Eliza and Her Monsters Page 6

  emmersmacks: What thing

  MirkerLurker: Just some fanfiction. Haven’t read it yet though.

  Apocalypse_Cow: is he on the forums? what’s his username?

  MirkerLurker: Don’t know. We didn’t really get to that point.

  I don’t even know if Wallace is on the forums, though I feel like it’s difficult not to know about the forums if you’re a Monstrous Sea fan. Maybe Wallace doesn’t post his work online.

  Davy whines. I glance at the clock; it’s dinnertime. He’s standing at the door; I let him out so he can run to the kitchen, where Mom is already pouring his food. Church and Sully come pounding up the stairs as Davy goes down, and I shut my door before they can force their way into my room.

  emmersmacks: Is that all you talked about?? Fanfiction??

  emmersmacks: Boring

  MirkerLurker: You’ve been watching too much Dog Days.

  MirkerLurker: I’m pretty sure you don’t have to suddenly have some super-deep relationship with someone as soon as you meet them.

  Apocalypse_Cow: are you saying we didn’t have a super-deep relationship as soon as we met?

  Apocalypse_Cow: offended.

  MirkerLurker: >.>

  MirkerLurker: I don’t know how to tell you this, Max, but uhhhh . . .

  Apocalypse_Cow: no. the time has passed for all that. i am in a happy, committed relationship, and neither of you can talk me out of it.

  MirkerLurker: How is Heather, anyway?

  Apocalypse_Cow: well, she got a job with that modeling agency . . .

  emmersmacks: -_-

  Apocalypse_Cow: she’s teaching sixth grade.

  Apocalypse_Cow: but she could be a model if she wanted!

  Oh, thank god. A conversation shift.

  MirkerLurker: Haven’t you been dating for like five years? Are you going to marry her?

  Apocalypse_Cow: dunno

  Apocalypse_Cow: if she says yes.

  emmersmacks: ASK HER!!

  emmersmacks: What are you waiting for???

  Apocalypse_Cow: um

  MirkerLurker: Leave him alone, Emmy. If he doesn’t want to ask yet, he doesn’t have to ask yet.

  emmersmacks: Boo

  Apocalypse_Cow: thank you, eliza.

  Apocalypse_Cow: now, about that gentleman you spent the afternoon with . . .

  MirkerLurker: We just ate lunch together!

  Apocalypse_Cow: as you’ve said. however, i intend to get to the truth.

  emmersmacks: Whats his name??

  MirkerLurker: Wallace.

  Apocalypse_Cow: . . .

  emmersmacks: . . .

  Apocalypse_Cow: . . .

  emmersmacks: . . .

  Apocalypse_Cow: . . .

  emmersmacks: . . .

  MirkerLurker: What’s wrong with the name Wallace?

  Apocalypse_Cow: it’s, uh.

  emmersmacks: Its silly as hell

  MirkerLurker: Wallace isn’t a silly name!

  Apocalypse_Cow: it makes me think of a cartoon character.

  emmersmacks: There are hardcore potheads on campus named Wallace

  MirkerLurker: Why do you know the names of hardcore potheads on campus?

  emmersmacks: Because theyre friendly

  MirkerLurker: I am now concerned about your acquaintanceship with the potheads, but I’m not sure what you want me to do about Wallace’s name.

  Apocalypse_Cow: he doesn’t go by Wally or something, does he?

  MirkerLurker: He told me Wallace. So that’s what I’m going to call him.

  emmersmacks: Are you hanging out with him again

  MirkerLurker: I don’t know. Probably. I have to give him his stuff back.

  emmersmacks: You better keep us updated

  MirkerLurker: On what?

  Apocalypse_Cow: I second that.

  MirkerLurker: Updated on what?

  emmersmacks: I have homework to do

  emmersmacks: but when we talk tomorrow there better be some GOOD NEWS

  MirkerLurker: GOOD NEWS ON WHAT?!

  CHAPTER 10

  There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt.

  The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster, though, is smart. It’s always watching, and when I am completely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. Even when I know it’s coming, I can’t stop it.

