I Was Only B-Roll in His Life

As I get ready to delete our TikTok account that has over a million followers, the comments section explodes as everyone desperately tries to talk me out of it. "Winnie, don't go! I'm still waiting to see your travel documentary with your boyfriend!" I laugh but still press the button to confirm the deletion. My boyfriend, Zachary Sutton, is a video editor. We've previously agreed to use TikTok to record every city we ever go to. For the past three years, he has always been featured in my shots. Yet, every time he finishes editing the videos, I'm never in any of the shots. Then, last week, when I'm helping him export a video file, I notice a folder named "Rowena Sanders" hidden deep within his hard drive. Upon opening it, I see that there's a video with another woman in it. She is standing by the ocean. The sun is haloing her figure and painting her hair a warm, golden brown. The video was edited to be in slow motion, capturing her as she turns to the camera, all while our love song plays in the background. Every single frame has been meticulously edited. In contrast, after I check through all our finished videos, I realize that I've only ever appeared once, and even in that, I was blurred out. I looked like just another part of the background. He even added a caption that read, "Where did this random nobody come from?" As it turns out, it isn't that he's not good at editing videos; it's that I've never been worthy enough to appear in his shots. While I'm packing up my things, he sends me a message, anxiously asking why the account is gone. I didn't reply. Since he refuses to keep me in the picture, I'll just walk out of the frame myself.