His arm tightens around me.
“I thought it might have been . . . too much.”
“It wasn’t. What I said—wrote—in class was true. I mean, I’m . . .” I tap a finger on his rib cage without really thinking about where I’m touching. “I’m still here.”
The essay disappears first, then the thick arm I was using as a pillow. Wallace pushes me onto my back and buries his head in the crook of my neck. I giggle because I can’t help it. My hands find his shoulders. He does this sometimes: one slow, careful kiss gets pressed to my collarbone; another against my neck. The neck one wrecks me. Instant ball of nerves. He can’t know how that one feels, or else he wouldn’t stop. He pushes himself up so we’re eye to eye. Our noses nearly touch. His eyes are downcast. I snap my mouth shut. His fingers run up my sides and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe at all.
“Good,” he says.
I lock my arms around his neck and pull him down so the weight of his torso rests on mine and his forehead presses to the pillow. His breath hitches. Before I can stop myself I run a hand up through his hair. The short, sharp bristles along the base of his skull and the back of his head. The smoother, longer strands on the top. He turns his face toward me, and I trace a finger along the hair that’s fallen over his forehead.
Water rushes through the pipes overhead. A clock ticks in the darkness. One of Wallace’s eyes turns amber in the yellow light of his lamp. Want rises up in me, sharp and fast, and I know in that instant that I can’t hold myself back anymore. I don’t want to be the frozen girl, but I can’t wait for someone else to thaw me.
I tip my head forward. Wallace meets me halfway. Heat rushes through my face and he must be able to feel it in my lips. He must be able to tell I’ve never kissed anyone before. I pull away, ducking my chin. Wallace’s head follows.
“I thought I was supposed to surprise you,” he says.
“You took too long,” I say. I turn my face to the pillow so my hair makes a curtain. He brushes it back and kisses my eyebrow. Then my cheek, then my nose, then he leans over me and nuzzles my ear. Warm shocks race down my spine.
It makes no earthly sense how another person can do this. Not even with words, just touches. Just looks. He just looks at me and I feel simultaneously like myself and someone else, like I’m here and I’m not, like everything and nothing.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
He rests on his side, still partially draped over me, and says, “You know that part in Monstrous Sea where Dallas asks Amity to kiss him once before she leaves, because he’s afraid he won’t live to see her again?”
“Yes.”
“And what he says after she does it?”
Of course I do. I wrote it.
“‘Like I imagined,’” I say. He nods. I know most people would think it’s silly or stupid to explain things this way, in scenes and quotes, but we’re both fluent in the language of Monstrous Sea. This is the way I understand him best.
“I’m bad at this,” I say.
“No you’re not,” he says.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” I say, face still hot.
“Yes you have,” he says, with the little smile.
I shove him, which does nothing. “Shut up. You write smutty fanfiction all day.”
“Excuse you, I do not write smut. If I choose to include a sex scene, it is both tasteful and classy.” He leans in so there’s nowhere else to go and nowhere else to look. “Besides, it’s not like you have to have actual experience to write smut. Or even kissing.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t have any kissing experience.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
I shove him again. He catches my wrists and holds my hands against his chest.
He’s already so close, all I have to do is stick out my chin. Again, he meets me halfway. This kiss is deeper, longer than the last one. My face burns, but I keep myself where I am. I’ve done enough hiding in my life. I hide from my classmates all day long. I hide from my parents, my brothers, even my friends.
I might be hiding LadyConstellation from Wallace under the guise of Eliza Mirk, but it’s not LadyConstellation he’s kissing right now.
It’s Eliza. It’s me.
I don’t want to hide this part of myself anymore.
The first day Amity met her, Kite stood in the middle of the sparring ring, arms crossed over her chest. Her skin was a darker brown than Amity’s.
“Where are you from?” Amity blurted out the moment Kite finished her terse introduction. The older woman turned up her nose and looked vaguely royal.
“The Isles of Light,” Kite replied, “and that’s all you need to know. Sato tells me you have no formal fighting experience.”
“Yes. But I’m fast, and I learn quickly.”
The longer Kite inspected her, the more Amity felt as if Kite didn’t like her. It didn’t come as a surprise. Most people didn’t like her upon meeting her, put off by her orange eyes and white hair and the knowledge that the Watcher lived inside her—but it didn’t make the idea of spending months training with Kite any easier.
“Are you ready?” Kite asked.
Amity couldn’t tell if Kite meant for the sparring, or for hunting Faust.
Though, then again, she really only had one answer.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER 29
When spring break hits at the beginning of March, my parents decide I’ve had enough of my bedroom and decline my request to be omitted from this year’s family camping trip. Sully and Church find this hilarious. Lazy hermit Eliza trekking through the wilderness with a pack of supplies, reeking of bug repellent.
It’s not that I don’t like the outdoors. It’s that I don’t see the point of the outdoors when there’s so much I could be doing indoors.
My parents also deny me my sketchbook for this venture, an act that would have had me boiling over in a fit of apoplectic rage had I any less self-control. They’ve never taken my sketchbook away before, and I don’t think Dad felt the shock wave of pure surprise and anger that came off me when he told me to turn around and take the thing back to my room.
