He frowns at me.
“And at school?”
I explain it to him. I don’t know if he understands, but he listens.
“I don’t want to go back,” I say. “I know it’ll happen again. Even when I’m alone, I don’t feel alone, because it’s like people on the internet are watching me. At school it’s worse because I canseethem.”
“They don’t hate you,” he says. “Most of them are fans, actually. Or people who think it’s cool that you’re kind of famous.”
“It doesn’t make a difference. I’ve read all the messages. It’s like I can’t hold it all inside me at once. Good or bad.”
“Have you been on the forums?”
“Not since last week. I don’t really want to go near my computer anymore.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Neither would I.”
That confirms it, then. Things have been as awful since I stopped looking at them. Big news tends to blow itself out quickly on the internet; everyone’s up in arms about it for a day or three, and then it’s on to the next thing. So if the LadyConstellation reveal is still news a week after it became public knowledge, they’re not going to let it go.
“What do you think they’ll do when the pages don’t go up this week?” I ask. “Or next week?”
“You’re not putting pages up?”
I shake my head. “I have a few in reserve, but I haven’t drawn since last week. Since before. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t even want to hold a pencil.”
“Are you going to put them up eventually?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
There’s a hitch in his breathing. He looks at me, at his hands, back at me. There’s something about his stillness. A nervousness, an uncertainty. “I have to tell you something.” His voice is louder than usual, like he’s forcing the words out. “A day before this happened, before the graduation issue, I got an email from a publisher. They found the transcription. They’re excited about how bigMonstrous Seais, and they want to be the ones to publish it in novel form.”
“They want to publish yours?”
He nods. I swipe my sleeve over my eyes. “That’s great. That’sawesome. That’s a book deal.”
“They said they would need permission to publish it, though. From the creator.”
“Of course,” I say, scrambling over myself to get the words out. This is the very least I can do for him after all of this garbage. It doesn’t matter anymore if my name gets out. “Of course you can have permission. Always. Just tell me where to sign.”
But he doesn’t look happy. He stares at me like I’ve missed some great point. “They don’t want it until they know how it ends.”
“So write the ending,” I say.
“They don’t wantmyending, Eliza. They wantyours. It won’t be right if it’s not yours.”
“I could tell you how it ends and you could—”
“They. Want. Yours.”
“They aren’t going to take it if the comic isn’t finished?”
He keeps staring at me. My stomach goes cold. “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “It’s still a good story—people will buy it—”
“You have to finish.” There’s a sternness to his voice I’ve never heard before.
“I can’t.”
“Youhave to finish, Eliza.”
