Falling for the Girl Next Door

by Tera Lynn Childs

  Then, once it became clear she was the opposite of failure, I stayed anonymous out of a different kind of fear. What if knowing my identity changed how people viewed Graphic Grrl? What if the mystery was driving readership? What if I showed myself, and the fans didn’t like me?

  It’s a stupid fear, but one I haven’t been able to shake.

  I’ve seen what happens when trolls get it into their heads to go after someone. Especially if that someone is a girl in what they imagine to be a territory reserved for guys.

  I’m certainly not the only female comic artist. There are tons—some of the very best. But they are still far outnumbered by males, and some fans take issue with the feminine invasion.

  I don’t have time—or interest—to deal with that.

  As it stands, I have the best of both worlds. I get the fan mail and the sense of success and accomplishment. And I get to keep my personal self-worth separate from the strip. I’m not sure I could ever give that up.

  My identity has always been a matter of debate and discussion in the comments section. After ArtzFeed posted an article about the strip at the start of the school year, the hunt really intensified.

  There are some die-hard Graphic Grrl hunters out there.

  But I’ve been careful. I’ve been more than careful. I use an anonymizing browser to access both the website and the email account. I registered the domain name with a service that guarantees privacy, and I pay for it with a pre-paid credit card. There is no way anyone managed to trace the digital trail back to me.

  Besides, I’ve been toying with the idea of monetizing Graphic Grrl, maybe posting ads on the site or even getting some sponsors. After intense pressure from Tru and Tash, I finally added a “Support Graphic Grrl” donation button on the site a few weeks ago and—to my surprise, but not theirs—people actually started donating. It’s amazing.

  If my traffic drops, so will my future income. Mom and Dad have made it clear that I am supposed to attend a Real College, and get a Real Degree that will get me a Real Job. If I want to attend the School of Visual Arts to study animation, which has been my dream since forever, then I have to be prepared to pay for it myself.

  Right now—or until now—Tash and Tru were the only two people on the entire planet who knew that I created Graphic Grrl. As my long time BFF, Tash was the first person I ever told. When the secret got too big for me to keep all to myself, and when my fellow students at SODA started reading and talking about it, I had to tell someone.

  Tash has known and kept the secret for years.

  Tru figured it out on his own. Partly because he’s a fan of the strip and he noticed similarities between the ways Graphic Grrl and I talk. He’s uncannily observant that way. But he also saw a half-finished sketch on my tablet for an unpublished strip, so that was kind of a big clue.

  He wasn’t even my boyfriend yet when he found out, so he had no reason to keep my secret, but he never told anyone.

  Two people know that I draw Graphic Grrl. And I trust both of them with my life. With Graphic Grrl’s life. Neither of them would do this to me.

  But who else could know? How could anyone else have found out? It doesn’t seem possible, not when I’ve been so very careful.

  Maybe one of them accidentally let it slip.

  That’s the only thing that makes sense.

  My first thought is Tash. She would never knowingly betray my trust. She does, however, have a tendency to speak without thinking. It is possible she revealed some clue without even knowing what she’d done.

  I have to ask. This isn’t going to be a pleasant call.

  My stomach does backflips as I wait for her to pick up. I feel awful for even having to ask her this, but what choice do I have? Someone knows, and I have to find out who—and how.

  The calls rings several times before going to voicemail. I listen to her long, convoluted greeting before starting my message.

  “Hey, Tash. It’s me. I need to—”

  Something beeps in my ear. I hold the phone out and see a text message.

  Tash: Sry. In recital. Wutz up?

  I hang up on her voicemail.

  Me: Sum1 knows Im GG

  Tash: What!!!! How?????

  Me: No clue

  I take a deep breath.

  Me: Did u tell any1?

  Tash: NO!!!!!!

  Tash: Of course not!!!!!!

  Tash: :( :( :(

  I feel horrible for even asking. I knew she would be upset. Tash takes secrets more seriously than anyone I’ve ever known. She would never knowingly betray me. And she’s hurt that I even suggested she might have.

  Me: Sry. Just freaking out

  She doesn’t respond.

  Me: Tash?

  Tash: U know I wld never tell

  Me: I know

  Me: Not on purpose

  Tash: Not on accident

  Tash: Not ever

  Me: So sry! Don’t know what else 2 thnk

  Tash: Well it wuznt me

  Me: Love u

  Tash: Luv u

  Tash: Gotta go

  I flop back on my bed. Even through the seemingly impersonal interaction of a text message, I can tell she’s annoyed. She’s going to be mad about this for weeks.

  And if she knew that Tru knows the secret too, she’d be doubly hurt. First, that I told him at all—even though I didn’t, really, but with Tash that kind of reasoning isn’t always acceptable. And second, because I suspected her before him.

  Tash is in denial about her flake issues, so she can’t see that she might have accidentally let slip some clue to my identity—even a clue that she personally knows Graphic Grrl’s creator—that could lead to me.

  But she’ll get over it. She always does.

  I’ll have to talk to her about it later, when she’s cooled off and we can actually talk. But that still leaves me with the other option. Tru.

  This isn’t exactly a conversation I want to have face to face. I don’t want to see the look of betrayal when I accuse him of spilling my secret.

