I Wrote Their Love Story, So I Wrote Myself Out novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ring That Didn't Fit
At the four-million-subscriber party Demi hands Jasper a ring that slides off his finger and is engraved for Wyatt; he writes the last page, deletes himself and flies to Scotland.
The channel hit four million subscribers at nine o'clock on a hotel rooftop.
Four hundred guests counted down out loud, and I filmed it from the back of the crowd.
Demi and Wyatt stood under the string lights with their arms around each other.
Everyone cheered for the couple.
Nobody looked at the man behind the camera, which is how I had built it.
For three years I had written and shot every episode of it.
The internet believed they were together.
Demi was my girlfriend, and had been for six years.
Our deal was that on camera she belonged to Wyatt and at home she belonged to me.
"Real at home," she always said.
When the countdown ended I lowered the camera, and she came through the crowd toward me with a velvet box in her hand.
She kissed my cheek.
"Hold this for me till the finale," she said. "The sponsor wants a close shot of the stone tonight. Check the glare?"
I opened the box.
The ring was platinum, plain and heavy, with a small square diamond.
"This is for the live proposal?" I asked.
"For the live proposal. Put it on, you'll see how it catches."
I slid it onto my ring finger.
It went over the knuckle and spun loose at the base.
"Too big," I said.
"Props sized it for Wyatt, obviously. She's proposing to him, so it goes on his hand."
I took it off to give it back, and saw the engraving inside the band.
Small capitals, sharp and new: M + W. March 3.
"That's engraved," I said.
"The sponsor likes real details. It photographs better."
"March third. That's the night you told me you were working late."
She laughed the short laugh she used when a take went wrong and she wanted the crew to know it was fine.
"Jas, don't make it weird. It's a ring for a show."
"Demi!" Dennis called from the bar, holding up his phone. "Four million! Photo, both of you, now!"
She took the box out of my hand and shut the ring inside it.
Then she looked straight into my lens, which she did at the end of every take.
I had asked her to, years ago.
I'd told her, look at me and not at him, it reads warmer.
She went back to Wyatt, and he put his arm around her waist without checking where it landed.
I went into the production closet behind the bar, where it was quiet, and opened the company dashboard on my phone.
I had logged into it every week for three years to upload episodes.
Under Team it listed three names.
Demi Ostrow, Owner.
Wyatt Guenther, Owner.
Jasper Schaefer, Contractor. Role changed March 3.
I read it three times.
Nobody had told me.
Below it sat the comments on tonight's announcement, which I scrolled the way I always did.
The same account, @slowpan, had left the first comment under every video for three years.
Short notes about the light, mostly, and which lens.
I had stopped reading them months ago.
I stood in the closet for a while with the door shut and the music coming through the wall.
I had been the boyfriend for six years, the best friend for eleven, and the director of all of it.
On the company's own page I was a contractor, and had been since the night she worked late.
So I wrote myself out.
The finale script was twelve pages, and I had finished eleven.
On the production laptop on the supply shelf, I wrote page twelve in one go.
I didn't read it back.
I printed all twelve pages and stapled them.
Demi and Wyatt had not read a script ahead of a take in three years.
They trusted me to put the right words in front of them.
I carried the pages to the middle of the roof, where the teleprompter stood waiting under a cloth for the finale, and set them on its stand.
Then I signed out of the dashboard, the shared drive, the teleprompter app and the editing server.
I deleted my own access to each one, and each one asked me if I was sure.
I was.
The drive holding three years of raw footage was in my backpack, where it had always been.
Nobody had ever asked me for it.
A grip I liked lifted his beer at me from the stairwell, and I lifted my hand back.
Demi was laughing in the photo line with her head on Wyatt's shoulder.
She didn't see me go.
At JFK I told the woman at the desk I wanted the next flight out of the country.
She typed for a moment.
"Edinburgh leaves in an hour," she said.
In my saved mail there was one letter I had kept for three years.
To whoever holds the camera. You pan like someone who loves the room. Come and see it twenty feet tall. Isla Brodie, Brodie Picture House, Leith.
Dennis had forwarded it to me in the first month with a laughing face.
I had never answered it.
I bought the ticket.
At the gate I checked the announcement video one last time.
Over four hundred thousand views already, and @slowpan was first again.
"Four million thank-yous, and not one name for the person holding the camera."
I didn't reply.
I turned my phone off and walked down the jet bridge with nothing in my hand but the strap of my bag.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend