Eliza and Her Monsters

by Francesca Zappia

  “Is it a life-or-death situation?”

  “No.”

  “Is he in some sort of danger only this can save him from?”

  “I . . . no. But it would make things easier for him. . . .”

  “It does sound difficult.”

  “What am I supposed to do? That’s why I’m here, that’s why I’m trying to get through all of this and be able to draw. If it weren’t for him, I’d never think about the comic again. I want to finish the comic for him, but I can’t. If he doesn’t get this, it’s my fault.”

  “I don’t think the important thing here is that you finish the comic. It’s that you realize that you can’t be held responsible for Wallace’s life, or the lives of your fans. The state of your fandom shouldn’t dictate your self-worth.”

  “But it’s my fault. I should be able to finish even if I don’t feel like it.”

  “I understand that may not be your first choice of action, and certainly it may not seem like the kindest, but is it more important that you work despite the block, or should you take the time to rest?”

  “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me that?”

  “I think in this case it’s more important that you decide for yourself. This issue—your anxiety—may not be a quick fix. I can prescribe medicine for it, but it’s vital that you learn how to identify it when it feels like you’re being overwhelmed, and to know when you can push through it and when you need to step away.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let’s explore something else. Did you give any thought to what you would do after Monstrous Sea was finished?”

  “I . . . I kind of felt like I’d collapse on the ground. You know, like a puppet with its strings cut.”

  “You didn’t have any other ideas you wanted to explore?”

  “No.”

  “Life doesn’t end with the story. Maybe you won’t finish Monstrous Sea. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t draw anything else after Monstrous Sea. Maybe you will. The fans will still love it. The haters will find something else to hate. Time will go on, and so will you.”

  “But . . . how long will that take? I’m tired of feeling like this.”

  “That’s hard to tell.”

  “I have to go to college in the fall. I can’t—I don’t want to deal with this and be in a new place too.”

  “Have you thought of taking time off? A gap year? You don’t have to jump into college right away.”

  “But what would I do with myself? I can’t stay in my room all the time, right? Even though I want to.”

  “If you continue coming to see me, we can talk about this, but it would be a great time to take stock of things. Recenter yourself. It will also give you plenty of breathing room to work on your anxiety.”

  “That . . . sounds nice.”

  “Would you like more water? Your ice has melted—it must be warm by now.”

  “Oh. Yes, thank you.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Graduation couldn’t come fast enough.

  My grades slipped over the past few weeks, but it was so close to the end of the semester it didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough for any college to rescind their offer of admission. I accepted at a small local university, and almost immediately wrote a letter to the director of admissions explaining why I wanted to defer for a year.

  Last September, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have loved the idea of me taking a gap year. After all this, they agreed that it might be for the best. I think part of the reason they did was because of Sully and Church’s impromptu intervention on my behalf. Right away Dad began intercepting all phone calls and mail meant for me, and Mom planned a list of activities we could do to get me out of the house more—most of which involved walking Davy around the neighborhood, thankfully—and she hung up a little sign on the fridge with a row of emotion faces so I can mark how I’m feeling every day. I would’ve called it stupid before, but it’s easier, some days, than having to talk.

  “What do you mean, you won’t have to go to school next year?” Sully roars at the dinner table when Mom and Dad announce the plan. “We still have to go to school next year! That’s so not fair!”

  Church quietly shovels peas into his mouth.

  “Sully!” Mom hisses. Neither of my brothers is allowed to complain about anything that happens because of my “meltdowns,” as Sully calls them, even if they’re joking, but I like it that Sully gets so upset. He makes this all feel like some goofy problem in a movie. It’ll get resolved with a neat little bow after an hour and a half of family fun.

  Sully sinks in his chair with a sour look.

  Something buzzes. Church pulls his phone out of his pocket.

  “Oh, hey, look.” He passes it across the table to me. On it is a message from Lucy Warland.

  “Why do you have Lucy Warland’s number?” I ask.

  “Because she’s cool,” Church says. “Also because Sully didn’t want to ask for her number himself.”

  Sully’s face turns red.

  “She told me she’d send pictures from the graduation ceremony,” Church goes on.

  Ah, graduation. That thing I achieved, and then refused to celebrate. Just knowing I never have to set foot in that high school again has made it easier to breathe. I bring up the picture full screen and find a ceremony hall full of my classmates, seated in neat rows of silky graduation robes. A line has formed on one side of the stage, where the graduates are ascending to take their diplomas from the principal.

  Lucy snapped the shot as Wallace went up. I can see it as if the picture’s a video: Wallace sets his own deliberate pace up the steps and across the stage. His face is stoic, as always, because there are far too many people in the room and the more overloaded he is, the less expression he makes. He’s bigger than the principal. His hand dwarfs the smaller man’s. He takes his diploma and lumbers off the stage, and most of the crowd thinks he’s stupid, or a dumb jock, or nobody at all.

  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 fr
iendliness 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?”

  “You lied for so long, even after my email, and then . . . the writing stuff.” He shrugs his massive shoulders. “I’m not sure how I’m going to pay for school. Get a lot of jobs, I guess. I’m going to be working most of the summer, so I don’t think I can hang out.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just. You know.”

  “Yeah.” I focus on the car’s front bumper.

  He walks past me to go inside. No good-bye. No see you later. He disappears into the house, and I’m left standing alone.It feels as if the ground is swallowing my feet. Walking down the driveway is like walking through mud, and when I reach the end, I can’t move any farther. I kneel, hands cupped around the back of my neck, shoulders between my knees, and my breath comes out in harsh ratcheting gasps.

