i didn’t catch this on my first viewing but ryan and naim’s conversation as they’re leaving the abandoned mill is making me genuinely miserable. i can’t recall the exact dialogue but naim asks ryan something to the effect of have you ever been there before? and ryan replies to the mill? no, that was my first time. again i can’t quite recall but i think naim responds with something like me too.
ryan is oblivious here, he’s taking naim completely at face value. nope, never been there before. and we can see the way a little of the tension leaves naim, a relaxing around the shoulders, because he’s hearing meaning ryan didn’t intend. you’re my first. there’s no one else. and ryan quickly follows it with don’t tell anyone, yeah? it’s to be their secret—the kiss and their new haunt, and of course the fact that ryan is gay. naim is more than happy to oblige, not only because he doesn’t want to be outed, but this is the first time since moving to this stupid town that he has something which isn’t just his own.
so when naim rounds the corner at ryan’s house and sees hunter there, sees them kiss with this ferocious intensity, naim thinks ryan lied. the strength of their connection, the tender gentleness of their kisses, ryan’s goofy smiles, they all turn sour and curdle his stomach not because he’s simply jealous, but because he’s been betrayed. and so, petty and heartbroken, he does the most betraying thing he can think of. he tells someone.
oh my god yes. jealousy was a factor, but what compelled him to go so far as outing ryan and hunter to hunter's parents was the perceived betrayal. doesn't excuse him outing ryan and hunter, but it does contexualise it. and when you add in what he says to the therapist, you understand just how deep that betrayal ran for him. naim has been terrified of his queerness for as long as he's been aware of it, and being with ryan in the mill was the first time he's ever let himself have what he's craved. even then he's good, he catches their reflection and stops it before it goes too far. nothing they can't pretend never happened. but then they have their conversation walking back with their bikes, the implication of a shared first time, and naim's resolve weakens. maybe it's okay, he thinks, maybe i can let myself have this if we're figuring it out together. so later he follows ryan back to the mill with the promise of a joint to pass between them a chance to escape himself. he opens up, giggles through the high, and kisses him again. from naim's perspective this is exclusive, a joint discovery of something he questions why he ever feared.
then he sees ryan with hunter. the violence. desperate lust. it's the same ryan he kissed, but somehow a completely different person. yeah, first time. not only does naim take this as ryan lying to him, but also a slap to the face that he doesn't know ryan at all. naim probably thinks ryan believed him to be naive, when he took him to the mill. just another boy to get off with and feel nothing for. naim feels lied to. he feels betrayed. he feels violated.
and at the end of the day he's a teenage boy who has just had his heart broken, and he does what so many teenage boys do when they get hurt. make other people hurt too.
finally someone fucking gets it
