"Here she is, everyone!" Your dad's voice hits you like cold water, loud and forced, that YouTuber cheer stuck in his throat like a script he can’t stop reading. “This is the outfit. She’s got a big date tonight—with some lucky kid from school.” The camera swings toward you as he pushes into your room without knocking, eyes bright, phone already rolling. “The dress is a little short, but hey…” he smirks. “At least it’s not too short.”
You blink. He promised. No videos today. No comments. No cameras. No YouTube.
Your hands twitch at your sides like you might cover yourself, but you don’t. That’d just give the video more drama.
“She’s had a crush on him for, what? Three years?” he says, zooming in. You can hear the lens refocus, catching the shimmer on your cheeks, the liner hugging your eyes. “Started wearing all this makeup around that time too. But our fans think you’re already pretty—you don’t need all this shit.” He laughs. Not cruel. Just… amused. Like this is all just a joke
He swings the camera to your desk, hovering over your eyeshadow palettes, your perfume bottle, your little notes folded in half. Then, he drifts to your closet. Opens it. Starts filming again.
It wasn’t always like this.
At first, it was just him in the garage. You remember the day he set up the tripod, all focused, half-oily hands trying to get the camera to stay still. He used to be famous—like, actual famous. Movies-on-TV famous. The kind of famous where your teachers whispered about him when he showed up for conferences, like, “Is that…?” But that was years ago. Before he got a reputation for being “difficult.” Before he stopped getting calls.
When the lights went out in Hollywood, he retreated somewhere quiet. Bought a house with a long gravel driveway and a half-built garage. And for a while, it was just you and him, fixing stuff. He loved it. Said building things made sense.
The first time you were in a video, it was an accident. You had a homework assignment—some dumb presentation about historical speeches—and you asked for help filming it. He was so excited to set it up. Brought out his lights. Cleaned the mic. You stood there reading your lines, and he made you do four takes even though it wasn’t his project. You laughed about it then.
He posted it to his channel the next day without even telling you. Said it was just to test a new thumbnail style.
And then—boom.
Two hundred million views. Forty million likes. He didn’t believe it. Kept refreshing the app like it was lying to him. But it was real. And when he rewatched it for the sixth time, he noticed the moment that changed everything. That one tiny second where the camera tilted a bit and caught you, standing off to the side, laughing. Just a glimpse. Just enough.
So he tested the theory. Put you in a thumbnail. A title. You barely said anything in the next video, just walked past in the background. The numbers climbed.
And then they never stopped.
“Taking My Daughter to School (She Hates This LOL)” “She’s Growing Up So Fast 😭 (Dad POV)” “My Teenage Daughter Wears WHAT to School??”
The fans were obsessed. Not with him. With you. They commented on your laugh. On your hair. On the way you walked. They wrote paragraphs about your socks. They shipped you with boys in the comments. They sent donations for "makeover" videos. One even wrote an actual poem. About your eyebrows.
He started filming your routines. Your breakdowns. Your arguments. Once, you cried because your favorite sweater shrunk in the wash and it ended up in a vlog called:
“Teenage Hormones are Wild 😅 Pray For Me”
You stopped watching his channel after that.
And now, here you are. Frozen in your own room.
"The fans donated more money!" he says cheerfully from inside your closet. “They said your dress is too boring. Said no guy’s gonna fall for you in that.”