  For example:

  I know, when I walk into homeroom and return Wallace’s chapter, that he will probably say thank you—written, of course—and maybe smile a little, and that may be the end of it.

  But I feel, standing outside the door, that I will walk in and give Wallace the papers and his eyes will skim over me in indifference because he’s realized he shouldn’t have wasted his time on me. He shouldn’t have asked me to read his work, because we don’t even know each other. Yesterday was a fluke, a bad move on his part. He knows that now. He must. Eliza Mirk is no one, to nobody. They should make that the headline of the Westcliff Star every day. ELIZA MIRK: NO ONE TO NOBODY.

  I use my sweatshirt sleeve to wipe my forehead. My freaking eyebrows are sweating, and I can’t even tell Emmy or Max about it. A few people go in the room before me, and I creep inside in their shadows.

  Wallace isn’t there yet. I put the pages on his seat and curl up with my sketchbook. I trace the lines on an old drawing, making them too dark and too thick. Wallace arrives a minute later, lumbers in, and grabs the papers before sitting down. He flips through them, stares at the drawing I did in the back over the Doctor Faustus quote. My sketchbook slips out of my hands, and I have to catch it between my legs.

  Then Wallace pulls out a new piece of paper. He writes something, then slides it onto my desk.

  This picture is really awesome. No comments though?

  I close the sketchbook and stop pretending. My writing comes out shaky against the paper.

  Just one, but I didn’t want to mess up your nice writing. Gyurhei comes out of the sea to swallow the sun every thousand years, not every hundred.

  When he reads this, he covers his face with a hand and shakes his head. I shouldn’t have corrected him. Why did I correct him?

  He sends the paper back.

  Wow. You are completely right.

  Then, below that:

  My usual betas wouldn’t have caught that.

  Because your usual betas aren’t the creator of the world.

  I hesitate for a minute, then write, It was really really good. And shove the paper back at him before my fingers spasm and rip it to pieces.

  Thanks! Are you feeling okay? You look pale.

  I’m fine—I always look like this.

  Like a drowned rat in sweatpants.

  Mrs. Grier gets up and starts taking attendance.

  Okay then. Lunch again today?

  It’s going to be too cold in the courtyard. Wind.

  I’ll punch someone for a seat in the cafeteria. I’m good at stuff like that.

  After I read this, he makes a show of placing his elbow on his desk and flexing his arm like he’s stretching. His bicep bulges against his shirt sleeve. Then his elbow slips off the desk and he catches himself, glancing around. A laugh escapes me.

  Mrs. Grier pauses, looking back with her onion earrings swinging in her ears, and says nothing. She never calls out students for things like this. I clamp my lips shut until she continues reading. Then I write:

  I don’t have anything to top that. Sorry.

  He smiles and replies, Can’t top genius.

  Wallace does find us a table at lunch, but it’s because he gets there early, not because he punches anyone.

  The table is at the end of the lunch lines, so after I get my food he’s sitting right there, smiling like he’s proud of what he’s done. His lunch is the same as yesterday: two hamburgers, two orders of fries, two milks. One Drumstick. There are papers on the table across from him, with a note stuck to the front.

 
Only if you want.

  The top page says Chapter Two.

  “Really?” I notice too late, again, that I’ve said it out loud. Wallace doesn’t seem to mind, though—he grabs another piece of paper to write on.

  New beta?

  I don’t have a pen handy. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely.” I know my voice is too quiet now. When he doesn’t speak, it feels like I shouldn’t either, like I’m ruining the atmosphere. I dig in my bag for my pencil, then reach for his paper. He gladly hands it over.

  Sorry I keep forgetting to write. You think I’d remember, considering how much time I spend online.

  It’s okay. You don’t have to if you’d rather talk.

  I don’t know if I would.

  He smiles a little. So you’re online. On the MS forums?

  Yes. Sometimes.

  Username?

  I give him the only one I can, the only other username I have.

  MirkerLurker.

  Let me guess—you don’t post much.

  Not if I can help it. What about you?

  Do you read the MS fanfiction?

