Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,18

to acknowledge us as we scream our heads off, and I swear to God he looks right at me, and he’s smiling that gorgeous half smirk that always manages to look both a little shy and completely sexy, and would you look at his cheekbones? And his jaw? And his light-green-hazel eyes? And I grab Siggy’s and Imani’s hands and we scream our heads off some more.

“He looked right at you!” Imani yells in my ear.

“HOTNESS!” Siggy shrieks at the stage, but Hunter has moved over to the sofa, so he probably can’t hear her.

He gives a couple more waves, then sits down. Michaela hands him a mic.

“Thanks, thank you,” Hunter says to us. So, we scream some more.

Michaela waits a moment, then she starts speaking over the screams, and everyone gets quiet quickly, so as not to miss a thing.

“Here we are, and this is your first session, and this is your first fan con, too, is that right?”

“Yeah.” Hunter smiles out at us and it’s like he’s apologizing, showing us his nervousness, and that’s the quality I love about him as an actor, and in his role as Clay, because he’s got this openness, this vulnerability.

It comes through, even when he’s stabbing a zombie in the eye with a screwdriver.

“I mean, aside from Comic-Con, which the show does a whole big thing for, but like this? No, I haven’t.”

He waves a hand, and I know exactly what he means.

I want to tell him this is my first fan convention, too. We have that in common.

But of course, what Michaela means is that all the other actors on the show, and tons of actors on other shows or from movies with big fandoms, well, they do this actual circuit of fan conventions. They just rake in the money, from autographs and photo sessions, and selling headshots. It’s wild to think about all the people they meet.

But it’s awesome to think about all those people, too, all over the country, who love the same things that you do. Or who love other things, their things, as much as you love your thing. God bless fandom, forever and ever. Amen.

“This is your first time to do meet and greets? To do photo sessions?” Michaela asks.

“Yeah, so go easy on me, okay?” Hunter says, with that little, shy half smile, to us, and I promise myself right then and there, I promise myself in my heart, that I will be cool when I have my photo op. I will.

It’s got to be a Special Memory, after all.

6

Michaela and Hunter have a little back-and-forth onstage about the show, about the fandom, about the best-part-of-the-show-so-far, and then Michaela says, “Okay, does anyone have a question?”

And like a jackrabbit, I’m up, along with people all over the ballroom, even while Michaela and Hunter continue talking onstage.

“Attagirl, get in there!” Imani whispers as I climb over her lap.

Siggy whisper-cheer-screams for me as I’m climbing over laps like a hurdler, then I’m in the aisle hustling to the line already forming.

I actually do have a question—it’s about something it felt like Hunter was almost going to say in an interview, but the interviewer moved on before he said it. The interviewer had asked why Hunter identifies with his character so much. Hunter had started in, his usual boilerplate answer about Clay’s vulnerability and toughness, but then he started to look contemplative and he said, “Clay’s a searcher, you know? And I feel like I’m searching, too.”

And then the interviewer did not ask what Hunter is searching for! So that’s my question. That’s what I want to know. And I feel . . . an affinity toward that unanswered question. To the idea of searching, and to Hunter as a searcher, because sometimes I just get this yearning inside. Like a longing. Like I’m missing a part of myself, almost. This big, nameless feeling like there’s something out there in the world waiting just for me, somehow. And if I could figure out what it is then I wouldn’t be scared that I won’t ever find it. And I won’t be as