  I dial his cell phone.

  He picks up on the second ring.

  “Hey pretty lady,” he drawls. “How you doin’?”

  His voice is scratchy and low. He sounds sleepy. Or drunk.

  I’m definitely hoping for sleepy.

  “Hey—” I start to say.

  “You know,” he interrupts, sounding slightly more awake, “I live literally ten feet away.”

  I smile. “I know.”

  “Do you also know,” he says, “that if you want a booty call, you don’t have to actually call.”

  “Booty call?” I ask, faking a clueless voice. “Why would I be making a booty call to you?”

  He makes a teasing half-growl. “Don’t toy with me, woman.”

  I laugh and it helps ease my tension over what I have to ask him.

  “Actually,” I say, “I only wish this was a booty call.”

  “Yeah?” He sounds more serious, like he’s actually paying attention now.

  “I just got an email from someone claiming to know that I am Graphic Grrl.”

  “No way.” He mutters a curse. “You’re sure it’s legit?”

  “It came to my personal email address,” I tell him.

  Another curse.

  “I’ve already checked with Tash,” I tell him, hoping it will lessen the sting of what I’m going to ask. “She swears she hasn’t told anyone.”

  There is a long pause and I can practically feel the tension radiating out from my phone. So much for lessening the sting.

  “Tru…”

  “What?” he asks.

  “Did you—”

  “Oh, you’re asking me?” He laughs and I can’t tell if it’s real or a front. “Nope, it wasn’t me. I haven’t told a soul.”

  “You’re sure?” I ask. “Not even a hint? Maybe on accident?”

  “Nope. Not even.”

  “Great,” I mutter. That leaves me back at square zero.

  Tru makes a
gruff, groaning noise, “God, what time is it?”

  “It’s after two,” I tell him.

  “In the morning?”

  “Uh…no.”

  Clearly he’s just waking up.

  “I tried to call you last night,” I say.

  “Yeah, I was…”

  He doesn’t finish the sentence, but we both know what he was. And I’m not in the mood to talk about it.

  “Are we still going location scouting today?” I ask.

  “Does that involve me leaving the house?”

  I half-laugh. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Not a chance. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I say, not bothering to hide the disappointment in my voice. Not disappointment about delaying the location scouting, but because I know the reason Tru wants to delay it is that he’s too hungover to go.

  Too hungover to care.

  “I’d better go,” I tell him. “I have a lot to do.”

  He mumbles a goodbye, and then he’s gone.

  Yeah, I have a lot to do. Like figuring out how to uncover Engineering Boy’s identity and what I’m going to do about him. How am I going to stop the train that’s speeding straight at me from derailing everything I’ve spent the last five years building?

  It’s going to be a long weekend.

  …

  Tru let his phone clatter to the floor.

  He had been dead asleep when Sloane called, but had managed to sound fairly coherent, he thought. That was quite a feat when he felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Or an entire convoy of semis.

  He tried to sit up and instantly regretted it.

  Every single cell in his body protested the move. His head swirled, his stomach rolled, and his skin crawled.

  He flopped back down only to discover he wasn’t in the soft comfort of his bed, but the unforgiving porcelain of his bathtub. As his skull cracked against the tub’s edge, waves of pain shot along every nerve ending.

  He groaned and rubbed the back of his head.

  “Must have been some night,” he muttered.

  His mouth felt disgusting, like someone had rubbed soap over his tongue.

  Then again, he was in the bathroom. Maybe he gave the bar in the bathtub a try.

  The lights were off, and for that he was thankful. Even the faint glow that snuck in through the closed blinds was bothering his eyes. And his eyes were closed.

  Squinting hard with one eye, he forced the other one open. Barely. Just a fraction of an inch.

  Then, when the blinding pain of that amount of light eased, he pried it open a little more. After what felt like an hour, he had both eyes mostly open.

  Yep, he was in the bathtub. That hadn’t happened before.

  He needed a plan.

  Step One: get out of the tub.

  Grabbing the outer edge of the tub, he pulled himself forward into a more upright position. Then he leveraged his hands on the edge to push himself farther up.

  As he did, he saw that his hands were covered in several small scratches. Where had those come from?

  He could figure that out when he got out of the tub.

  He snatched his phone up off the floor and proceeded with Step One. Several seconds—and way more effort than it should have taken—later, Tru stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

  He looked like hell.

  Which probably wasn’t surprising, since he felt like hell.

  But, yay, Step One accomplished. The plan was going well.

  Step Two: wash the disgusting taste out of his mouth.

  He decided to go all the way with a good teeth-brushing, followed by a gargle of mouthwash. The minty fresh sensation went a long way to making him feel human again.

  Step Three: look human again.

  There wasn’t much he could do about the dark circles under his eyes. Several handfuls of cold water splashed on his face got rid of the greenish tint to his skin, though. So, again, progress.

  Tru turned toward the door. He froze when he saw a street sign leaning against the wall next to the linen closet.

  And not just any street sign. A burnt orange sign that indicated it was from the UT campus.

