Eliza and Her Monsters(13)

He reads my note, then holds up a finger and puts down the second hamburger to reach into his bag. He pulls out a sheet of paper, covered in writing on both sides. Then he adds to our conversation, and hands both papers back to me.

Read the first page. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the rest.

I’m not sure if he understands that reading any of it will make it hard to say no to reading the rest, but I take the page from him anyway and flatten it out on the table in front of me. The breeze nips at the corner of the paper. Spelled out across the top of the page is the title Monstrous Sea: A Transcription of the Comic by LadyConstellation.

And below that, in his printer-precise handwriting:

Amity had two birth days.

This is my story. This is my story in words, something I could never do.

I don’t need to finish the page. I already know I want to read the rest.

Wallace writes, Is it that bad?

“No!” My voice shocks both of us, a sudden sound in the quiet courtyard. Wallace stops with his Drumstick halfway unwrapped. I scramble for the paper and write down, No, it’s really good! How much of this have you done so far?

Just one chapter, he writes.

Are you sure you want to let me read it?

I already typed this chapter up, so it isn’t my only copy. You can mark on it too, if you want.

That wasn’t really what I was asking him, but whatever. He fishes a sheaf of papers out of his bag and hands them over. They’re covered front and back with his handwriting, and small, neat page numbers decorate the top right-hand corners. I slide them inside the front cover of my sketchbook, the safest place I know.

I can have them back to you tomorrow, I write. Is that okay?

He reads that and nods, smiling again.

Just a little.





CHAPTER 7


How I look has never seemed that important. Not the clothes I wear or the poor hairstyle choices I make, but my actual body. I’m not especially tall or short. No rampant acne or unfortunate placement of facial features. I’m not fat—Mom says my BMI is probably below what it should be, whatever that means. People don’t point out how I look, but I’ve never been more aware of it than when I’m next to Wallace.

We walk back to the cafeteria together at the end of lunch. His legs are longer than mine, but he moves so slow we walk at the same speed. It’s a weird kind of slowness; a lot of people move slow because they meander, like they don’t know where they’re going, or don’t want to get there. Wallace moves slow the way those giant mechas move slow: there’s so much to move it takes a while to get it going. But he knows exactly where he wants to be.

We walk, and I am acutely aware of my arms and legs, and what direction my feet point on the floor, and all the hair on my body. I wish there was something strange about the way I look so I could focus on that, assume he’s focused on that, but there’s just me.

We don’t speak. Wallace folded up our conversation paper and put it in the pocket of his jeans, along with his pencil. We get a few looks from the tables we pass as we go to dump the trash from our trays. I imagine the looks are more for him than me, but maybe new-kid strangeness has worn off already. When he turns around, I notice for the first time the words in neat handwritten Sharpie along the bottom of his backpack:

THERE ARE MONSTERS IN THE SEA.

It’s a fan-favorite Monstrous Sea quote. Dallas Rainer. He did say Dallas was his favorite character, but I always find it interesting when fans send me pictures of which quotes or pictures they put on their walls or their clothes, or even what they get tattooed on their skin. Though usually people do it because they think it sounds cool, sometimes it means something.

I don’t get a chance to say good-bye to Wallace. We leave the cafeteria with the tide of students and get separated at a hallway, and he disappears.

I see him again later, waiting outside on the bench. Travis and Deshawn are nowhere in sight. I hesitate by the doors, then creep toward him. He has headphones in, and he’s writing something. Always writing something.

I tap him on the shoulder. This time, he’s the one who jumps and rips out his headphones. I clench my fists tight around my backpack straps and press them into my stomach to stop them from shaking.

“Do you . . . do you need a ride?”

He shakes his head and scribbles quickly on the top of his paper. My sister is coming to get me.

“Oh. Okay.” Of course he didn’t need my help, stupid to ask. Not like he wasn’t sitting here every day last week and managed to get home fine. “Well . . . see you.”

I don’t wait to see if he says anything back. I hurry to my Nissan and barricade myself inside. Then, finally, I smile.

I’ve never met a real live fan before. I didn’t think about it until now, and it’s a strange thing. All these people who love Monstrous Sea—they’re numbers on a screen. Comments, views, likes. The bigger the numbers get, the less like people they seem. It’s easy to forget they’re humans like Wallace. Like me. Finding someone who likes it—who loves it—enough to make their own art about it and actually hand it to me themselves, instead of sending it to a P.O. box or emailing it, is surreal to the highest degree.

But he doesn’t know I’m me. He doesn’t know he handed his fanfiction to LadyConstellation. That is definitely wrong. It feels wrong. But it’s not like I’m going to use it to hurt him. And what was I supposed to do? Maybe if he knew who I was, he’d have shoved it at me and forced me to read it. I’ve never met fans in real life, I don’t know what they’ll do if they meet me.