  Sometimes.

  You know rainmaker?

  Everyone knows rainmaker.

  Hi.

  No fucking way. I look up and he’s looking down, putting ketchup on his french fries like he said nothing of significance. There is no fucking way this kid sitting in front of me is THE rainmaker. The head honcho of Monstrous Sea fanfiction, the most popular person on the forums behind LadyConstellation, shepherd of a million fans. This is NOT the guy who winky faced at me last week.

  I write:

  NO FUCKING WAY.

  and I hold it right under his nose.

  He gingerly takes the paper from me.

  I’ll message you later to prove it.

  I almost believe you right now because people don’t lie about being RAINMAKER. Is this why you like Dallas so much?!

  I became rainmaker because I liked Dallas, not the other way around.

  I scan the cafeteria. Someone else must be witnessing this right now. Someone else must be in on this monumental revelation, because this doesn’t happen in everyday life. Rainmaker does not just wander into my school and drop a transcription of Monstrous Sea into my lap.

  But he has. And no one around us understands what has just happened. No one at the nearby tables knows who we are or what we’re sharing.

  Right now, it’s only us.

  Here.

  Wallace takes the paper back and writes, What are you doing for Halloween on Friday?

  Probably going to be dead in my grave because rainmaker goes to my school and I didn’t know it until just now.

  He purses his lips together to hold back a smile. But really.

  He wants to change the subject like that? Fine, whatever. Probably hiding in my room and watching the Dog Days Halloween special.

  That DOES sound like the holiday of a lifetime.

  Why, what are you doing?

  There’s a bookstore my friends and I hang out in that throws a Halloween party every year. We’re going to dress up as MS characters.

  I’ve seen tons of pictures of Monstrous Sea cosplay online—and it’s all pretty great cosplay, if I do say so myself. But I’ve never seen it in real life.

  Let me guess. You go as Dallas.

  Very astute. Anyway, I was thinking, if you didn’t have anything else to do, maybe you’d want to go. It’s a bookstore, so it’s not like the party gets wild, and everyone there is nerdy book people. If you don’t want to, that’s fine.

  He wants me to go to a party. I haven’t been to a party since Kenny Smith from next door invited me to his birthday when we were eight, and that ended with me getting pushed into his pool and laughed at all the way home.

  Can I think about it?

  Yeah, of course.

  I’m not going. I like to tell myself I might go—I like to tell myself I might do a lot of things—but I and my brain and everyone else know that I’m going to chicken out in the end and barricade myself in my bedroom with a plate of pizza rolls and my Netflix subscription.

  I feel bad writing it down on the paper, that I’m going to think about it.

  Monstrous Sea Private Message

  2:54 p.m. 28 - Oct -16

  rainmaker: Hey, it’s Wallace. Please tell me I blew your mind again. You make the best face when your mind is being blown.

  MirkerLurker: Whoa that sounded dirty.

  rainmaker: Too much?

  MirkerLurker: Ummmmmmmmmm

  rainmaker: Too much. Noted.

  MONSTROUS SEA FORUMS

  USER PROFILE

  rainmaker *

  Fanfiction Moderator

  AGE: Not telling you

  LOCATION: NO

  INTERESTS: MS. Writing things. Campfires. Sweaters. Sleeping in. Dogs.

  Followers 1,350,199 | Following 54 | Posts 9,112

  [Unique Works 144]

  UPDATES

  View earlier updates

  Oct 20 2016

  The next chapter of the Auburn Blue fanfic will probably be a little late. Just started at the new school. So, that’s fun.

  Oct 21 2016

  Thanks to @joojooboogee for my new avatar! #DallasRainerForever

  Oct 23 2016

  If math homework were a real person, I’d be doing 25 to life. #Mathslaughter

  Oct 24 2016

  There might actually be other MS fans at this school. THANK JESUS I’M SAVED.

  Oct 26 2016

  Life is destroying me today. No time to write. Stupid math. #Mathslaughter

  Oct 27 2016

  Definitely another MS fan at this school. Pros: Awesome; Not alone; Pretty girl. Cons: Pretty girl. #Fuuuuuuuuck

  Oct 28 2016

  Heyyyy let’s not talk about the pretty girl anymore okay she’s probably looking at this.

