I shake my head. He can’t know, of course, that I’m not nervous about people rejecting them, but about someone linking anything I post as MirkerLurker to LadyConstellation. Plus, I don’t know, these pictures are for me. They’re concepts, half-formed thoughts. They’re not polished and ready for the world, and I don’t want anyone to see them. I’m half convinced the only reason Monstrous Sea has done so well is because I’m a stickler for perfect pages. Plot, lines, colors, characters. My fans deserve the best-quality work I can give them. I know that’s not the whole reason, but it’s got to be at least part.
“Okay.” He hands the other pictures back to me and keeps the one of Kite Waters. Smiles at it again. “Thank you. Do you mind if I show this to Cole and Megan and the others? They won’t share it if I ask them not to, but this is just so cool—I have to show it to someone who gets it.”
“Sure, I guess.” If Wallace says they won’t share it, then I believe him. They’re nice people, anyway. Even I can tell that much.
The buses begin pulling around the middle school to line up for the end of the day.
“Guess I should go back to my car so my brothers can find me.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
We head toward my car, parked at the far end of the tennis courts.
“Doesn’t your sister usually pick you up?”
“Yeah, my stepsister,” he says. “But I have a younger sister who goes here, and my stepsister picks her up too. So Bren said she’d get me when she gets Lucy.”
“Bren and Lucy?”
“Yeah. Yours?”
“Sully and Church.”
“Those are short for . . . ?”
“Sullivan and Churchill. Ed Sullivan, Winston Churchill. Never asked my parents why, never going to ask them why. Just glad I got a normal name.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“I never asked why my parents named me Wallace.”
“Why don’t you ask them when you get home?”
He looks down, picks at his ear. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
His voice gets quieter. “Both my parents are, uh . . . are gone.”
Gone? Does that mean dead? Or absent? Not knowing exactly what “gone” means makes a strange hollow in my stomach, reminding me I don’t know as much about him as I thought.
“Oh.” Heat floods my face. “Oh, sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It’s okay. My family is kind of weird. Two stepparents, one stepsister, one half sister. They’re all really nice, though. I guess I shouldn’t call Vee my stepmom anymore; she was technically my legal guardian. But I’m eighteen, so maybe it doesn’t matter. . . .”
I’ve never known anyone in real life with stepparents. The fact hits me after several seconds’ delay, followed immediately by a hot wash of shame. I complain about my family all the time—in my head, to Max and Emmy, even a few times to Wallace, in little messages through the forums, or in quick, throwaway sentences in our paper conversations at school. I assumed his family was the same way. I never thought about the fact that while my family bugs the shit out of me, they are my family, my flesh and blood, still working as a whole unit.
Not that his isn’t. He could love his family as much as I love mine. Maybe more, because he never complains about them.
God, I don’t know anything.
We reach my car. The doors of the school fly open and thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds spill out, speed-walking to their buses. Wallace waits by my car with me in semi-awkward silence until we see the brown-haired heads of my two brothers charging toward us.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says.
“See you,” I say.
He heads off toward the front of the school, where his younger sister no doubt waits. Sully and Church reach me, backs bent with the weight of their bags, their sports gear already in hand. They’re talking about some fight that broke out in the cafeteria today, not paying attention to me as they jump into the car and buckle themselves in. I wait at least a full minute to see if they notice they’re not moving, then get into the driver’s seat.
“What took you so long?” Sully says.
I shrug, and turn on the car.
Monstrous Sea Private Message
9:36 p.m. 17 - Nov -16
MirkerLurker: Why is Dallas your favorite Monstrous Sea character?
rainmaker: Because he never gives up, even after all the bad things that have happened to him.
MirkerLurker: You don’t think he’s broken? Most people think he’s broken.
rainmaker: I think he’s strange, but anyone would be after years of torture and exile. He’s doing the best he can. People literally hunt him down, and he still tries to help Amity and Damien understand what the Scarecrow and the Watcher are, where they came from, and why they exist. He becomes Amity’s best friend, even though everyone thinks he’s incapable of friendship. He’s arguably the most powerful character in the series, but he would never use that for revenge or personal gain.
rainmaker: Plus he’s funny. He’s technically older than most of the other characters, but as soon as he gets to Risht he starts dismantling metal trees like a little kid with a new toy.
MirkerLurker: Aw, I like him for that too.
rainmaker: Izzy’s your favorite, right?
MirkerLurker: Yeah, most of the time.
rainmaker: Most of the time?
MirkerLurker: I like all the characters, but usually Izzy is the one I like the most.
rainmaker: Why?
MirkerLurker: Because he was a scaredy-cat. Or . . . because his character arc wasn’t that he stopped being a scaredy-cat, but that he learned to act in spite of his fear. He had to. He had to overcome his fear of being married to Ana, his fear of being a ruler, his fear of raising children, his fear of the Alliance, and the idea that he had no power. He never stops being scared, but he doesn’t let it stop him from doing what he has to do.
rainmaker: Very good, very good. However, I see you have forgotten to mention a silly reason for liking him.
MirkerLurker: Haha it’s his glasses, obviously! The irony that the king of the city of advanced technology won’t get ocular implants because he’s terrified to put things in his eyes.
rainmaker: Weird, I didn’t know you had such a thing for timid guys.
MirkerLurker: Really does it for me when a guy is paralyzed with fear on a regular basis.
rainmaker: Aw. Sad.
MirkerLurker: What’s sad?
rainmaker: That it would never work between us. I’m too courageous.
CHAPTER 16
If there’s one thing my parents like more than sports, it’s family togetherness. Board games, movie nights, vacations. The rest of the year is off-season training; the holidays are in-season, practice every day, games twice a week.