  Jester Circle

  He had to smile at his drunk self for his sense of humor. He must have been so inspired by the one-sided discussion with his father that he decided to capture a piece of the Longhorn legacy.

  But how had he gotten there?

  The campus was at least a twenty minute drive away. And Tru never drove drunk. Never.

  He was still fully dressed, so he checked his pockets for any clues. He found a pair of single-ride bus passes.

  Well that explained that.

  Tru tried to remember something about the adventure. Anything. Clearly, he’d been conscious enough to navigate public transport and to figure out how to detach the street sign from its post.

  He drew a solid blank.

  He remembered the argument with his father. He remembered sneaking into his father’s study and raiding the liquor cabinet when his father went to bed. He remembered heading out to the gazebo with the bottle—correction bottles.

  He could even remember drinking his first few swigs straight from the source.

  But after that? Nothing.

  Tru’s legs felt wobbly beneath him. He walked over to the tub and sat down on the edge. He’d passed out drunk plenty of times. Done things he wished he could forget. But he’d never actually lost part of his life.

  Tru had never blacked out before. That he had apparently gone on a cross-town adventure without even the slightest hint of a memory about it scared the crap out of him.

  His hands shook as he lifted them to his face. He covered his eyes, as if by shielding himself from the world he could shield himself from the truth.

  But the truth was funny that way. It tended to stay in plain sight, even when he tried to shove it under the rug.

  The truth made him face up to one really uncomfortable realization. He had a problem. He had a big problem, and he needed to get help before it got even bigger.

  Chapter Five

  By Sunday afternoon, I am so freaking out about Engineering Boy and how he might upend my world, that I’m channeling all of my energy into school work. Something I almost never do.

  My life is spinning like a top right now. One more nudge in any direction and I might wobble out of control.

  But my hope is that focusing on my before-break assignments will free up my subconscious to think about ways to figure this out. Distraction works on art projects. Hopefully it works on life projects, too.

  The only problem is that I can’t stand to focus on academics for very long without taking frequent breaks. I’ve been filling those breaks with other things—unpacking a couple of boxes, making my perpetually-unmade bed, and sketching ideas for the Lizzie Borden Diaries movie poster. Anything that keeps me from thinking about Graphic Grrl and Engineering Boy—my fictional nemesis come to life.

  On my next break, I decide to give Dylan a call.

  My baby brother isn’t much for talking on the phone. But if I don’t reach out on occasion, he might get lost in his latest video obsession and never find his way out.

  How a boy who spends so much time gaming and streaming TV can manage a perfect GPA at one of the most rigorous middle schools in the city is beyond me. The benefits of being a legitimate genius, I guess.

  I consider it my sisterly duty to keep him grounded in the social realities of the human world.

  He answers with a distracted, “Yep.”

  “Put down the controller, Dyl-dog.”

  “Sloaner!” he cheers. “Hold on.”

  I sit there patiently waiting as he kills one last zombie or crashes one last car or whatever it is that he does in those endless video games. I scan my critical gaze over my room.

  The space hasn’t progressed much since we moved in and Mom filled the unfamiliar house with unfamiliar furniture. One day while I was at school, in a fit of domesticity, she transfer
red all my clothes from my boxes and suitcase into the gleaming white IKEA dresser and the all-too-empty closet.

  I’m not sure if she couldn’t stand the thought of me living out of boxes anymore or if she wanted to send a message about how long I should plan on being in Austin. Either way, I let it go. It’s way easier to get dressed now.

  The walls are still bare, except for the growing collection of warmup sketches from Advanced Graphic Design I’ve taped up over my desk. At first, I was annoyed by Mrs. K’s exercises. I’m an all-digital girl when it comes to art, so the idea of working in tangible, physical media was less than appealing.

  Now that I can see the pages on the wall, can see the texture of the paper and the shine of the markers, I understand the appeal.

  Usually I love a blank canvas. But the overall plainness of the room is starting to grate. I’m going to have to hang something to break up the whiteness. Maybe a Kandinsky poster or the family portrait I painted last year, where everyone but me has on clown makeup.

  It made me feel like the normal one, for once.

  Heck, maybe I’ll even go so far as to cover one of the walls with a mural. The wall behind my bed is just begging for huge splashes of paint.

  “Okay, I’m here,” Dylan says breathlessly.

  “No more undead to shoot?”

  “I was tomb raiding,” he explains. “I had to get to a save spot, or all my progress would have been lost.”

  “Oh the horror,” I tease. “Hey, is it just me or is your voice deeper?”

  He makes a non-committal noise which I interpret as tween boy speak for I don’t know. We’ve only been gone a few months. He can’t be growing up that fast. Can he?

  Since boy puberty is near the very bottom of the topics of conversation I’m comfortable with, I stick with safer matters.

  “So I hear you’re coming to Austin for Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I guess.”

  “Don’t sound so excited.”

  “I wish you were coming here.”

  “Me, too, baby bro. Me, too.” Rather than dwell on the annoying future, I focus on the present. “So how are you? How’s life with Dad? How’s school going?”

  “Fine. Fine. Fine.”

  I roll my eyes at the less-than-illuminating answers.

  “Come on,” I beg, feeling more like Mom every day. “You gotta give me more than that.”