Ship It(63)

Onstage, Forest is frowning into the audience, confused. He looks at Rico, who shrugs.

Again, the moderator announces, “We’ll take questions now, just go ahead and go to the mics.” And this time, when he stops talking, there is silence in the hall.

Eerie, perfect silence.

I can feel the smile growing across my face, broad and uncontrollable. This is legitimately incredible. The things we can do when we work together. I’ve never felt more connected to this community.

There are like twenty phones in the air capturing this moment.

Forest looks completely bewildered and a little frustrated, and I wonder again why he’s so uptight today. He looks around for an explanation, and he catches my eye in the wings. I see the moment he realizes that this was an orchestrated event, and he looks at me with pure venom. If he had looked at me like that back in Boise, I would have crumbled, but not today.

Jamie figures out what’s going on and shakes his head, like he’s just so over this whole bullshit. His microphone is in his lap. All I want is for him to pick it up and start filling the silence with promises. I know he’s uncomfortable, I know he’s itching to make the silence end.

Meanwhile, one of Paula’s assistants, registering a disturbance in the force, wanders over. She leans toward me and whispers, “What’s going on?”

“Fans feel silenced. So we’re literally being silent.”

Her eyes widen. “Did you do this?”

“We all did.” I might have started it, but everyone came together to make it a reality.

“Wow,” she says, looking back at the audience. “I’ve been to a lot of conventions. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Jamie is shifting uncomfortably. The silence has gone on too long, the lights are too bright, and he’s in the hot seat. He gives a little scoff. “This is absurd,” he says and looks at the moderator like he’s asking permission from his parents to leave the dinner table. But still his mic remains in his lap.

C’mon, Jamie. C’mon. Start talking.

The moderator seems to suddenly remember he’s ostensibly supposed to be steering this ship, and says, “I suppose if there are no questions, I’ll ask another. Were there any fun on-set pranks you remember—”

Before he even finishes the question, someone from the audience boos. The moderator looks up, confused and insulted. I guess this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in Justice League panels or whatever he’s used to.

Someone else in the audience hollers, “You know what we want to know!”

The moderator lowers his microphone into his lap and looks at his panelists. “What are they talking about?” he asks them, off mic.

Rico butts in, “You know, there was one funny moment—”

“Rico,” Forest interrupts him. Rico stops talking. It was a valiant effort to save this, but the audience is roiling, now. There’s an energy under the surface, everyone’s adrenaline pumping. I feel like anything could happen.

C’mon, Jamie. Now. Now.

Jamie reaches for his mic. Finally.

But he’s interrupted—

“Yeah, I know what you want to hear,” Forest spits into his mic. He’s pissed and I don’t know why. I thought he was starting to come around after our talk.

“You want to ‘ship’ our characters? You want to pretend Smokey and Heart are grinding against a pool table in a roadhouse after every episode?”

My stomach lurches. Wait, how does he know about the pool table? Was that a coincidence or…

Forest continues, “Go nuts. Seriously. I’m not gonna stop you.” He looks at the audience pointedly, waiting for them to quiet down. Waiting for their full attention. When he speaks again, it’s slowly and clearly. “But don’t ask me to pretend it’s real. Because it’s not. And it never will be.”

He looks at me. As though I didn’t know who that message was for.

Asshole.

Jamie keeps his mouth closed. His microphone doesn’t leave his lap.

Forest just ruined everything.

As I turn and walk away, the audience roars at Forest, biting mad. Chairs scrape, the silence broken. A rush to the mics. But I don’t look back. I can’t watch this anymore.


I’M HELPLESS AS I watch Jon Reynolds duck out a back door, shaking his head in dismay. There goes Red Zone. There goes my career. There goes Forest Reed, up-and-coming star. My Wikipedia entry ends here.

If Claire were really a fan of mine, would she sabotage my career like this? No. Because despite what I thought, she doesn’t care about me. All she cares about is her goddamned ship. It has nothing to do with me, or Rico, or anything else. She just wants these two fictional characters to be gay for each other, and she doesn’t care who gets hurt along the way.

Well, fuck Claire Strupke and fuck these “fans.”


I PUSH DOWN the corridor, out the doors, into the bright Seattle sunshine and across the street, fighting through crowds of hungry con-goers, until I find myself inside the sushi restaurant.

I need to find Tess.

She’s not here yet, so I sit at a booth and jiggle my leg with anticipation until she arrives. This place is strange, with a conveyor belt running through the entire restaurant, sending plates of fish around like a lazy river. When Tess finally walks in, I wave her over. I still have so much adrenaline from everything that’s just happened that I accidentally kick the table as I stand up, causing our waters to splash.