Mom and Dad don’t say anything about my phone, though. Either they don’t think I’ll get service, or they didn’t realize I had it. I keep it tucked in my pocket.
It burns a hole there the whole way to the Happy Friends Dog Day Care to drop off Davy, then as we drive down a long dirt road between two thick swaths of forest. The camping gear rattles around in the back of the SUV. Sully and Church, on either side of me, sing along with the pop music vibrating from the radio. Mom and Dad politely ignore them. Sully screams all the lyrics correctly but slightly off-key. Church is actually kind of good.
“You should try out for choir,” I say when the song ends.
Church’s entire head-neck region flares red. “No,” he snaps. “Choir is stupid.”
I shut my mouth. So much for trying.
“Aw, little Churchy in choir.” Sully laughs. “You could hang out with Macy Garrison all day if you were in choir.”
“I thought you were going to ask Macy Garrison out before Christmas?” Dad looks at us in the rearview mirror with a twinkle in his eye. “What happened with that?”
“I never said I would,” Church grumbles. Then he shoots me a dirty look. “Thanks a lot. Why didn’t you stay home with your boyfriend?”
“Mom and Dad wouldn’t let her,” Sully says, still laughing. “They think she’s going to invite him over for sex.”
I am a volcano.
“Oh, Eliza, that’s not why we did this,” Mom takes her eyes off the road for a second to look back at me. “If you and Wallace decide you want to take that step, it’s completely up to you—that’s why we had that doctor’s appointment.”
“Mom, stop.” My voice drops.
“It’s completely healthy for kids your age to be, you know, getting together.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t yet,” Dad chimes in. “Junior year of high
school was the first time your mother and I—”
“STOP!” Sully, Church, and I yell it at the same time, clapping our hands over our ears. Mom and Dad look nonplussed and stop speaking.
We drive in silence for three more minutes before Mom pipes up again.
“Just saying. It’s how we made all three of you.”
“Jesus,” Sully groans.
We park at the campgrounds and have to hike like two miles uphill to get to where we’re setting up the tents. I knew before coming out here that this would be no walk in the park. My parents and brothers load themselves up with gear and start out with a spring in their steps. I’m carrying my own stuff—two days’ worth of clothes, snacks, bug spray, and sunblock—and wearing my old baggy clothes and the hiking shoes Mom got me because she didn’t want me twisting my ankles.
Almost as soon as we begin up the path, sweat starts running between my shoulder blades. The sun beats down through the trees. It’s chilly late March and yet still terrible. I fall behind instantly. Huffing, puffing, wiping sweat from my eyes. My back is already killing me. My parents soldier on, followed by Sully and Church, whose voices scare birds out of the trees. They don’t even look back to see where I am. It’s not as if it matters; we’re following a defined dirt trail laid out between the trees to a cleared-out campsite up in the woods. I used to come when I was younger, but in recent years I’ve been able to wriggle out of it by feigning sickness. I tried again this morning, but Dad said I’d feel better once I was out in the fresh air. I know exactly where they’re going and how to get there, so I stop to sit on a fallen log by the path and pull out my phone.
My signal’s not great out here, but I’m still getting it. I go to my messages. There’s nothing from Wallace, but I told him I was going to be out in the woods for two days, so he probably won’t send anything until he knows I can read it. There are a few new things from Emmy and Max, though. I open the chat window.
Apocalypse_Cow: you should tell that professor to go stick his head up his ass.
Apocalypse_Cow: but with better words. obviously. can’t have a twelve-year-old saying things like that.
emmersmacks: Im fourteen
emmersmacks: I totally could say that if I wanted
emmersmacks: But I wont cause I need a good grade on this test
Apocalypse_Cow: are you going to have him again next semester?
emmersmacks: No this is the last class with him
emmersmacks: But hes the only one who teaches it so if I dont pass I have to take it with him again
Apocalypse_Cow: that’s bullshit. you should go to the department head and say he’s discriminating against you because of your age.
4:31 p.m. (MirkerLurker has joined the message)
MirkerLurker: What’s going on?
Apocalypse_Cow: em’s shitty calc teacher keeps singling her out and making fun of her in class because of how young she is.
emmersmacks: Hes not making fun of me
emmersmacks: He calls me a baby every time I point out something wrong with his equations
emmersmacks: Like I was the one who got the answer wrong and Im just upset about it or something
I love that about Max and Emmy. Weeks without a long conversation, and they let me back into the fold like nothing has changed.
MirkerLurker: That sounds like he’s making fun of you.
MirkerLurker: Actually, it sounds like he’s an asshole. Teachers who call their students babies are assholes, no matter what the ages of the parties involved. You should tell the department head.
emmersmacks: Yeah
emmersmacks: Maybe
emmersmacks: Like I said, I just have to get through the rest of this semester and pass and then I dont have to see him again
Apocalypse_Cow: we’re serious, em. this is not okay. he shouldn’t be doing things like that.
emmersmacks: Can we change the topic now??
“Got a little winded, Eggs?”
I jump and look up. Dad trots back down the trail, smiling until he sees the phone in my hands. I try to stuff it back in my pocket, but it’s too late.
