Token Best Friend

It's never fun to realize that you aren't actually in control of your own life. Its even less fun when you discover you aren't actually even a real person at all - you're just a person created by some other bigger person and jerked around on marionette strings to their bidding of the plot.

The absolute least fun thing about the whole scenario is there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I am confined to the restraints of the world given to me by the author, which itself wasn't that bad before I managed to develop what is called "free will." I'm not the main character in this book, so that's one of the reasons why I think I managed to go under the radar of discovery.

On second thought, I don't know who would have discovered me anyway - I hadn’t yet found another character in my daily activities who seemed aware that we sometimes repeat the same day with only minor changes, or that a day passes in the blink of an eye when the Writer needs a time jump. I can't say when the exact moment I gained awareness was, just that as soon as I realized I WAS, everything became extremely obvious.

Maybe I should explain who I am in the story so you can understand a little better. I'm the best friend character in a romance comedy book, you know the one. I'm the character who gets to make quippy one-offs and be the best hype girl I can be, but I don't really get to DO anything because it's not my story - it's Stephanie's. Stephanie is the cute, clumsy bookstore clerk who meets the undercover CEO. I have to deal with the actual customers of this world. Imagine being in a fictional world and still being forced to work retail - you'd be miserable too, don't lie.

The day I had the revelation started like any other. Stephanie and I share an apartment, and the living area is gorgeous. Stephanie's room is an eclectic cozy clutter. My room doesn't exist. There was a morning we were heading to work and I realized I had left something in my room and darted back, throwing open my door to nothingness. It was just a gaping white space. I was frozen in time it felt like, and I started to panic. Obviously, I must have been in my room earlier, I had slept in it, right? I was wracking my brain for some sort of explanation until I heard Stephanie call my name, and I was pulled by some magnetic force back to her.

"Did you get what you were looking for?" she asked.

I had wanted to scream, "NO! My room doesn't exist!" but instead I heard myself saying, "Yeah, I forgot my phone like an idiot." My eyes grew wide as I held up my hand to show off a phone I most certainly DID NOT get from the void that used to be my room. (I later learned I had been conveniently written stepping away so she could take a short call from her romantic foil without me in the room.)

When we arrived at work, I was still reeling from the idea of my room disappearing. Was I having some sort of manic episode? Did I need to call a doctor?

I trudged through the shelves with the cart of books, shelving them haphazardly. My room would definitely be there when I got home, it had to be.

"Lacy, where is Stephanie?"

I whipped my head around to find the CEO of our company walking toward me. "Oh, she's at the register," I replied, pointing to the front. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about-" I began, my voice choking off in my throat as Stephanie conveniently stepped onto the aisle. I tried to push out the rest of my question on the backstock, but I couldn't get my vocal cords to work. I was basically clawing at my neck, but neither of them seemed to notice me. I could have been dying, but neither of them acted like I was even there. It wasn't until they had both walked away that I found my voice working.

"What in the holy hell?" I shrieked. I clutched at my throat, a strange feeling of deja vu washing over me. Did I ever really talk to anyone outside of being asked a question unless it was Stephanie? In a fit of panicked rage, I grabbed the cart and pushed it over, books cascading across the floor. What was going on today? Was I possessed?

I began to stalk off down the aisle to head to the breakroom when I felt a sudden pinching sensation and a pop, finding myself back in front of the bookshelf with a book in my hand, the cart neatly uprighted, the books stacked as they had been before my outburst. I blinked a moment, my chest heaving as I heard his voice again.

"Lacy, where is Stephanie?" 

Again, I turned to see my boss walking down the aisle exactly as before. My immediate instinct was to yell, "How the hell should I KNOW, you two just walked away together?" But like earlier in the day, I found myself instead repeating the exact same sentence from earlier, my question stopping in the exact same spot. Stephanie once again appeared around the corner on cue, though this time making an offhanded quip about needing a break.

"You've only just gotten here, Stephanie. What could have you so worn out already?"

I snorted since I was unable to speak, and I noticed Stephanie's eyes briefly flick over to me before they walked away.

Out of spite, I flipped the cart once more for consistency.

This is how things continued for me. My room still didn't exist since the writer never outright created it, so I spent my nights in the void for a bit before deciding to see what other parts of my so-called world didn't exist. This was when I found the weirdest place to exist, however: the PLOT ROOM.

I found it one night when I was testing doors along our street, seeing which ones opened into an actual house or into the void. So far the void was winning fifteen to zero. There was one door, however, that when I tested it opened into a room with other people in it. They looked at me in surprise, which made me uncomfortable. I was never the center of attention.

"You shouldn't be in here," one of the people seated near the door said. I felt like I vaguely remembered their face, but only a hazy memory.

 "But where is this, exactly?" I asked hesitantly.

"This is the room where the 'sentient' book characters end up."

"Or where those of us who were written out go," said another girl over to the side, leaning against the wall.

"Oh....well okay," I said hesitantly. "I don't know what that means."

"You must know something," she scoffed. "You can't find this room otherwise. Cast members don't go around checking the doors since it's not part of the plot."

"Part of the plot?"I repeated. Just as I said the words, I felt the same pinching sensation as before.

"You've got a scene, token best friend." She gave me an unnerving smirk.

I yelped just as the pop came, dropping me right outside the bookstore. I looked down to find myself in a different outfit than I had been wearing, my hair suddenly styled.

"Thanks for waiting," Stephanie was saying as she locked up the door.

"No problem," I blurted. "I'm sorry he made you stay late - it wasn't your fault." What wasn't her fault?

We began to walk, my legs jerking as if I were being controlled by puppet strings. I had no idea what was going on, but my voice and mannerisms seemed to know what to do. I seemed to only have control of my eyes, which I used to try and scope out my surroundings. We entered a bar that looked new to me, but by our conversation, this was apparently our favorite spot. I tried to focus my brain on what the girl from earlier had said. Cast list? Plot? Token best friend?

I slammed open the door to the plot room, my eyes blazing. Now that I had regained control of my body and my voice, I cried out, "Are we book characters?"

Everyone in the room just nodded in unison.

"So what does that mean? I don't get to control anything?"

"Not anything important," the girl from earlier said.

"Who even are you?"

"I'm Amy, I was the third best friend until the Writer took me out. But I was created for this world, so I just stay in the plot room. I don't actually exist to any of the main cast anymore."

I gasped, looking around the room. "So what does this mean? We exist until this book ends?"

"Basically."

"Oh," I breathed, dropping into a seat near the door. "Well, this isn't fun at all."