  Wallace won’t forgive me. It doesn’t matter what I say to myself. It doesn’t matter how many times I apologize or explain. In my worst nightmares, I never imagined him not even wanting to be friends with me. But in my worst nightmares, the most terrible thing that happened was he found out who I am.

  Wallace won’t forgive me.

  How can anyone else?

  Monstrous Sea Private Message

  10:05 p.m. (MirkerLurker has joined the message)

  MirkerLurker: Are you guys around?

  10:08 p.m.

  MirkerLurker: I’m just

  MirkerLurker: having some trouble

  MirkerLurker: With everything

  10:10 p.m.

  MirkerLurker: Okay

  10:21 p.m.

  MirkerLurker: I have to go.

  CHAPTER 42

  I sit in my car on the far side of Wellhouse Bridge, staring at Wellhouse Turn. Wallace’s words pound in my head. They bring to the surface all the forum posts, all the emails, all the messages from the people who want to know who I am and what I am and when I’m going to finish Monstrous Sea. I’m alone here in the middle of the road, but it doesn’t feel like it.

  The weather-worn ribbons tied to the cross at the top of Wellhouse Turn are still. The sky is velvet black, punctured by stars.

  Car tires squeal in the distance. I freeze, lightning in my veins and fear coiling in my chest. Anyone who sees a car stopped at Wellhouse Turn will know what I’m doing here.

  A minute passes. The night is quiet again.

  My body settles and the fear ebbs away, leaving only that tight tension in my stomach that hasn’t faded completely since my name was revealed. I am not okay. I know that I am not okay and that there are ways for me to be okay again, but I can’t wait that long. It won’t be worth it to be okay again, because people will still hate me. I’ll always be the letdown, the weird girl, the low-level villain in the sewers.

  Everything will work better when I’m gone, anyway; I won’t be around to mess up family togetherness time, or bother Max and Emmy with my problems, or remind Wallace of everything he could have had.

  I’m so tired. I’m tired of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can’t move the rest of my body. Tired of constant vigilance. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking the easy way out.

  I thought that’s what this would be. I stare at Wellhouse Turn, and Wellhouse Turn ignores me as it ignores everyone. When I drove past an hour ago, it seemed so convenient. Providential, even. So many times I looked at Wellhouse Turn and thought it might be nice to fly. And here it was, right when I needed it. An hour ago, when I stopped, I thought it would be an easy decision to drop my foot on the gas pedal and hold the steering wheel straight. But just thinking about it—the speed, the rush, the drop—no, that’s not easy at all. Anyone who thinks that’s an easy way out hasn’t had to face it.

  It’ll be okay, I tell myself, then let out a hysterical laugh.

  I’m thinking about killing myself. Of course it won’t be okay.

  I bury my head in my arms. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know, I don’t know, god, I’m so tired. I miss Davy, and my nice quiet room where no one gets hurt, and the perpetual hum of my computer. I want to be there.

  So maybe I should go. The idea blunts the edges of my panic. I could go home. Just for tonight. I’m more stressed-out sitting here than I would be at home, anyway, and I don’t have to rush into this. For now I can sleep, and at least that’s a few hours that I don’t have to think about anything.

  Yes. That is what I’ll do.

  I lower my legs and search for the gearshift. I never take my eyes off Wellhouse Turn, as if it’s a sleeping dragon that might wake and attack me. Not today, I think to it and its pretty memorial. You can’t have me today.

  The words send a thrill up my arms. Not today.

  Tires crunch on asphalt. Headlights appear ahead, coming around the turn. The lights blind me as I fumble for my seat belt and my keys.

  The other car stops in the middle of the turn, near the memorial. The driver’s door opens and a bulky, da
rk figure flies out so fast he trips and has to catch himself before he hits the pavement. He sprints through my headlights—Wallace, moving faster than I’ve ever seen him move before—and he skids to a stop and almost rips off my sideview mirror.

  He scans the interior. Our eyes meet. He pounds on the window.

  “GET OUT OF THE CAR!”

  He doesn’t wait for me. He tears the door open, pushes my half-on seat belt aside, and lifts me out like I’m as heavy as a bag of leaves. He sets me on my feet right outside and immediately lets go.

  “You should have been home by now. You didn’t answer your phone.” His voice rasps with every harsh breath. Eyes wide, face flushed. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I turned it off. I’m going home now.” I don’t need to tell him the whole truth. He already knows it. I see it in his eyes as they fill with tears.

  Then I’m crushed in his arms. He has forgotten how big he is; I bend backward to fit the curve of his torso, the breath squeezed out of me, tingles flushing from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet at how nice it is to be held.

  I don’t move. I can’t, not yet.

  “You were angry.” My voice doesn’t come out much louder than a whisper.

  “Jesus, Eliza, no.” He doesn’t pull back to say it, but his arms tighten. His voice breaks over and over, rapid-fire. His whole body trembles. “No, I don’t care about any of that. Did you come here because of me? I was such an asshole. I should’ve seen—I did see what was going on, but I didn’t . . . I didn’t even try to help, I was so stupid and focused on what I wanted—” He sniffs, hard, his voice broken and high. “Please don’t. Please. I can’t lose anyone else to this stupid turn.”

  Then I understand what I was going to do, and what it would have done to Wallace, and I start to cry too.

  How terrible it would have been if I’d actually done what I thought about. How terrible it is that he found me here, thinking about it.

  “I’m sorry.” The words hiccup out of me. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have—not here.”