  CHAPTER 11

  Wallace thinks I’m pretty.

  Wallace thinks I’m pretty?

  Did he put that there because he knew I’d see it later? Is he trying to lure me into some kind of trap? Wallace doesn’t seem that conniving, but I don’t know, I’m not a teenage boy.

  Wallace thinks I’m pretty.

  This is weird.

  I have on a sweatshirt two sizes too big and jeans worn so often you can’t see the shape of my legs inside them. My hair’s okay, I guess, when it’s not covered in glitter. It’s not that I think I’m ugly, I just don’t think about what I look like. I don’t live out there. If I had my way, I wouldn’t look like anything at all. I would be a free-floating consciousness that can also somehow draw. I don’t care how I look. I don’t want to care.

  It is weird for him to point it out. No one points out how I look. I am not a “point out how she looks” kind of girl.

  I really want to bring this up with Emmy and Max to see what they think, but I can’t, because I don’t want them to know Wallace is rainmaker. Like telling them about the transcription, it seems like a betrayal of trust. I could say he said that to my face, but I know for a fact Emmy skims through the Angels’ update feeds at least once a week, and she’ll definitely see it on rainmaker’s page. It doesn’t take an engineering prodigy to put those two things together.

  But Wallace gave me another chapter of Monstrous Sea, so he can’t be kidding. He put time and thought into this. He cares about Monstrous Sea—he wouldn’t use it to hurt someone. Right?

  CHAPTER 12

  On Wednesday, Wallace and I hang out at school like nothing different has happened. And by “hang out,” I mean we pass notes in homeroom and sit together at lunch. I try not to gush too much over the second chapter of his transcription of Monstrous Sea. When I pass him on the bench outside school at the end of the day, he looks up and waves good-bye, and I don’t feel the need to sprint to my car and lock myself inside.

  Thursday’s the same, but when I get home that day and check my messages to see if Emmy and Max have gotten their packages yet, I find a new message thread from Wallace.

&n
bsp; 2:47 p.m.

  rainmaker: So, how about that Halloween party? :D

  rainmaker: If you don’t have a costume, I bet you could put a sign on your shirt that says “lurker.” I know my friends would think that was the best thing ever.

  rainmaker: btw they’re all huge MS fans. Don’t know if I mentioned that.

  rainmaker: Also I’m driving, so don’t worry about getting there.

  Well. I suppose he really wants me to go. That must be a good sign. I thought he was as quiet and weird as me, but he’s not at all. He’s not exactly the center of social life at Westcliff, but this is way more forward than I’d be with anyone. If I invited someone somewhere—unlikely—and they told me they’d think about it, I’d end up barricading myself in my room and never speaking to them again.

  Here’s what I know about this party so far:

  •Wallace wants me to go

  •Wallace’s friends will be there

  •There will be Monstrous Sea cosplay

  •I will miss the Dog Days Halloween special

  •It will be at a bookstore, which is not particularly partyish

  It doesn’t sound completely terrible. And I’m sure if I don’t like it, I can find some excuse to leave. But I’ll miss doing my live commentary on Dog Days.

  Wait. I get up from the computer and stick my head out my bedroom door, looking over the balcony railing.

  “Hey!”

  “What is it, Eggers?” Dad walks out of the kitchen in his windbreaker and running shorts and looks up the stairs.

  “Do I have to walk around with Church and Sully for Halloween this year?”

  Dad frowns. “Church and Sully are doing Halloween this year? Are they too old for that yet?”

  He asks it honestly, because he really doesn’t remember. He knows they’re in the same grade, and that they’re under fourteen because they play on all U-14 sports teams, but anything beyond that is details. Sully is fourteen, Church is thirteen; born eleven months apart exactly, and most people think they’re twins.

  “They’re kind of too old for it, yeah,” I say.

  “Oh. Well, ask your mom.”

  “Is she home right now?”