After scrolling through Lee's messages and even checking his TikTok activity, Christy found nothing. A wave of relief washed over her, and she replaced the phone just as Lee emerged from the bathroom. The suspicion that had nearly torn them apart vanished, replaced by a night of soft conversation and reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Frost finally woke at midnight. The storm in his head had passed, leaving only a hollow hunger. He slipped out to a nearby restaurant for a solitary meal, beginning a week of isolation. He stayed inside, drowning his sorrows in snacks and movies, refusing to let even Lee pull him out of his slump.
Days later, a window of opportunity opened. Christy traveled to her hometown to visit her family, leaving Lee with a week of freedom. He knew he had to do something radical to save his best friend from his own mind.
Lee went to Frost's house, and they started a TikTok Live to engage with their fans. Seeing Frost's spirits lift even slightly gave Lee an idea. With no girlfriends to answer to for a week, it was time for a grand distraction.
"Let's just go," Lee suggested. "Let's leave it all behind for a bit."
They embarked on a whirlwind tour, flying to Italy, Japan, and Paris. They indulged in world-class cuisine, took endless photos, and explored ancient streets. By the time they touched down back home, the shadow of Kara was finally gone. Frost had moved on.
Back in their home city, Lee and Frost were deep into a video game when Lee's phone buzzed. It was Christy; she was back and heading to his house. Lee bid Frost a quick goodbye and rushed home to meet her.
The reunion was sweet. They went for a moonlit stroll toward a breathtaking waterfall on the edge of town. They laughed as Lee recounted stories from his trip with Frost, and he took dozens of stunning photos of her against the backdrop of the cascading water.
When they returned to his apartment, Lee handed her his phone. "Here, just transfer the photos you want to your phone."
Christy began the transfer, selecting the waterfall shots and the highlights of Lee and Frost's trip. Once she was done, Lee walked her to a taxi, kissed her goodbye, and watched her drive off into the night.
Settling into her own bed, Christy began uploading the new photos to her social media. Once the "likes" started rolling in, she began scrolling through the rest of the media she had transferred. The scenery from Japan and Paris was breathtaking, but as she reached the very end of the files, she found something strange.
It was a video—33 minutes long.
She had accidentally sent it to herself along with the vacation photos. Confused, she pressed play. For the first three minutes, the camera showed nothing but a static view of a living room she didn't recognize—Frost's apartment.
"What is this?" she whispered, her thumb hovering over the delete button. It seemed like a technical glitch, a pocket-recording of a floor and a couch.
But just as she was about to hit delete, her phone rang. It was Lee, calling to check if she was safe and if she had eaten. They fell into a long, wandering conversation, the kind that makes you forget the rest of the world. By the time they hung up, Christy was exhausted. She set her phone down and drifted toward sleep, completely forgetting the 33-minute video —and that the real recording didn't start until the fifth minute.
The following day was a whirlwind of motion. Lee and Christy lived out a perfect romance, spending every waking hour together. They dove into crystal-clear pools, screamed on rollercoasters, and felt the adrenaline of mountain climbing.
They tasted exotic cuisines and captured a hundred new memories on camera. To Christy, Lee was the perfect boyfriend—he hadn't looked at his phone once, dedicating his entire world to her.
But as night fell and they returned to Lee's apartment, the silence began to gnaw at him. He tried to text Frost, then call, but there was no answer. He brushed it off as Frost catching up on sleep, but Lee's subconscious wouldn't let him rest. He spent the night tossing and turning, waking up every hour to check for a notification that never came.
By dawn, Lee could no longer ignore the pit in his stomach. He raced to Frost's apartment, but the door was bolted. Using his spare key, he stepped into a scene of chaos. The living room was a graveyard of discarded clothes and empty containers.
"Frost!" Lee called out, his voice echoing through the rooms. He checked the bedroom—empty. The kitchen—nothing. There was only one place left.
He rushed to the bathroom, but the door was locked from the inside. Panic set in. He grabbed Frost's iron baseball bat from the corner and, with a few heavy swings, forced his way in. Frost was sprawled on the cold tile, his phone inches from his hand, his body burning with a dangerously high fever.
Lee acted fast, carrying Frost to the bedroom and using wet towels to fight the heat. Once the fever broke and Frost stabilized, Lee slipped out to buy medicine and food, refusing to leave his friend's side for the rest of the day.
That evening, Christy arrived. Lee had given her the address, unable to leave Frost alone. It was her first time at the apartment, and she wandered in curiously as Lee welcomed her.
"How is he?" she asked softly, following Lee into the bedroom to offer her sympathy to the sleeping Frost.
After a few moments, they retreated to the living room. As she sat down, a strange sensation washed over her. She looked at the placement of the couch, the angle of the television, the specific pattern on the rug. I've seen this before, she thought, though she couldn't quite place the memory.
