Page 68 of Unbound
I walked to the window, testing the frame out of habit. Nailed shut. When had they done that?
The single lightbulb cast harsh shadows. The walls felt closer than they should, the ceiling lower. This was my cage until Saturday morning.
I sat on the bed, and the memories hit like a freight train.
Age fourteen.
I sat on my childhood bed, the same creaky twin mattress with the navy blue comforter, my hands clenched in my lap. The house was eerily quiet now, but the echoes of my mother’s screams still rang in my ears.
She’d found them.
I swallowed hard, my pulse thudding in my throat. My laptop was gone—she’d taken it. The videos were gone too.
Not that it mattered. I couldn’t unsee them.
I hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. I’d only been curious. That’s what my father always said was important—seeking answers, learning truth. But this wasn’t the kind of truth they wanted me to find.
My fingers trembled as I pressed them to my lips, remembering.
The videos had been explicit. Gay porn.
I’d stumbled across them after weeks of deliberate searching—nights spent with my headphones plugged in, the screen brightness turned low, my heart racing every time I clicked on something new. I told myself it was curiosity, that I just wanted to understand.
But then I’d watched two men—naked, unashamed, their bodies pressed together in ways that made my breath catch. The way one had wrapped his hand around the other, the way their mouths met, hungry and searching. The low, guttural moans that sent heat spilling through my veins.
I’d flushed, my cheeks burning, and I’d hated myself for it. But I hadn’t stopped. I’d watched, transfixed, as they moved together, their hands roaming, their voices tangled in gasps of pleasure.
And then it happened—that coil of heat in my stomach, the way my body tightened, the way my breath hitched. I was excited, and that knowledge twisted something in my chest.
It was wrong. An abomination. I’d heard my father preach it, heard the venom in his voice when he talked about men like the ones in those videos.
But why did it feel good? Why had my pulse tripped when one of the men whispered, “You’re beautiful”? Why did my hands shake when I imagined what it would feel like to touch someone like that, to be touched?
Shame clawed up my throat, bitter and suffocating. I was disgusting. Broken.
And my mother knew.
The bedroom door flew open, crashing against the wall. My father stood in the doorway, his face livid, his breath sharp with rage. My mother hovered behind him, her eyes red and raw with tears.
“Is it true?” His voice was low, lethal. “What your mother says?”
I opened my mouth to lie, to deny, to beg forgiveness—but nothing came out.
He didn’t need an answer.
His palm cracked across my face, sharp enough to snap my head to the side. My mother sobbed louder, muffling it with her hands.
“We can fix this,” she whispered, frantic, as if she could stitch my soul back to righteousness with sheer will. “Before it’s too late. Before anyone else knows.”
The words slipped through me like cold water.
Fix me.
As if I wasn’t human anymore. As if I was something to be repaired.
But the worst part?
Part of me wanted to be fixed. Because the alternative—the truth—terrified me more than anything.
