The Lie That Breathes

The camcorder was gone.

That night, after Jason’s thinly veiled warning, I returned to the dresser in Mrs. Rowen’s room and found nothing.

No blinking light.

No tripod.

No trace it had ever been there.

Except I had held it.

Turned it off with my own hands.

And I knew what it saw.

I sat on the edge of my bed, phone on the nightstand, untouched.

Even breathing felt dangerous.

That tape could kill us. Kill everything.

Not just the affair. But the way I felt when she touched me.

The way she whispered my name like it meant more than identity, like it meant ownership.

The way we burned together, slowly, every time.

Jason didn’t speak to me the next morning. Not with words.

But silence can be surgical. Precise. It told me he was watching.

He handed me coffee like a stranger.

He looked through me.

He smiled like a blade.

Later, I stepped out into the hallway and collided with her.

Mrs. Rowen.

She was wearing a crisp white blouse tucked into a navy skirt. The kind of outfit that belonged to a