Eliza and Her Monsters(65)

He’s angry. He’s so angry. I’ve never seen his face like that before, not even the times he’s gotten mad about Tim telling him he can’t write if it doesn’t make him good money. This is more than anger, it’s anger and betrayal and confusion all fused together.

“How could you n—” His jaw flexes. He looks at the ceiling. “How could you not—” His teeth clamp together. “How could you not tell me . . .” His voice tapers off to a whisper. He growls and clenches his fists. Tears gather in my eyes. He’s so angry.

He pulls out his phone again, exhaling hard through his nose, like an enraged bull. I wipe my eyes so I can see my screen. His texts come in rapid fire.

How could you not tell me? That whole time?

Were you messing with me?

Was I a guinea pig or something?

Were you bored?

I let you read my stuff! I let you read everything!

I brought you to my house!

You met my family!

How could you not tell me who you are?

Did you not want to?

Did you even think about it?

The tears are so thick I can’t see through them. Wallace takes a step into the room. I move my thumbs over my phone but can’t make them work. I’m sniffling too loud, anyway. Hiccuping. Hiccuping through my sobs.

I curl my phone in one hand and ball the other in my shirt when I really want to hide my face. I can’t hide myself from him, not now. There are no words I can say to him to make him understand how sorry I am, and that only makes me cry harder.

His weight makes my bed creak. When I bring myself to look, he sits there, his elbows braced on his knees and his head in his hands. Without him watching, I can bring my phone up again.

No, I type. I wasn’t messing with you.

I didn’t want to tell you at first.

I lower the phone and say, “And then I saw how much Monstrous Sea meant to you and I couldn’t tell you.”

We sit in silence for several long minutes until he says, quietly, “I kind of thought it might be something like that. I hoped it was.”

I lift my head.

“I thought, If this was me, what would I have done? I think I would have told you, but who knows? Maybe not. Maybe I would have done the same thing.”

He runs his hands through his hair, making it stick up.

“I don’t understand. How can you be her? How did I not notice?”

He pauses like he wants me to answer, but I don’t know how, so I keep my mouth shut.

He looks up again. His gaze roams over my desk, my computer, the pen display that wasn’t there before. Then at my blank walls.

“What happened to your room?” he asks.

“I couldn’t look at it anymore,” I say.

He frowns at me.

“And at school?”

I explain it to him. I don’t know if he understands, but he listens.

“I don’t want to go back,” I say. “I know it’ll happen again. Even when I’m alone, I don’t feel alone, because it’s like people on the internet are watching me. At school it’s worse because I can see them.”

“They don’t hate you,” he says. “Most of them are fans, actually. Or people who think it’s cool that you’re kind of famous.”

“It doesn’t make a difference. I’ve read all the messages. It’s like I can’t hold it all inside me at once. Good or bad.”

“Have you been on the forums?”

“Not since last week. I don’t really want to go near my computer anymore.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Neither would I.”

That confirms it, then. Things have been as awful since I stopped looking at them. Big news tends to blow itself out quickly on the internet; everyone’s up in arms about it for a day or three, and then it’s on to the next thing. So if the LadyConstellation reveal is still news a week after it became public knowledge, they’re not going to let it go.

“What do you think they’ll do when the pages don’t go up this week?” I ask. “Or next week?”

“You’re not putting pages up?”

I shake my head. “I have a few in reserve, but I haven’t drawn since last week. Since before. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t even want to hold a pencil.”

“Are you going to put them up eventually?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

There’s a hitch in his breathing. He looks at me, at his hands, back at me. There’s something about his stillness. A nervousness, an uncertainty. “I have to tell you something.” His voice is louder than usual, like he’s forcing the words out. “A day before this happened, before the graduation issue, I got an email from a publisher. They found the transcription. They’re excited about how big Monstrous Sea is, and they want to be the ones to publish it in novel form.”

“They want to publish yours?”

He nods. I swipe my sleeve over my eyes. “That’s great. That’s awesome. That’s a book deal.”

“They said they would need permission to publish it, though. From the creator.”

“Of course,” I say, scrambling over myself to get the words out. This is the very least I can do for him after all of this garbage. It doesn’t matter anymore if my name gets out. “Of course you can have permission. Always. Just tell me where to sign.”