another sports account had reposted it. Then another. Then another.

“Oh, my God.”

My own phone buzzed.

“Please answer me.”

Another text arrived before I finished reading the first.

“Iris, please.”

Then:

“It isn’t what it looks like.”

A short laugh escaped me.

Because what exactly did he think it looked like? A charity fundraiser? A networking event?

The evidence seemed fairly straightforward.

Another notification appeared, this time from a number I didn’t recognize.

I opened it.

The message contained a screenshot.

The moment I saw it, my stomach dropped.

It wasn’t from tonight.

Mason and the same redheaded woman were leaving a restaurant together. A timestamp sat in the corner.

Three months ago.

I stared at it.

Then, at the message underneath.

Thought you deserved to know.

More screenshots followed before I could process the first. Photos. Dates. Rumors. Messages. Sightings. Pieces of a story I hadn’t known existed were assembling themselves on my screen.

The kiss had been awful. Public. Humiliating.

But some stubborn part of me had still been searching for an explanation. A drunken mistake. A reckless decision. A terrible moment that spiraled out of control.

Something survivable.

The screenshots destroyed that possibility.

The woman wasn’t random.

She wasn’t new.

Judging by the dates attached to several photos, she’d been around for months.

While I studied for exams.

While Mason and I planned spring break.

While he told me he loved me.

Ava leaned closer to read over my shoulder. The color drained from her face.

“Oh.”

One word was enough.

Months.

Not one night.

Not one kiss.

Months.

My phone started ringing again.

Mason.

His name flashed across the screen while the video’s view count continued climbing in the background.

Six hundred thousand.

Still rising.

My relationship was collapsing, my humiliation was becoming public entertainment, and strangers were sending evidence that my boyfriend had apparently been living a second life.

The phone kept ringing.

Finally, I answered.

I skipped hello.

“How long?”

Silence.

Then a sharp inhale.

“Iris—”

“How long, Mason?”

I sat forward on the bed, gripping the phone while Ava watched from across the room. Outside, somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed. The ordinary sounds of campus life continued as if nothing had happened.

Another second passed.

Then another.

And before he said a single word, I knew whatever answer came next wasn’t going to save us.