I shove myself out of my seat, knock Mrs. Grier over, and reach Wallace in time to rip the newspaper out of his hands.
“Don’t read it!”
I hold it to my chest, panting, unable to get enough air. Heads turn. Look up from their papers. Wallace stares at me. Confusion and possibly fear flit over his face.
“Don’t—don’t read it,” I say again. Several people are already flipping through pages at their desks, looking for mine. Wallace looks at them, at me, at the paper. Then he reaches for another one. I try to stop him, but his big hand grabs first one wrist and then the other, holding me off like I’m a child. He spreads thenewspaper out on the table and flips it open.
“No—Wallace, don’t read it—please, please don’t read it—”
I press against his arm, trying to push him away from the table, the papers, but he’s sosolid. I whisper now. The others can’t hear me beg like this. Wallace’s brow furrows as he finds my picture, my paragraph, and begins reading. True dread squeezes around me like a second, larger hand. I know when he reaches the end because the color drains from his face like someone chopped off his head and let the blood run out. He looks at me. Jabs a finger on the paper hard enough to crinkle the page. Jabs it again. Pointing.Is it true. Is it true, is it true.
“I wanted to tell you.” I can’t even tell if sound is coming out anymore. “I wanted to tell you, I did, but I didn’t know how—”
He drops my wrists like they’re poisonous, steps back, then turns and walks out of the room. I try to follow him, but Mrs. Grier’s hand lands on my shoulder. She says something. I shrug her off. Someone from the back of the room says, “Holy shit, you madeMonstrous Sea?”
I stumble into the hallway. Wallace is gone. The floor sways back and forth, and blackness creeps on the edges of my vision.
After a moment or two, it passes.
At least, it seems like a moment or two. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe half an hour, because by the time I snap out of it, the bell is ringing and students pour into the hallways.
I wander to first period without my backpack.
With each passing class, more and more stares find me in the hallway. People talk, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I don’t see Wallace again, which is some kind of feat considering his size. My body is a teacup and all my organs have been stuffed inside. Must be my allergies. It is spring, after all.
Wallace will have to talk to me at lunch. He wouldn’t sit without me at lunch.
I hang on the fringes of the herd of students surging for the cafeteria and let them pull me through the doors. On the other side I fall away like a leaf flung out on a stray current. I stand for a moment, unsure of the cafeteria’s exact orientation, then stagger toward the lunch lines. If I can get some food and find Wallace, it will be okay.
A body steps in front of me. Tall. Deshawn Johnson. He’s holding something out. A folded paper. My hand reaches out to take it like this is some kind of dream and my body is responding without my permission. I unfold the paper.
It’s my drawing. The one Travis stole in October.
“... really sorry,” Deshawn says. “Travis was being an asshole ... meant to give it back sooner, but never got the chance ... it’s really cool that you drawMonstrous Sea... my brother got me into it—”
I might throw up on his shoes if I stand here any longer, so I stumble past him. Wallace has to be here somewhere. At our table.Obviously. By the windows. I look. He’s not there.
I get in line and stare at the purse of the girl in front of me. I don’t know what I put on my tray until I get to the end, and the lunch lady rings me up for two bowls of tomato soup, a vegetable tray, a handful of mustard packets, and a Drumstick. The Drumstick is for Wallace. Wallace loves Drumsticks.
I wander out of the lines and look at the table again. He’s still not there. I scan the cafeteria. He’s not in any of the lines. Not at the tables near the door, or by the wall. Is he in the courtyard? It’s too cold for that today.
Heads turn. Eyes watch me. So many eyes. I head toward our table. The world tips again. It’s like I’m a mustard packet and some baby’s hand is squeezing all the condiment out of me. Squeezing my heart, my lungs, squeezing my eyes so my vision narrows to a little point in front of me. Hair sticks to my face. One of the bowls of tomato soup falls off my tray and splatters the white tile floor.
Someone calls my name. I think.
They might have said LadyConstellation.
I walk through the soup. Where is he? He should be here.
Have I gotten this week’sMonstrous Seapages done? I can’t remember. I must have. I’m so ahead.
Mom and Dad really shouldn’t have written that about me in the paper.
It is sohotin here. Why is it so hot?
I am going to die if my lungs don’t get out of this teacup.
Where is Wallace?