They sat and chatted about their trip the day before, comparing the city tour to Lee and Frost's international travels. As Lee spoke about the different cultures they had seen, the gears in Christy's head finally clicked into place. The 33-minute video. The "boring" living room she had almost deleted.
This was the room.
She suddenly stood up, her heart racing. "I... I have to get going, Lee. I have something really important to do early tomorrow, and I need the rest."
She kept her voice steady, masking the sudden tremor in her hands. Lee, exhausted from caring for Frost, didn't suspect a thing as he kissed her goodbye.
Christy didn't just walk home; she ran. The moment she entered her apartment, she kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto the couch. She didn't even bother to change. With trembling fingers, she scrolled through her gallery, her breath hitching in her throat as she searched for that specific, long file.
Please let it be there, she prayed. Please don't let me have deleted it.
Her thumb stopped. There it was. A 33-minute recording, starting with a static shot of Frost's living room. She hit play and dragged the seeker past the three-minute mark.
The silence in Christy's apartment was deafening, broken only by the tinny, ambient hum of the video playing on her phone. For the first few minutes, there was nothing but the static image of an empty living room. Frustrated and exhausted, she tossed the device onto the cushion beside her. "You're overthinking this," she whispered to herself, rubbing her weary eyes. But as she stood up to head toward the bedroom, a sudden, muffled sound—the unmistakable scuff of feet on hardwood—echoed from the speakers.
She lunged for the phone. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she dragged the seeker bar. To her utter disbelief, the frame was no longer empty. The grainy footage captured Frost, staggering and unsteady, carrying Lee into the center of the room.
Even through the digital noise, she could tell they were beyond wasted, their movements clumsy and uncoordinated. But what followed didn't just throw her off—it shattered her reality. She watched, paralyzed, as her boyfriend and his best friend crossed a line of no return. The intimacy was raw and undeniable, a betrayal that transcended mere infidelity. Christy clutched her chest, the physical pain of heartbreak blooming behind her ribs. The man she loved was on screen, lost in a moment with another man.
Tears streamed down her face, hot and relentless. In all the time she had spent with Lee, through all their travels and shared dreams, she had never foreseen this. She wept until her eyes were swollen and her throat was raw, finally collapsing into a fitful, trauma-induced sleep right there on the couch.
The next morning, the sorrow had curdled into a cold, sharp-edged fury. Christy woke up pissed. The betrayal felt like a personal insult to her womanhood and her trust. How could he date her, kiss her, and plan a future with her while keeping a secret this explosive? She paced her apartment, her eyes dark with a newfound malice.
"I swear, you will regret this," she whispered to the empty air. She wasn't just going to leave him; she was going to make him pay for the humiliation.
Across town, the atmosphere was drastically different. Frost woke up feeling a shadow of his former self, but the fever had broken. He showered and emerged into the living room to find Lee asleep on the couch, still wearing the clothes from the day before. A soft, genuine smile touched Frost's lips. Lee had stayed for him. He had chosen him.
Frost picked up a vacuum cleaner, trying to be quiet, but the whirring noise instantly jolted Lee awake.
"Hey, what are you doing, bro?" Lee's voice was hazy and thick with sleep as he leaped off the couch, intercepting the vacuum. "You're not recovered yet. You need to rest."
Lee pushed Frost back into the cushions with a firm but gentle hand. "Relax. I got this."
For the rest of the morning, Lee was a whirlwind of care. He cleaned the entire apartment until it sparkled, then prepared a hot breakfast for them both. They spent the afternoon in a bubble of normalcy, playing video games and laughing as if the world outside—and the forgotten night in that very room—didn't exist.
As evening approached, Lee's anxiety began to flare. He had texted Christy multiple times, but the "read" receipts remained mocking and grey. He checked his phone every few minutes, wondering if he had inadvertently offended her. She knew Frost was sick; she knew Lee had to stay. There was no logical reason for her silence.
At midnight, while Frost slept soundly in the other room, Lee sat in the dark, aimlessly scrolling through TikTok to drown out his racing thoughts. Suddenly, a notification banner dropped from the top of the screen.
Christy: We need to talk.
The words hit him like a physical blow to the solar plexus. In the language of modern romance, those four words were the harbinger of death. His hands began to shake violently as he opened the chat.
"Did I do something wrong?" he typed back, his heart racing at a terrifying speed.
For thirty agonizing minutes, there was no reply. Lee paced the length of the kitchen, his mind spiraling through every conversation they'd had over the last week, searching for a clue, a mistake, a stray word.
Then, the three dots appeared.
Christy: Explain this.
The interface showed she was uploading a file. Lee stared at the loading bar, his breath hitching. When the file finally landed, his confusion deepened. It was a video—33 minutes long. The thumbnail showed a corner of Frost's living room.
With trembling fingers and a sense of impending doom he couldn't quite explain, Lee tapped the play icon. He watched the first few minutes of silence, his brow furrowed, until the time-stamp hit the three-minute mark. And then, his world went black.