“I told you I wasn’t feeling good,” I say, picking myself up and brushing my pants off.
“I thought we said no phones?”
“You must have only said it to Church and Sully. I didn’t hear it.”
“Eggs.”
I climb up the trail past him. “I was talking to my friends.”
“But this is family time. I’m sure your friends will understand when we get back in a few days.” He catches up to me like he was walking beside me the whole time, and holds out his hand.
I still don’t hand it over. “It was important stuff.”
“I’m sure it was.” His voice is light, appeasing. My skin crawls. The outstretched hand grabs my arm. “Eliza.”
I spin on him. He never uses my real name. “It’s just a phone! I’m probably going to get crappy reception up there anyway! Why do you guys have to take everything away from me?”
“I think you can survive without your phone for two days,” he says in official Dad Voice. “And your mother will agree with me. Now hand it over.”
I tear my phone out of my pocket, shove it at him, then start up the trail following the echoes of my brothers’ voices. Dad stays behind me, probably to make sure I don’t stop again.
I don’t plan on stopping. I’m angry enough to walk for days.
Mom, Church, and Sully are already at the campsite. Church and Sully fight over our tent. Mom already has the other one set up.
“Aw, I thought you died back there,” Sully said. He looked at Church. “Guess we have to share the tent.”
I throw my pack into the dirt. “Shut up, Sully.”
Dad’s talking to Mom in undertones, holding my phone out for her. Her eyebrows press together. She slides my phone into her pocket.
I scrub my face with my hands. My hair sticks to my cheeks and my skin itches. Hives threaten. I took my allergy medication before we came up here, and I have one EpiPen in my bag and Mom has the other, but if I have an allergic reaction out here and have to be rushed to a hospital, it will be a welcome relief.
I won’t have an allergic reaction. I haven’t had one since I was ten.
Unfortunately.
The sun’s below the trees when the tents are up and Dad’s starting on the campfire. I toss my stuff inside the smaller tent and climb in after it.
“Thanks for helping set up, Rotten Eggs,” Sully calls from the fireside, flipping me the bird.
“Sullivan!” Mom swats his hand down.
He sticks his tongue out at me instead. I ignore him as I lower the tent flap and spread out my sleeping bag in the middle of the tent. Polyester does nothing to keep out the sounds of the woods, and I don’t plan on sleeping near one of the flimsy walls if anything decides to attack us. Probably nothing will attack us, but I’m not taking the chance.
As I’m sliding inside the sleeping bag, Mom sticks her head into the tent.
“Aren’t you coming to eat s’mores?”
“No,” I say.
“Do you feel okay?”
“Fine.”
She pauses. “Is this about your phone?”
“I’m tired.”
“We want you to spend more time here, in the real world. Your dad didn’t mean to make you angry, but we . . .”
Her voice trails off when I turn away from her and pull the sleeping bag up to cover most of my head. She sighs.
“We know you don’t want to be here. And maybe . . . maybe we just don’t understand it well enough. Any of it. The online friends, the webcomic, even the drawing itself. We’ve tried to figure it out. We want to understand it, to know why it means so much to you. It scares us, how intense you get, and how little we know about it. We can’t get you to explain it, so we’re navigating in the dark.”
There’s a beat of silence where she waits for me to turn over. I don’t. Then she sighs again and stands. Her boots crun
ch across dirt and twigs back to the fireside.
The four of them talk and laugh for another hour or two. My stomach rumbles. They ate dinner too, not just s’mores. Mom finally sends them all to bed. I pretend to be asleep when Church and Sully climb into the tent and spread out on either side of me.
“How is she already asleep?” Sully whispers. “At home she stays up until like two a.m.”
“She probably was tired,” Church whispers back.
“What, from climbing a hill?”
Church doesn’t respond. They get into their sleeping bags and whisper for half an hour about the outdoor soccer season about to start. I hadn’t even realized the indoor season was over—Mom and Dad just told me when I needed to take them to practice or pick them up. I didn’t know how they’d done. Were there any tournaments? Trophies?
After a long stretch of silence, Sully says, “So did you really try out for the spring musical?”
Church doesn’t respond for a second. “Yes. Why?”
“Just wondering. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have made it about Macy Garrison.”
“It—it’s not?”
“No.”
“Oh. But you’re not going to try out for choir?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?” Just the smallest bit of mocking enters Sully’s tone.
“Because I like it,” Church snaps back. “We don’t have to do all the same things. Try out for mathletes or something. You like math. You’d be good at it.”
“Mathletes is for nerds.”
“Sull, there’s something you should know.”
“Don’t say it.”
“You are a nerd.”
“I’m not a nerd. Eliza’s a nerd.”
“Actually, I think Eliza’s a geek. I’ve seen her grades. Compared to us, she’s horrible at school.”
“You’re a nerd for knowing the difference.”
“That’s fine.”
Sully makes no sound, but I can feel him fuming in the darkness. I didn’t know Church could get under Sully’s skin so easily. I didn’t know Sully liked math. I didn’t know either of them were that good at school. I didn’t know Church already knew he was good at singing . . . or that he was interested in musical theater.