In the bathroom, attempts to remove the glitter fail. All I manage to do is fill a sink with gold glitter dandruff and get a few other girls to give me strange looks, like I did it to myself. All hope of happiness and a bright future dies.
I walk outside at the end of the day to a gloomy sky, a sharp breeze, and lines of cars vying to leave the parking lot. In a few hours everyone will be back here for the football game, crammed together in the stadium behind the school, shouting their support to the chilled night air and huddled together with their friends. There will be class floats paraded around the perimeter of the football field. There will be a moment of silence and a short memorial for the band members who went off Wellhouse Turn last summer. There will be football jerseys and parties and revelry deep into the night.
I rearrange my backpack on my shoulders and hold my sketchbook in both hands. There are too many cars. I bet college doesn’t have parking issues like this. I bet college is great.
I turn and find Wallace sitting on that same bench again. He has sat there every day this week. I found out yesterday that his last name is Warland, which seems appropriate for someone of his size and stature. Capable of inflicting destruction wherever he goes.
Today, Wallace Warland is not alone. Flanking him are Travis Stone and Deshawn Johnson, forever and always the bane of my existence. Running into my long-forgotten friends once a day is bad enough—twice is asking for trouble. Deshawn stands by the bench with his arms crossed, and Travis lounges beside Wallace like they’re old buddies. Wallace sits stiffly, with his hands covering the papers he’s always writing on, his eyes stuck on the sidewalk somewhere to the left of Deshawn’s shoes.
Wallace did not strike me as the kind of person to begin a friendship with the likes of Travis Stone, at least not High-School-Dickbag Travis Stone. Curiosity makes my feet inch a little closer, pretending I’m debating going to my car. I pull out my phone and stare at the black screen.
“. . . must have typed this. No one can write that good. What is this again?”
Travis tries to take one of the papers. Wallace clamps his hand down.
“What’d you call it? Fan . . . fan . . .”
“Fanfiction,” Deshawn says.
No way in the nine circles of hell. No way is Wallace Warland writing fanfiction. Fanfiction of what? What does Wallace Warland enjoy so much he writes fanfiction about it? Can you have fanfiction about professional sports teams?
“Lemme see.” Travis tries to take the paper again, which makes Wallace lock down tighter.
“I think it’s for that online thing,” Deshawn says, peering down at the paper. “That sea thing.”
All the hair on the back of my neck prickles. My heart rate ratchets upward. They are not talking about Monstrous Sea.
Wallace Warland cannot write Monstrous Sea fanfiction.
“Leave him alone.” I’ve spun and headed toward them before I can stop myself. My voice comes up from some black reserve of courage inside me, a place usually saved for speech class, or going to the dentist on my own. My face crumples in on itself; my legs shake. My heart beats like I just sprinted a mile.
Travis and Deshawn both turn to me and smile—well, Deshawn doesn’t really smile, and all of Travis’s smiles look like leers. God, I remember when those smiles used to be nice. Wallace stares at me, expression unreadable. Does he realize how futile this is? Maybe I can at least give him a few seconds to run. The only thing I can’t do is stand idly by while a fan—if not a fan of Monstrous Sea, then definitely a fan of something—gets ridiculed for what he likes. LadyConstellation wouldn’t stand for that, and for this exact moment now, neither do I.
Travis fakes surprise. “Oh my god, Murky can actually speak.”
We’ve been in school together since the second grade. He knows I can speak fine, unlike some of our other classmates, who believe I am an actual mute.
“Leave him alone, Travis.” My voice is already too weak for this. Emergency courage reserves depleted.
“Why’re you standing up for him, Murky? Does someone have a crush?”
My face flames instantly. I press the edge of my sketchbook into my thighs. I know this is his go-to to make a girl either stop talking or get so flustered she can’t make a rational argument. He started using it in middle school, when I became too weird for anyone to hang out with. If I can push through it, maybe I’ll knock him off his game.
“No. Shut up,” I warble. “I just—you . . . let him write what he wants. Whatever it is, it’s none of your business.”
“None of my business? I’m not trying to hate on him for it, Murky, I just want to read it! What’s your problem?”
“He obviously doesn’t want you to read it!”
Wallace stares at me the whole time I’m saying this, and heat seeps into my ears too. So I’m distracted when Deshawn slips my sketchbook out of my hands.
“Hey!”
I reach for it, but he backpedals away, opening it up to look at the pictures. Some of the loose pages flutter in the cold breeze but don’t come free of the pages.
“Whoa, these are really good,” Deshawn says. “Trav, I think she’s into the sea thing too.”
He snaps the book closed and Frisbees it over my head, out of the reach of my fingers when I jump for it, to Travis, who has stood up off the bench. Travis grabs it out of the air, sending a few of the loose pages sailing off into the wind, and opens it up.
“Oh, this is why you stood up for him. You guys like the same thing!”
“Give it back!” No one is supposed to look in that sketchbook. It’s the one I bring to school, so it’s safer than some of the others I have, but there are still Monstrous Sea things in there—like unfinished comic pages—and it might give away who I am. Plus I just don’t like the idea of Travis Stone’s goopy eyes on the things I’ve drawn. I didn’t let him see my drawings even when we were friends, and I’m not going to start now. I rush at Travis to get it back, but he tosses it to Deshawn.
I won’t be caught in a game of monkey in the middle. Not as a senior in high school. I won’t. But Deshawn stands there holding it, rifling through the pages, and he won’t move until I do. Tears blur my vision. Great. Now I’m crying too. Let’s make the situation worse. I ball my hands into fists and move toward Deshawn. As soon as I get close enough, he laughs and throws the sketchbook back.