Eliza and Her Monsters(66)

But he doesn’t look happy. He stares at me like I’ve missed some great point. “They don’t want it until they know how it ends.”

“So write the ending,” I say.

“They don’t want my ending, Eliza. They want yours. It won’t be right if it’s not yours.”

“I could tell you how it ends and you could—”

“They. Want. Yours.”

“They aren’t going to take it if the comic isn’t finished?”

He keeps staring at me. My stomach goes cold. “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “It’s still a good story—people will buy it—”

“You have to finish.” There’s a sternness to his voice I’ve never heard before.

“I can’t.”

“You have to finish, Eliza.”

“I can’t even touch a pencil right now. You’ve had that before, haven’t you? Where you can’t do anything because nothing’s flowing, nothing’s coming out, like your head is empty—”

“You have to finish.” His voice is hard. I wish I’d kept my pillow as a shield. “I’m never going to get a chance like this again. If this doesn’t happen, it’s going to be four more years of doing what other people tell me to do. Maybe longer than that. I can’t anymore. Please, Eliza. It’s only a few chapters, just push through and finish it.”

He doesn’t get it. Or he doesn’t want to.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“Why not?”

“There’s . . . there’s nothing there.”

“Why not? There doesn’t have to be anything there. Artists create when they have no motivation all the time. If I could do it for you, I would—I would kill to write something without motivation if it meant I got to make what I wanted later.”

I have never had that problem. I have never been forced to make anything. I don’t understand how that works.

“I can’t.”

He pushes himself off the bed. His hands scrape through his hair, then ball into thick fists at his sides. A muscle jumps in his jaw. He looks around, scanning the empty walls, the empty desk, the silent computer. “You have a perfect life,” he says, “and you can’t draw a couple of chapters.”

“My life isn’t perfect,” I say.

“You made this awesome thing that millions of people love and adore you for. Everyone knows what you’ve done. They recognize your talent. You don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay for college, or get a real job, or figure out what you’re supposed to be doing with your life. You don’t have anyone telling you what to do or who to be. All you have to do is draw a few more pages. That’s it. It’ll take you, what, a week or two at most? So please, Eliza, draw the pages.”

When I can’t come up with any words, I shake my head.

Wallace turns and leaves. His footsteps clomp back down the stairs. The front door shuts gently, with a little whoosh of air.

It would’ve been better if he’d slammed it.





CHAPTER 37


I sit at my desk with a sheet of blank paper and my pencil. The pencil is next to the paper, aligned parallel with the short bottom edge. I stare at the pencil. The pencil stares back.

A few chapters. The end. I don’t know the details, but I have a vague idea of what’s going to happen. It can’t be that hard.

Blank pages are supposed to be an invitation. A challenge, even. Here is your canvas—how creative can you be? What limits can you stretch to bring to life that creature in your head? A blank piece of paper is infinite possibilities.

Now when I look at it, all I see is an abyss. Where ideas and excitement used to spring up inside me, now there’s a granite block. Huge, immovable, and so cold it makes my limbs go numb. Looking at paper only reminds me that I’m not strong enough to shift it.

I have to try. For Wallace, I have to try.

I reach for the pencil. My hand stalls, my fingers curling in, my wrist dropping until it rests on the edge of the desk. It’s not going to look right, though. The characters. The scenery.

People will know. They’ll know it’s wrong. I’ll have to put the pages up online because the publisher won’t take Wallace’s transcription until the story is complete, and all the readers who have been circling the boards all this time will know that the panels aren’t as good as they could be. The art isn’t as good, and the characters aren’t as good, and the story isn’t as good.

And when they know that, they’ll know where to find me and how to find me and they’ll be able to question me directly. Some of them probably at school.

What if they send me mail?

What if they come to my house?

What if they start talking about me the way they talk about Olivia Kane? Hermit Eliza ran to a cave in the mountains and chases people off her property with a shotgun. Sets booby traps for her own fans. She drew so many monsters that she became a monster herself.

I realize I’m gripping the edge of the desk so hard my nails have left shallow grooves in the wood, and I let go. I force myself to breathe, to shove all other thoughts to the back of my mind, and think of Wallace. Wallace will have a book deal. Wallace will be able to use that money to pay for college, and he’ll be able to major in what he really likes. Wallace won’t have to worry about appeasing Tim, or falling into a job that makes him hate himself.