In a gentle voice, Chloe says, “You’re wearing a leopard-print coat over a Pizza Slut T-shirt. It’s not a glamorous look, hon. But Drew doesn’t care, okay? He’ll want to see you, not some lady in a beautiful dress. Like Yoda says, just do it.”
“That’s not actually what Yoda—” Uncle Don starts.
Chloe holds up a hand, still looking at me. “So not the point, Don.”
“If you aren’t getting in, move out of the way,” the driver says, no longer concerned about me now that he knows I’m not escaping an attack.
“Okay, okay,” I say, sliding into the back seat. “Let’s go.”
* * *
• • •
Our driver lets us out at the edge of a small crowd, facing the back of the outdoor stage, although we’re about ten rows of people away from it. The crowd is contained within metal gates, and intimidatingly large men in shirts marked SECURITY stand around them, arms crossed.
“Is that him?” Chloe asks, her voice high-pitched and excited as she points to the stage.
“The one in the red dress?” Don asks, squinting.
“That’s Teresa Perez, the anchor,” I say. “Drew’s the man beside her.”
“Ah,” Uncle Don says. “Okay, I see it now. Maybe I need to go to the eye doctor.”
Although we can only see their backs, I’d know those broad shoulders anywhere. Drew is standing next to his costar, and someone is fussing with their mic packs and their hair, so the interview must not have started yet. I might have time to get to him before it starts . . . if only I can get through this crowd.
I climb up on the gate and yell, “Drew!”
A forty-something woman wearing an orange windbreaker turns and gives me an apologetic look. “Oh, honey, good luck.”
“No, I know him,” I say.
As she takes in my leopard-print coat and my disheveled hair, her apologetic look turns into pity. “Of course you do, sweetie.”
“Ma’am.” A burly man approaches me and holds out a hand. “I’m going to have to ask you to step off of the gate.”
“But I need to get to Drew!” I say, getting frantic. By now, the woman in the orange windbreaker isn’t the only one watching me—pretty much everyone in the audience is. I look toward the stage again and shout, “Drew!”
“I’m here to stop women like you from getting to Drew, okay?” the man says, grabbing me by the shoulders and effortlessly placing me on the ground like I’m an annoying insect he’s swatting away.
“I have to tell him something!” I shout, and before the guard can stop me, I pull myself up on the gate again. “Drew! Drew!”
The burly man speaks into his walkie-talkie. “I’m gonna need some backup over here.”
Aside from some murmurs and a few nervous laughs, the crowd is silent as they watch this scene unfolding. Things are so quiet that it’s easy to hear when someone onstage yells, “Annie?”
The burly man has his arms wrapped around me as my feet pedal in the air when I see Drew onstage, looking toward me.
“Drew!” I shout again.
“It’s okay!” he yells to the guard as he easily leaps off the stage and over the gate into the crowd. “You can put her down. I know her.”
“I told you.” I give Orange Windbreaker a smug smile, and she rolls her eyes.
“God,” Nick says in awe. “He leapt over that gate like it was nothing.”
“He’s done a lot of training,” I say breathlessly, watching Drew make his way toward me, taking selfies with every woman in the crowd first.
“It’s very impressive,” Uncle Don says. “Did you know he used to eat ten chicken breasts every day?”
“I literally couldn’t do that,” Nick says. “I’ll just stay wimpy and skinny. It’s fine.”
“You’re not wimpy,” Don says, giving Nick a pat on the back. “Every body type deserves love.”
“Oh, my God, you guys,” I hiss. “I’m trying to focus on what I’m going to say to Drew, and I can’t when you’re having a body-positivity workshop behind me.”
“Annie,” Drew says once he makes his way to me. He hops over the gate. “What are—how did you—?”
I look at his face, at those soft brown eyes, his hair that’s gelled a little more than usual to stand up to the slight wind today, those lips that I spent hours kissing, and everything I wanted to say floats away like a piece of paper in the breeze.
“I wanted to tell you something,” I squeak. And then I clear my throat. I didn’t fly all the way from Ohio to New York to give Drew some half-assed, weak declaration of like. I came here to make a declaration of love, dammit.
I look over my shoulder at Chloe, and she gives me a thumbs-up, which is all that I need to go on. Because I know that, Drew or not, I’m not lonely like a rom-com heroine. I have Chloe and Uncle Don, and I always will, even if eventually we don’t all live on the same property.
I turn my face back to Drew, who’s looking at me expectantly.
So I open my mouth and start talking.
“I wanted to have some big speech for this moment, because that’s what this is supposed to be, right? Matthew McConaughey on a bridge telling Kate Hudson not to leave? Adam Sandler singing Drew Barrymore a song? Or Katherine Heigl interrupting a wedding to tell James Marsden that she’s falling in love with him in 27 Dresses?”
“Oh, I love that movie!” says Orange Windbreaker.
“It’s underrated, right?” I say.
“So underrated,” she murmurs.
I look at Drew, the confusion on his face, and remember what I came here to do.
“If this was a movie,” I continue, “I’d have some beautiful, poetic speech that has that one really great line people quote years later. But what I recently found out is . . . this isn’t a movie. My life is just my life. Maybe it doesn’t have that perfect narrative arc or characters who are just lovably quirky. Maybe it has some people who have actual flaws, like the really big glaring kind. Maybe people are going to let me down, and I’m going to let them down, and things aren’t necessarily going to end with a slow pan out and a sweeping instrumental score. And that’s okay! Because what I’m trying to say is . . .”
I take a look around me. Orange Windbreaker is looking at me in wonder, her mouth open like everyone else in the crowd, including . . .
Oh, God, there are camerapeople here now. I look into the camera for a second and freeze, then shake my head. I have to keep going.
I look back at Drew and block out everything else—the crowd, the camera, my fear—and keep going.
“Maybe not everything about romantic comedies is real, and maybe Tom Hanks is just an actor playing fictional characters. But what they taught me about love, and about being honest, and about growing as a person . . . that feels pretty real to me. And I’d rather have you than Tom Hanks any day, because . . .”
I take a deep breath and say what I came here to say.
“I love you. It’s ridiculous and we haven’t known each other for long and I know there’s a chance it won’t work out, but I love you, all right? I’m ready to move out of Columbus, and not because I’m following you like a creepy stalker or an obsessed fan,” I say, shooting a pointed look to the security guard, “but because I want to take a chance. I want to work in movies and I want to do scary things and I want to be with you.”