“Yes.”
It becomes the big smile. He lowers his head and drags both hands through his hair. I throw my arms up over me and hide myself in his blanket. Too much, too much, out of control. A moment later his chest presses against my back and his arms wrap around me and his legs box me in on either side. The weight of his head falls on my shoulder.
A moment of silence passes. The world doesn’t fall apart. I lower the blanket and twist in his arms, and he lets me, and then we’re facing.
I don’t want to be the girl who freezes when confronted with new friends, or the outside world, or the smallest shred of intimacy. I don’t want to be alone in a room all the time. I don’t want to feel alone in a room all the time, even when there are other people around.
I lift the blanket open so Wallace can come inside, and when he’s holding me again, I lay my arms over his shoulders and trap us both in the warmth. He lets out a contented sigh.
I become acutely aware of my limbs, how quickly I breathe, and every twitch of my lips and my fingers. It helps me stop thinking about what I’m doing wrong. It’s not too much. I’m not out of control.
I’m here. He’s here.
CHAPTER 23
I say good-bye to the Keelers—and Lucy, who is technically a Warland—before I leave. They’re all grouped in the living room, Lucy tucked under Tim’s arm on the couch next to Bren, Vee with reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, squinting at the television as she looks for a channel they can all watch. Wallace walks me out to my car. I think he might pull the surprise kiss then, but he doesn’t.
“I’m glad you came,” he says, squeezing my hand. Then he tugs me closer, into a hug.
“I’m glad you asked me,” I say, locking my arms around him. The muscles along his ribs expand and contract with his breathing. My nose brushes his neck, and he shivers. “I should probably go,” I say.
“Okay.”
I get in my car. As I pull out of the driveway, Wallace leans against the back bumper of his car with his hands in his pockets, his breath puffing fog in the air, and watches me drive away.
When I get home that night, I try to skirt past the living room where Mom and Dad are bundled up and watching their number one favorite movie of all time, Miracle. It’s the movie they watch on every date night, birthday, holiday, and anniversary. If it hadn’t come out six years after I was born, I would’ve thought they were watching it while I was conceived. Still, their dedication to this crowning jewel of sports cinema does nothing to hamper their parent senses. The minute I pass the doorframe, Mom whips around.
“How was it?”
“Good,” I snap. “Fine. I’m going upstairs.”
“Why don’t you come in here and tell us about it? We’d like to know about his family. And you can watch Miracle!”
“No thanks.” I start up the stairs.
“Oh, Eliza, please don’t go get on that computer! Stay down here and talk to us.”
“I have work to do.” I reach the top of the stairs and hurry into my room before either of them can punch holes in my happy bubble. I don’t want to watch Miracle for the billionth time—spoiler alert, we beat the Russians—and I don’t want to talk to them about Wallace. It’s bad enough that Mom made me go to that doctor’s appointment; who knows what she’ll do if I tell her we’re actually going out now.
I shut myself in my room, ignoring the music blasting from Church and Sully’s bedroom, and check my phone. Neither Emmy nor Max have responded to my texts yet, but that’s fine. It’s a Friday night—they’ll see them in the morning. I pull out my sketchbook and flip through my Monstrous Sea drawings. I scan three of them into the computer. One of a sunset riser bursting out of a dark ocean, water pinwheeling off its sharp spines; one of Damien looking up at the sky with stars reflected in his eyes; and one of Amity balancing atop a sharp crystal pillar, framed by the sun. I log in to the forums with my MirkerLurker account, find the fan art subforums, and start a new thread.
All three pictures go up. I close the browser before anyone can respond, and throw myself into bed with my clothes still on.
CHAPTER 24
The next morning, I wake to twenty-two messages from Emmy and Max. Separately. And none of them are about me being nervous over eating dinner at Wallace’s house last night.
emmersmacks: Are you feeling okay??
emmersmacks: None of the pages went up
emmersmacks: E???
emmersmacks: Did you just forget or . . . ??
Apocalypse_Cow: hey so i know you’re having fun with sweet cheeks mcdimples, but people are kinda getting antsy.
Apocalypse_Cow: no pages.
Apocalypse_Cow: you feeling okay?
They go on. I throw off my covers and fall over to the computer. Type my password wrong twice for the computer and once for the forums.
LadyConstellation has thirty new private messages from forum admins asking where the new pages are. And the forums themselves—the top post in almost every subforum is someone asking if there’s an issue with the website, or something wrong with LadyConstellation, or if the pages are late.
I skip over to the website itself, where the pages go up. The latest post is still the last page from last week.
But I scheduled the post to go up. I know I did. I check the settings and there it is—in the drafts. Unpublished. I click the post button so hard my mouse flies out from beneath my hand and hits the wall.
In three years, I have never posted late. Reliability is what I sell to my fans, and they are happy to buy it.
I bring up a new forum post.
LadyConstellation:
Hey everyone—sorry about the missing post last night. Something went wrong and it didn’t get scheduled. It’s up now!
Replies flood in.
Yay!
Only one page?
Whoo!! Finally!!
How much can go wrong with post scheduling?
Just glad you’re not dead.
Fuckin’ about time. Man, a lot of work to post one page, huh?
I close the browser and swivel away from the computer, curling up in my chair and holding my head in my hands. It’s fine. It was only a few hours. As long as I get the pages in on time from now on, everything is fine.
Don’t look at the comments. Never look at the comments.
“You feeling okay, Eggs?”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine.”
“You haven’t come out of your room yet this morning. Your mom and I were getting worried.”
“I was asleep.”
“Well, Wallace is here. He says you’re supposed to go to Murphy’s.”
“Oh. Um.”
“Is it that time of the month? Do you want me to tell him you can’t go?”
“I—God, no! I’ll be down in a second. Jesus.”
Wallace sits in the living room playing video games with my brothers. He’s wedged between them, silent and focused on the TV, while Sully and Church yell at each other over his head. Then something happens, and they both groan, and Wallace smiles.