This isn't weird.

Cut

It was exactly one hour, on the dot, when Indigo lightly rapped on the door to Ben's bedroom. Ben, who had done little more than continuously pace for the past sixty minutes, was ravaged with curiosity about what he was waiting for. He opened the door, and Indigo said gravely, "Come." Ben followed him down the hall to the door of a room he had never actually seen the inside of. There were a few of them in this apartment—he had always made a point to be respectful of Indigo's personal spaces.

The room was dark, save for the glow of a large rectangle of light on the leftmost wall. A projector, he realized, paused on a blank gray screen. There was a single chair in the center of the room facing the illuminated wall.

"Oh, this is creepy," Ben said. "Please tell me you're not going to strap me to that chair."

"I am not going to strap you to that chair," Indigo responded. "But do sit down."

Confused and a little anxious, Ben did as he was instructed. The rectangle of light flickered a little, and he heard the door close. He was alone.

And then the video started.

It's game night.

The door to their private room opens. Ben himself steps through, holding a bowl of ice cream. His friends immediately razz him for his extended absence.

"I found a stray," he says, and suddenly there is Millie, almost comically docile as he leads her to a seat. She's looking at him. He begins to introduce her to his friends, and she briefly turns her eyes to each man as they greet her, but every time, she looks back at Ben as soon as they've finished talking. She finally turns away from him long enough to eat her ice cream—her face absolutely glows when he musses her hair—but when she finishes it, she puts the bowl down on the table, and then she's looking at him. Trying, for the most part, to be subtle, her head turned toward him just enough to see him from the corner of her eye, though she steals the occasional thorough glance, and he gets her full attention any time he speaks to her, and she giggles at his jokes with unbridled glee.

It cuts to a bit later in the evening. She's looking at him. She finds an excuse to touch him, tugging on his arm excitedly after a particularly successful roll of the dice. She holds on a little longer than necessary. When she lets go, she turns her focus aggressively to the game for a minute or two, as if to highlight how hard she's not looking at him. Then she's looking at him.

Another cut; she leans close to whisper something in his ear; they both burst into laughter while everyone else at the table looks confused; he pats her back and leans in to whisper something in return that leaves her beaming. Then she's looking at him.

Another cut. She's looking at him. Another cut, she's looking at him. Enough cuts to emphasize heavy-handedly the way her gaze remains fixed on him for the entire night, breaking away only when the game absolutely requires her to look elsewhere. She can't take her eyes off of him.

And he's completely oblivious.

One more cut—Genevieve dragging her out of the room. Millie looks back at Ben one last time as she's pulled away. She looks miserable. Then his eyes meet hers. He smiles at her. Her face softens, and she smiles back. There's a dazed sort of look to her smile.

"I can't believe I didn't see it," Ben whispered to himself as the screen cut to black. A swirl of emotions tore through him; a sort of giddiness to finally see how immediately and intensely she had become enamored with him, clashing against devastating heartache and self-loathing as he contemplated the endless opportunities he had wasted to demonstrate his secret reciprocity.