Eliza and Her Monsters(72)

I know who he is. I know what he can do.

“Can I have my phone back now?”

I hand the phone to Church. Sully glares at me.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “You look like you swallowed a tire.”

“May I be excused?”

Mom blinks. “Sure. What for?”

“I need to go upstairs. To change. I was supposed to meet Wallace at his house after the ceremony.”

Mom and Dad look at each other. “We didn’t know about this,” Dad says.

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

I hurry upstairs and look through my dresser for something nice to wear. Something actually nice, like one of the outfits Mom and Dad got me for Christmas. I fix my hair. Try to put on some makeup, fail, try again. “Warland” is so close to the end of the names they call—the ceremony must be over by now.

Mom and Dad let me leave without much fuss. I think they’re shocked to see me looking that nice and wearing makeup.

The Keeler house is empty when I arrive. I park along the curb and walk up to sit on the porch. The late-May night is warm, the sun halfway below the horizon in the distance. It’s been too long since I’ve been here. Wallace and I haven’t really spoken since the Olivia Kane letter, though we still eat lunch together at school. It’s too much trouble to break routine. I don’t know if the publisher’s offer to him still stands, and I don’t know if he expects me to show up on his doorstep one day—like I’m doing now—with those pages in hand.

I do know that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I have to make him understand this guilt festering inside me.

I wait fifteen minutes before a car pulls down the street and into the driveway.

The Keelers get out. Tim, Bren, and Lucy first. Then Vee. Wallace gets out of the back seat last, which means he must’ve been sandwiched between Bren and Lucy. How the three of them managed to fit, I’ll never know.

“Oh, Eliza! We didn’t expect to see you here, hon!” Vee flies over and sweeps me up in a hug.

Lucy comes next, like friendliness is programmed into her DNA. Her million little braids have been replaced with smooth, straight locks. “Did you see the pictures I sent Church? I didn’t get very many, but he said he wanted some, so . . .”

“Yeah, I got them.”

Then Bren and Tim appear, but neither of them are huggers, and that’s fine with me. Bren puts a hand on my shoulder. Her hair is held back today with a thick orange headband. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad.”

She smiles.

“We were sad to miss you at graduation tonight,” Tim says, also smiling. I wasn’t sure about his opinion of me before, but now that he knows I made Monstrous Sea, it must be higher. Surely. “Are you going to be staying for a while?”

“Oh—I don’t know. I wanted to talk to Wallace for a few minutes.”

Tim looks over his shoulder to where Wallace still stands by the car. “Okay then, we’ll leave you kids to it.” He herds the rest of the family into the house, and then it’s only me and Wallace and the quiet of the street.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says. His quiet voice barely crosses the distance between us. His cap and gown are tucked under one arm; he wore a suit beneath them, without the jacket.

“You look good in a tie,” I say.

“I feel like I’m being strangled,” he says. “Are you wearing makeup?”

“A little. Does it look stupid?”

“No.”

I tuck hair behind my ear. I force my breathing to even out, and my thoughts slow down from there. My body is not a disgusting thing I have to carry around with me. I am not being squeezed through a narrow tube. I am here. I can do this.

I repeat these things to myself over and over again, but I don’t know that I believe them. Not yet.

“Lucy sent us a picture of you. It made me—it made me really happy.”

“Okay.”

I take a step closer to him. “I haven’t finished the pages. I would have told you if I had. I . . . I did try.” He doesn’t move. “I want to finish so badly. I hate that I can’t. I hate that I’m the one holding you back. And you were right. That I have everything I could ever need. I don’t think my life is perfect, but it’s pretty great compared to others, and I shouldn’t complain about it as much as I do.”

He stays silent.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For lying to you about everything, and for not being able to finish.”

Still nothing.

Finally I blurt out, “I miss you.”

“You miss me,” he says. I can’t read his face.

“I know things are weird now for a lot of reasons. And I don’t blame you if you—if you hate me.” My legs start to shake, so I press my knees together. “But I wanted you to know that I miss you, and I don’t want things to be like this. If you just want to be friends—or if you don’t even want to be that—that’s fine, but after this summer we won’t be in the same place anymore.”

After an unbearable stretch of silence, he says, “I don’t know if you understand how angry I am.”

My stomach plummets. “What?”