Eliza and Her Monsters(57)

Eliza Mirk

We’re so proud of our Eliza. She’s our firstborn, and she’s as stubborn and passionate now as she always has been. These eighteen years have been a long road, full of lots of twists and turns, but she’s taught us so much about being parents—and about being people. She loves hard-boiled eggs, thick socks, and listening to her music maybe a little too loud (but what teenager doesn’t?). Best of all, she’s an artist, and what she loves more than anything else is her webcomic, Monstrous Sea. She has spent so much of her time working on this story, poured so much of herself into it, and built something for herself from the ground up. We know that no matter where she goes or what she does after this, she’ll be successful. Eliza, we love you.

Peter and Anna Mirk

I look up and the room is silent. Not because everyone stopped talking, but because there is a ringing in my ears so loud nothing can penetrate it. The room expands and I shrink, the walls exploding away from me, the light dimming. My heart stutters in my chest.

Mrs. Grier walks down my row, newspaper in hand. She kneels next to my desk. Her voice comes out too slow.

“Eliza. Is this true?” She holds up the paper. It’s turned to my paragraph and my stupid face. “Did . . . did you create Monstrous Sea?”

My stomach heaves violently. I clap a hand over my mouth.

“Because I—well, I probably shouldn’t show you this, but . . .” Mrs. Grier pulls back her sleeve. She always wears long sleeves, cardigans over her sundresses, sweaters, even in the summer, and now I know why: in thick black ink up her arm are the words THERE ARE MONSTERS IN THE SEA.

My most famous quote is tattooed on my homeroom teacher’s arm.

Behind Mrs. Grier, Wallace walks into the room. Big, lumbering Wallace. Normally he moves slow, but today, in this slow-motion world, he moves far too fast. He reaches the front table where the newspapers are stacked up. Takes one. Opens it. I know he’ll look for my name first because mine comes before his. He’ll see it. He reads slow, but not that slow.

I shove myself out of my seat, knock Mrs. Grier over, and reach Wallace in time to rip the newspaper out of his hands.

“Don’t read it!”

I hold it to my chest, panting, unable to get enough air. Heads turn. Look up from their papers. Wallace stares at me. Confusion and possibly fear flit over his face.

“Don’t—don’t read it,” I say again. Several people are already flipping through pages at their desks, looking for mine. Wallace looks at them, at me, at the paper. Then he reaches for another one. I try to stop him, but his big hand grabs first one wrist and then the other, holding me off like I’m a child. He spreads the newspaper out on the table and flips it open.

“No—Wallace, don’t read it—please, please don’t read it—”

I press against his arm, trying to push him away from the table, the papers, but he’s so solid. I whisper now. The others can’t hear me beg like this. Wallace’s brow furrows as he finds my picture, my paragraph, and begins reading. True dread squeezes around me like a second, larger hand. I know when he reaches the end because the color drains from his face like someone chopped off his head and let the blood run out. He looks at me. Jabs a finger on the paper hard enough to crinkle the page. Jabs it again. Pointing. Is it true. Is it true, is it true.

“I wanted to tell you.” I can’t even tell if sound is coming out anymore. “I wanted to tell you, I did, but I didn’t know how—”

He drops my wrists like they’re poisonous, steps back, then turns and walks out of the room. I try to follow him, but Mrs. Grier’s hand lands on my shoulder. She says something. I shrug her off. Someone from the back of the room says, “Holy shit, you made Monstrous Sea?”

I stumble into the hallway. Wallace is gone. The floor sways back and forth, and blackness creeps on the edges of my vision.

After a moment or two, it passes.

At least, it seems like a moment or two. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe half an hour, because by the time I snap out of it, the bell is ringing and students pour into the hallways.

I wander to first period without my backpack.

With each passing class, more and more stares find me in the hallway. People talk, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I don’t see Wallace again, which is some kind of feat considering his size. My body is a teacup and all my organs have been stuffed inside. Must be my allergies. It is spring, after all.

Wallace will have to talk to me at lunch. He wouldn’t sit without me at lunch.

I hang on the fringes of the herd of students surging for the cafeteria and let them pull me through the doors. On the other side I fall away like a leaf flung out on a stray current. I stand for a moment, unsure of the cafeteria’s exact orientation, then stagger toward the lunch lines. If I can get some food and find Wallace, it will be okay.

A body steps in front of me. Tall. Deshawn Johnson. He’s holding something out. A folded paper. My hand reaches out to take it like this is some kind of dream and my body is responding without my permission. I unfold the paper.

It’s my drawing. The one Travis stole in October.

“. . . really sorry,” Deshawn says. “Travis was being an asshole . . . meant to give it back sooner, but never got the chance . . . it’s really cool that you draw Monstrous Sea . . . my brother got me into it—”

I might throw up on his shoes if I stand here any longer, so I stumble past him. Wallace has to be here somewhere. At our table. Obviously. By the windows. I look. He’s not there.