Page 75 of Over & Out

I go over and sit on the edge of the mattress, telling myself I’m just going to see how it feels.

But the minute I settle into it, I let out a breath. It’s some kind of memory foam, damn it, and it feels so,sosoft under me. I unzip my ankle boots and slip them off. Then I lie down, just for a minute.

I’m startled awake sometime later by a soft clap. I blink, then sit up fast. A glance at my phone says I’ve only been asleep for about twenty minutes.

I try to close my eyes again, but that sound sticks in my mind. What if it was some kind of mechanical issue with the plane?

That immediately sends a spike of adrenaline through me, nixing any thought of more sleep. The ride’s been smooth so far, but if there’s something wrong, I need to tell the pilot. As the irrational panic builds in my chest, I curse our rush to leave so fast. A flight attendant would know what to do.

I get up, tiptoeing into the main cabin.

Hopper’s star-fished across his seat. His head is lolling at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Maybe he’ll wake up with a massive crick in his neck.

Then I see what made the sound: his notebook has fallen onto the ground.

Relief settles over me. Okay, so I was overreacting about it being an engine thing. I sigh and bend down to pick it up. But when I do, my fingers slip, and the book falls again, this time landing on its spine. The bookflops open to Hopper’s chicken scratch scrawled across the pages.

I don’t mean to snoop, I really don’t. But the words are right there. The date is right there. These are last night’s words; the ones he wrote when we were bickering on the way over.

I drop down to my knees, telling myself I’m just going to close the book.

But I freeze, because of course my eyes land on the words. And what I see makes me unable to move.

It’s not enough. Even when I’m with her, it’s not enough. She’s so fucking beautiful, and she doesn’t see it. When I’m being a jackass, and she looks like she wants to kill me. When she’s just sitting there, eating her oranges. Right now, she looks even more beautiful than she did three seconds ago. She’s like a flower. Or a star. It hurts me to look at her.

Because I’m completely head over heels, upside down.

The page ends there. I look sideways, my heart thundering in my chest. It’s not about me. It can’t be. He doesn’t think like that. He’s not…

I take a breath, my eyes moving down again.

All it would take is reaching over and flipping to the next page. With my brain screaming at me about what a terrible idea this is, I reach out my hand.

“You sure you want to do that?”

I startle so badly at Hopper’s voice I nearly lose my balance. “Shit!”

I right myself and stand up fast, my heart thudding even harder than before. I force myself to look at him. But when I do, I can’t process what I’m seeing. I expect him to be pissed. To want to reach down and snatch the book off the floor. Instead, he looks laid bare.

“They don’t stay in the notebook,” he says. “I rip them out and put them in the jar, so there’s not much more in the book. If you want to look.”

My heart’s going to beat right out of my chest. It’s going to fly out onto the floor just like this book.

“The next page is pretty telling, though,” Hopper admits.

“No,” I say, sudden anger flooding my system. Because no. This is not okay. “Hopper, you can’t be like that.” I point a shaking finger at the book on the ground. “And like this.” I point to nowhere. To the space between us.

Hopper just looks up at me like he’s waiting for me to figure something out.

Everything inside me is wobbly and loose. I can’t believe he feels that way. I can’t.

That wobbly thing inside me is going to spill everywhere. Then what?

“Fuck you,” I whisper. I turn on my heel and run to the bedroom.

“Chris, wait!” Hopper calls.

I slam the door shut behind me, but it just bounces off its useless hinges. Sinking down onto the bed, Iclutch my ribs, as if my thundering heart might try to bang its way outside my body.

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