standing in line at Starbucks. He points his camera at me. I’m sitting alone in a corner, reading a book.
Oh my God. This is the first day we kissed.
Miller turns the camera back on himself as he’s standing in the Starbucks line. “You’re so cute, sitting over there reading your book,” he whispers. “I think you should go to prom with me.”
“Miller,” I whisper. I try to turn around and look at him again, but he doesn’t want me to take my eyes off the television. I’m just in shock. I wasn’t expecting any of the footage to be from before we were dating.
In the next scene, Miller is outside, leaning against a pole. I don’t recognize the location at first, but when he wipes away beads of sweat from his forehead and pulls the sucker from his mouth, I realize he’s standing in front of the city limit sign. He’s looking into his camera when he says, “So. Clara Grant. You just drove by, and I know you saw me standing out here on the side of the road. Here’s the deal. I have a girlfriend, but I stopped thinking about her when I go to bed at night, and Gramps says that’s a bad sign and that I should break up with her. I mean, I have had a thing for you for a long time now, and I feel like I’m running out of opportunity. So I’ll make you a deal. If you turn your car around at the bottom of that hill and come back, I’m gonna take that as a sign, finally listen to my gut, break up with my girlfriend, and eventually ask you out. I might even ask you to prom this year. But if you don’t turn your car around, then I’ll assume you and I just weren’t meant to—” His eyes flash up, and he catches sight of something. He grins and then looks back down at his phone. “Look at that. You came back.”
That portion of the video ends, and now I’m crying.
When the next scene begins, I don’t recognize it at all. The camera is pointed at the floor and then at Gramps.
Gramps looks a few years younger in this video. Healthier than he looks now. “Get that out of my face,” Gramps says.
Miller turns the camera on himself. He looks younger too. He’s skinny, probably about fifteen. “Gramps is excited for the show,” Miller says sarcastically into the camera. Then he points his camera toward the stage.
My heart is thundering in my chest when I recognize the set.
My mind also starts to race. Twice, Miller’s grandpa tried to tell me about something that happened when they were at the school when Miller was fifteen. And twice, Miller was so embarrassed by it he shut him up.
Miller kisses the side of my head because he knows I’ve been wanting to know this story since the first day I met Gramps.
The camera cuts off. When it cuts on again, it’s the same night, but it’s the end of the play. The camera is on me now. I’m fourteen, standing onstage by myself, delivering a monologue. The camera slowly pans away from me and onto Miller.
His gramps must be holding the camera now.
Miller is staring at the stage. He’s leaning forward, his hands clasped beneath his chin. The camera zooms in on him as he watches me onstage. The camera stays there for a solid minute. Miller is hanging on to every word I’m saying onstage, completely engrossed. Gramps never once takes the camera off him, but Miller has no idea his gramps is filming him.
The monologue is the end of the play, so when I deliver my last line, everyone in the audience begins to clap.
Miller doesn’t.
He’s immobile. “Wow,” he whispers. “She is incredible. Epic.”
That’s when he looks at his grandpa and sees the camera pointed in his direction. He tries to snatch the camera out of Gramps’s hand, but Gramps pulls it away. He angles the camera so that it’s showing both of them. Miller rolls his eyes at his grandpa when he says, “I think you just fell in love.”
Miller laughs. “Shut up.”
“You did, and I got it on camera.” He points the camera at Miller again and says, “What’s her name?”
Miller shrugs. “Not sure. Clara, I think?” He opens the playbill and scrolls through it, pausing on my name. “Clara Grant. She played the role of Nora.”
His grandpa is still filming him. Miller isn’t even denying what