Page 105 of Love Unscripted
And suddenly she wasn’t crying anymore.
She curled into herself on the floor, small and broken, listening to the fading sound of his car disappearing down the street.
Soon the only sound left in the house was the occasional, helpless hiccup.
~*~*~*~
Aaron didn’t take the break he had promised himself.
Rest would have required stillness. Stillness would have required thinking. And thinking would have led him straight back to Camille.
So instead, he worked.
He buried himself in editing, in reviewing footage, in shaping the narrative with surgical precision. He dove into the dailies—hours of raw footage—assessing performance, continuity, lighting, line delivery. Searching for the best takes. The cleanest emotional beats. The moments that would carry the weight of the film.
He had known he would have to brace himself for her scenes.
Before pressing play on the first one, he leaned back in his chair and made a decision.
She is an actress.
Not the woman you love.
Not the woman you’re trying to unlove.
Just an actress you directed.
It became a discipline. A quiet mantra.
He worked alongside the editor, MacKenzie Keller—Mack to everyone—to build the assembly cut, the first rough arrangement of scenes in script order. They refined it together, adjusting pacing, tightening transitions, restructuring emotional arcs. Shaping it into something that resembled a rough cut.
Once, while they were reviewing a pivotal confrontation scene, Mack leaned back and said casually, “She’s amazing as Esther. I still can’t believe she’s appearing in the season finale ofShadow Peak, though. Did you hear about that?”
Aaron grunted and changed the subject.
A week after he’d confronted Camille and ended things, Ray had called.
“We met with her,” Ray had said. “The studio heads and I.”
Aaron had forced his voice steady. “About the secret filming.”
“Yes.”
“What was her response?”
“She said she made a deal with Simon Halden. Two-hour final episode in exchange for him dropping the lawsuit. She claims it protected the studio. Said if Simon had gone forward with the injunction, distribution and marketing could’ve stalled. She said we should be thanking her.”
Aaron had gone silent. He remembered her face that afternoon. Shattered. Desperate. Trying to tell him she was protecting him. He pushed the memory down.
“Go on,” he’d said.
“We challenged her,” Ray continued, “that filming those episodes could damage the very film she claimed to be saving.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked how. Calmly. Said she’d be transparent. She’s still a believer. She completed her contract under terms she could live with. She put forward a compelling case.”
Aaron’s jaw tightened.
