Eliza and Her Monsters(60)
I’m logged in to the LadyConstellation account, and my inbox number is so high the page no longer displays the quick-tip number over the inbox icon. Just an ellipsis. Half a minute after I log in, messages attack the right side of my screen. From people I know, from people I don’t. From friends and from trolls. They come in a trickle at first, and then, as more people realize I’m online, in a flood. There are so many the page begins to lag. They come so quickly I don’t have time to read them.
I log out and log back in under the MirkerLurker account.
This one is even worse. There is another ellipsis next to my inbox, but when I start receiving the messages, I do have time to read them. At least one of them.
I JUST SAW YOU LOGGED IN TO LADY CONSTELLATION
YOU LOGGED OUT THERE AND LOGGED IN HERE
IT WAS TOO FAST TO BE COINCIDENCE
IS THIS REALLY YOU?
A picture comes up in the message window. It’s my yearbook photo from this year. Not even the horrible seventh grade one they included in the graduation article. How did this person get my yearbook photo?
I log out of MirkerLurker and close the browser, my stomach cramping.
I push my chair away from my desk and put my head between my knees again. I’m not light-headed or having trouble breathing like before, but this makes me feel better. Makes the space seem smaller and reminds me that I’m the only one in the room.
I grab my phone and open the messenger on there. All the MirkerLurker messages are still there, but at least the phone app lets me shut them out and look at my conversation with Emmy and Max.
Damage control. They tried running damage control. I let out a short, hysterical laugh. How could anyone run damage control on this? This is it. The fandom won. I lost. Eliza Mirk has been swallowed by the tides of their sea.
I switch to my messages with Wallace. There’s nothing new since the last time we used the messenger. I don’t have any emails from him, either. Or texts. He hasn’t tried to call me.
Why would he? I lied to him for months. For the whole time I knew him. I could say it wasn’t really lying, it was leaving out details, but that itself is a lie. If I was him, I’d hate me.
Footsteps start up the stairs. I flip my phone over, turn off the computer monitor, and curl up on the bed beside Davy, who lies still and lets me use him as a body pillow. My legs shake. Mom knocks softly on the door—I know it’s her because Dad never knocks softly—and comes in with a tray of soup, crackers, and ginger ale.
“Are you feeling any better?” she asks.
“A little.”
She smiles and smooths the hair away from my forehead, being careful of the bandage there. “Good. Try to get some sleep.”
I don’t. I stare at my computer across the room, silent and unmoving, and I wonder what storms brew over the all-knowing internet.
It was only a matter of time. Since that first day I met Wallace in class. Since I hung out with his friends. Since I told myself I would try.
I forgot there’s no air this far down.
CHAPTER 32
It doesn’t even take a day for internet gossip to grab the story and run with it. By the following morning, even people far outside the Monstrous Sea fandom know who I am and where I’m from. They know I’m in high school. They know I have a dog and two younger brothers. I’m not sure if they have my address and phone number, and if they don’t yet, they will soon.
The fact that I was anonymous for so long became the fuel for this fire. My anonymity was like a game, a riddle for people to solve. Anonymity on the internet never lasts, and they all knew it.
LadyConstellation was a pretty pi?ata that they beat down with sticks, and I was the prize that fell out.
I read the messages. All of them. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself, and I don’t want to draw or read or even watch Dog Days, so the hours drag by. Most of the messages are short. I could chart a timeline with them—they start off questioning, some probing to see if the rumor is true and others outright asking. Then they accept my name and question the details. They get hung up on the fact that I’m a girl, then a teenager. The teenage part I at least kind of understand—but why it should surprise them that I’m female, I have no clue. LadyConstellation was female. It’s not as if that changed.
Then there are fans. Some of them say how I inspired them. Some say how alike we are, and how they think we’d be friends. Others just want to thank me. They like having a face to the name. They like having a name to the name. They like that I’m visible now.
Of course, there are crude messages. Vile ones. Ones that don’t seem like they came from a real human being at all, but some computer program designed to say things no person should say to another person. I read all of those too, like Pringles—they might be terrible for you, but once you pop, you can’t stop. This is a roller coaster that only goes down. Near the end I feel like a hollow shell clicking a mouse, scanning words with aching eyes.
“Eliza?” The door opens. A dark-haired head pops in. “Mom said to tell you dinner is ready. I yelled it up the stairs, but she said you wouldn’t hear.”
“Yeah,” I say, not turning away from the computer.
“What are you looking at?” Heavy footsteps pad up behind me. The smell of unshowered boy fills the air. Sully’s a fast little shit—I don’t have time to click away from the Monstrous Sea messages and the myriad news stories I pulled up in other tabs before his hand comes down on the mouse and he closes out of them for me.