Page 112 of Over & Out

“But you’re not alone,” Dolly assures me.

Shelby squeezes my cheeks and kisses me on the forehead like a mom. “Ever,” she says. Then she settles herself on the floor at my knees, opening her arms for baby Jess, who toddled back out of the other room almost immediately.

The music for the show comes on, and we all watch,rapt, as the familiar opening music plays and Rob Vancy’s silver swoop of hair dominates the screen.

“Folks, we have got a show for you tonight. This evening, I’m welcoming a guest who has never once done an interview of this nature. A man who’s been consistently evasive when asked about his personal life, both past and present. Who, I daresay, has turned on the press in the past for daring to want to know more about his life. Hopper Donnach, folks.”

The live audience goes wild. So do my insides.

“He looks nervous,” I whisper. Hopper’s got his hands flat on his gray suit pants, which fit him like a dream, of course. He looks handsome, as always. But when his eyes—those ice blue eyes that looked into mine and told me “I’ve got you” lock with the camera, Ifeelhim. It’s like everything and everyone falls away, and he’s looking directly at me. Maybe every woman in the world feels like that.

When the din finally dies down, Rob Vancy leans forward, setting down the cards in his hands like this is all going to be entirely off script. “What made you decide to tell your story, Hopper?”

Hopper clears his throat. “There’s this girl,” he says.

The crowd laughs and hoots, but my skin tingles all over. Because I know he’s not joking. Dolly squeezes my right arm. On my left, Lana puts her hand to her mouth.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” Raph asks.

“Shh!” everyone says.

Rob asks him to tell him about what it was like growing up in the spotlight. And for the first time in Hopper’s career, he does. He tells him everything.He talks about how close he was with his mom as a kid, how he used to ride BMX bikes in the woods behind his house. How his dad tricked him into going to his first audition. How awful the conditions were on set for him, how his father would vanish for days at a time, and how he was cut off from his mom, who was told all was well. He says none of this with malice. Just as if stating the facts. But the emotion is present in his eyes. In the way his hands are tight on his lap. How he drinks water like a man in a desert whenever Rob talks.

“He’s torturing himself,” Shelby says, her voice tight with empathy.

“I don’t think so,” Lana says. “I think it would be torture to hold all that in.”

“Why have you never told this to anyone before?” Rob asks on screen.

“Because I never wanted people’s sympathy. Or their pity. I’m very fortunate to be where I am. To get to do what I do. And in a way, I’m grateful, since I do love making movies. I just don’t always get to make the ones that call to me.”

“But whynow?” Rob presses. “You contacted us. You urgently wanted to do this interview. We happily cleared our schedule for you, of course. You’re our biggest scoop, and you scooped yourself.”

The audience laughs. But for the first time in the interview, Hopper seems to relax. He looks right into the camera and says, “I wasn’t lying before. There’s this girl. My dream girl. A woman who came into my life a year ago and changed everything, without even knowing it.”

My heart thuds in my chest as Hopper looks into thecamera and tells quite literally millions of people that he’s met the love of his life.

“You know, in this life,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how many people surround you; it’s still so easy to feel completely alone. But it was this person who showed me I’m not alone. She showed me that to not be alone, you have to open yourself up completely, showing your most vulnerable sides. Especially if you’ve been hiding them. That’s why I’m here, Rob. And that’s why I’m going to share some things your audience might hate me for. This could cost me my career, but to me, it doesn’t matter. Because, in my eyes, the only person who needs to know this is her. And I’d burn the world down for her if it meant I got to keep her.”

Of course they cut to a commercial break then.

Everyone around me is freaking out, speculating about what he’s going to talk about. I want to tell him it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to do this on TV. But I realize this show’s not live. He’s already done this interview. He’s probably sitting at home right now, waiting for me to watch it.

Wondering if I’m still going to be his when it’s done.

I pull out my phone.

CHRIS: I’m watching. Where are you?

He writes back right away.

HOPPER: I’m on a clifftop, looking out at the ocean.

I know he’s in our spot, that lookout where we sat that day, where we had our first kiss. Where he learned who I really was.

CHRIS: Fitting that you’re going to show me all of yourself while you’re there.

HOPPER: I thought so.

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