Sophia's P.O.V.

I avoided sleep. 

The clock, hanging over Bryce's television, made it evident to me that I should be in bed. It was past two AM. Any practical girl would've gone to sleep by now. I drew to the conclusion that I had past practicality and pushed further into idiocy with every minute I sat down here.

I came to the living room fifteen minutes after Bryce left. I had tossed and turned, replaying what I said and what he said, coming up blank as to what I could've done differently. I couldn't see it in his eyes, but I felt a disconnection after we had sex and came back from the rooftop.

I wasn't going to go back on what I said to him about only liking him. If anything, I was closer to yelling instead of floating on to cloud nine at what he said.

Everyone knew that saying "I love you" or anything remotely close to that after sex was unoriginal and probably the most ingenuine way to do it.

Having him say it didn't take any gravity away from what he told me though.

I took that word seriously. When I used it, meant it with all of my heart. I didn't want to play with Bryce's emotions as if they were a game.

I need to get my mind off this, was what I thought when I got out of bed and headed downstairs. I was desperate for a short distraction.

After surfing the channels, I saw that I had entirely missed Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Which disappointed me. Even though the show hadn't been on for more than a month, I was beginning to look forward to watching it whenever I had time.

When nothing interesting showed up on the three big networks or Fox, I was delighted that Bryce had cable since every late-night show was done when I came downstairs.

We didn't have cable at my mom's place for the longest time. Back in Middle School, I remembered how I had asked my mother to invest in cable TV.

She was convinced the only reason I wanted it was because of the MTV ads, promoting its new network. I eventually got her to cave and buy into it.

I had to say, having some of my favorite singers and musicians shout "I Want My MTV" was reasonable enough for me to get whatever they were promoting.

Bored with what the TV provided, I walked up to one of the tall wooden shelves adjacent to the TV. Something else Bryce owned -  that I didn't - was a VHS Recorder. His TV didn't have a built-in VHS player, like at my mother's house, but it did have one that was placed underneath the screen.

When I visited Bryce's apartment in September, that was when I first noticed the tall shelves of VHS tapes he had, and some without cases that were clearly recorded here and not bought from a video store. The ones that were bare from a protection case had white tape on the side and the title of the show that was recorded on it. 

The TV show Dallas stood, mainly because he more than four VHS tapes of it. I loved that soap opera growing up and was sad to see it end two years ago.

I went back to looking through his tapes. I saw something else that was marked 'X-Files' in black ink, but I didn't know what show or movie that was. I had never heard of it.

Probably porn, my dirty mind assumed.

Kneeling so I could come to eye level with the lower shelves, I picked up one tape that had 'Growing Pains' written on the spine.

Bryce watching the show Growing Pains was more of a surprise than him telling me that he thought he was in love with me. He didn't seem like the type to watch a sitcom.

In smaller text, the name Julia was scribbled in pen. A heart was used instead of a dot above the I. Naturally, I presumed that was one of his sister's names. I recalled someone telling me that he had three sisters.

Going to the TV, I slid in the tape into the VHS player and switch the tv over from cable.

The screen turned blue, and then finally black. Static streaked the screen as I went to search for the controller. I pressed play and sat back down on the couch, waiting for it to start.

The familiar intro came on the screen. Lamely, I pretended to sing along as the lead character appeared in short snippets while the song played.

The picture froze and the image distorted. Someone had taped over the recording. The episode was cut short as a different recording began.

The quality was poor, making me guess that it was filmed on a home video recorder.

Whoever was handling it held it shaky hands at first. It gradually got steady as they walked down a hallway and in to a room. Inside, there sat a girl with wavy red hair that barely brushed her shoulders. Rose peddles were thrown in the bed and the room was candlelit.

"Can I open my eyes?" she asked, giggling with her bottom lip between her teeth. "I want to open them."

"Not yet, Julia," said the man holding the camera. "You promised you'd keep them."

The hair on the back of my neck raised at the sound of Bryce's voice in the background of the video. What the hell was I watching?

I got off of the couch and hurried to turn it off...until I saw what he was handing to her. It was a velvety navy blue box. He rested it on her lap.

Momentarily, he faced the camera to himself, confirming my assumption that it was Bryce, smiling into the lens. He had less tattoos. There weren't any on his forearm or on his neck.

He looked younger. Happier even.

The camera went back to Julia. "Okay, now open it."

