Vivian was already grabbing her coat.
“Guess so,” Mike said, smiling.
That’s when I started paying attention.
“Which place did you go to?” I asked one night.
“The one by the gas station,” Vivian answered quickly.
Another time, Mike mentioned driving “a little farther” so Vivian could “clear her head.”
Small inconsistencies. Nothing concrete—but they began to pile up.
Some nights they were gone forty minutes. Others, nearly an hour. Vivian returned quieter, cheeks flushed in a way that didn’t match the cold.
And the knot in my stomach refused to loosen.
I told myself I was overreacting.
Vivian’s grades stayed high. She behaved like any other teenager. Logically, I had no reason to worry—but the feeling wouldn’t leave.
Mike always turns on the dashcam when he drives. Insurance reasons, he said.
One night, after everyone went to bed, I slipped outside and removed the memory card.
My hands trembled the entire time.
I sat alone at the kitchen table with my laptop, the house silent around me.
I told myself I was paranoid.
Then the footage started.
At first, it looked normal—streetlights sliding across the windshield, an empty road, Mike adjusting the steering wheel.
Vivian appeared only in fragments: a reflection of her hoodie, the outline of her shoulder under brighter lights.
They never went near the gas station.
The car turned onto a side street I recognized but couldn’t immediately place—old brick buildings, closed shops.
Mike parked.
The camera kept recording as he stepped out, walked around the car, and opened the passenger door just out of frame. A shadow moved, then Vivian stepped into view with her back to the camera.
They walked toward a doorway at the edge of the screen.
I paused the video.
The sign outside showed a woman’s figure—arched back, raised arms—blocking most of the text.
Mike leaned in to say something to Vivian. She went inside alone.
Mike waited. Checked his phone. Paced. Then returned to the car.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
I sat frozen, heart pounding. The footage didn’t show anything explicit—but it didn’t show enough to feel right.
What kind of place was open that late?
And why lie?
When Vivian came back, Mike opened the door for her. On the way home, her reflection flashed across the windshield as she laughed at something he said.
I closed the laptop and sat in darkness, staring at myself in the blank screen.
I didn’t sleep.
By morning, I’d replayed the footage so many times I questioned my own memory.
I made breakfast. Packed lunches. Functioned.
But inside, I was unraveling.
The dashcam hadn’t given me answers—it had made everything worse.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I needed the truth.
The next evening, after dinner, I called Vivian over while Mike sat in the living room.
“Vivian, can you come sit with us for a minute?”
She glanced nervously at Mike before sitting on the edge of the couch.
“I took the memory card from your dashcam, Mike. I watched the footage from your last ‘ice cream run.'”
Mike blinked.