Julia shrieked, holding up the box that had a diamond ring inside. The camera moved again, being left on a nightstand and facing the couple.

Baffled at what I was watching, I witnessed in awe a teenage Bryce proposed to a girl that was crying the second he started asking the big question.

"Julia Elizabeth Pryor, will you marry me?"

"Yes, yes, yes," she exclaimed and wiped away her tears. "I'd be an idiot if I didn't say yes."

I gaped at the television, trying to piece together everything I had just seen.

Bryce was only twenty-three. The date stamp at the corner of the screen told me he couldn't have been more than eighteen in this video. How could someone so young get married? My parents, who were born with different values and views, didn't see anything wrong with getting married at that age.

Julia screamed out in excitement as he slid the ring on to her finger. "I love it," she fell into him. "I love you."

"Careful now." He steadied her and enveloped his arms around her into an embrace. "Don't want to hurt the baby."

"Baby?" I coughed, out of breath. "No."

I was hearing things. It was late in the night. This all had to be a hallucination. Bryce didn't just say baby. Maybe he was calling her baby? I was honestly grasping at straws.

Julia rubbed her teary eyes and mustered a half smile. Bryce dragged his thumb over her cheek and I suddenly felt like a third wheel. Even if this was recorded years ago.

"I want to be there for you, Julia." The younger Bryce whispered to her. "I want to be there for a kid when he gets here. We didn't plan for this, but I'm not going to back out now." He sealed his promise with a slow kiss.

I snatched up the remote and turned off the TV. The weight of what I had seen hadn't hit me yet. I was processing it and figuring out how it could make sense.

Bryce never brought up having a kid. He never brought up Julia. I knew Bryce left New York around the timeframe of this video, which made me wonder if he hadn't kept his promise of staying with her. What if he left her for Los Angeles?

I didn't know. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. It would show me a part of Bryce I wasn't ready to be aware of. If he abandoned Julia and their kid, I couldn't be with him. It was the same reason, more or less, why I had a cold shoulder toward my father.

I got to my feet, off from the floor in front of the tv. A shadowy blob near the hallway startled me. The hysteria melted when I recognized it was Bryce.

"I didn't hear you come in." I sighed. "I knew you were stealthy, but not that stealthy."

He shrugged and remained silent. "What were you watching?"

I shuffled back to the TV and blocked him off from the VHS player. "Nothing you'd be interested in."

"Why are you acting weird?" his brows fused together in puzzlement and noticed the VHS player was on. "Oh, did you watch a movie of mine? It's okay. I don't mind. You don't need to ask for permission to watch them. Just don't watch any of the ones on the bottom two shelves."

You could've told me that before...

Either Bryce saw the gap on the bottom two shelves or he read me like a book. I was sweating bullets to begin with under his intrusive, penetrable gaze.

Swiftly, he grabbed the remote I'd foolishly left on the couch and pressed play. The moment from earlier, of Bryce and Julia kissing, flickered on to the screen. They stopped for a second for him to turn off the camera. The theme song to Growing Pains resumed.

"I ....I didn't know that would be on the tape," I proclaimed, walking partly to where he was. I didn't get too close. "I started playing it and it just jumped right into that other stuff."

"You kept watching," he noted coolly and dropped the remote. "You know what, it doesn't matter. I'm going to bed."

Halfway up the stairs, curiosity got the best of me and I asked him, "What happened with Julia?"

Bryce came to a halt and turned around. "You really wanna know?"

"I...I guess I do since I opened up the dialogue for it by watch that video - accidentally," I added on. "You guys looked happy. You looked happy."

"I was. To a degree." He gingerly went back down the stairs and we met at the bottom of them. "In that video, I was happy."

"Till what?" I pressed on.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Till I wasn't." He said as if it was a question on its own. "Things were hard for Julia and I. I was in barely thirteen when I met her and we didn't necessarily have a welcoming family when we told them we were getting married. They thought we were being idiotic. At least my parents did. My dad hated her. Her parents were fine with it - if anything they approved of it because a month earlier we told them she was expecting."

"What went wrong though? If you were happy and she was happy -"

"She was murdered, Sophia." He boomed and the words stopped my talking entirely. "We moved to California to get away from my family and shit just got worse from there, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"No, of course that's not what I wanted to hear." I spluttered, grasping for the sleeve of his jacket. "I'm sorry for bringing it up. I'll stop asking about it."

I still had questions regarding the details but I wasn't going to push Bryce any further. My questions could wait.

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