get my lunch and find my seat in the courtyard. The grass is curled and brown. Dead leaves skitter over concrete in the stiff breeze. When I sit at my usual picnic table in the corner, the bench freezes my butt through my jeans. This seems too cold for October in Indiana, but maybe I’m not as acclimated to temperature changes as I used to be. I don’t spend much time outside anymore.
I’ll take the cold if it means I’m alone out here, though. I check my phone to find one response from Emmy—IN LOVE WITH YOU E—probably when she was between classes. I roll my eyes, then pull my headphones and sketchbook out of my bag. The headphones go in the phone to put on some music—Pendulum, of course, the only music for Monstrous Sea action scenes—and the sketchbook falls open to a fresh page. Finally, some uninterrupted drawing time. I jam a few french fries in my mouth and start sketching out a rough idea of the next page.
Last week wasn’t quite a full chapter week; I only made four pages, but they were an awesome four pages. I got to introduce the giant animal-headed mechas that the Haigans, the desert dwellers, use to fight in the Battle of Sands. I love the mechas, but they take forever to draw, and if I put less detail into them I’d feel like I’m letting down the great anime mecha artists. The battle’s going to go on for at least two more chapters, max four, and that means a lot of panels involving giant fighting robots.
I want to roll in pictures of highly detailed mechas.
I feel around for my lunch tray to grab another handful of fries and instead touch the edge of a paper hanging in the air.
Reflexively, I snap the sketchbook shut and rip my headphones out in the same motion. Wallace stands in front of me, holding the same piece of paper. My heart races in my chest; my neck twinges from how fast my head whipped up to look at him. He’s frozen, eyes wide, like I caught him in the middle of something. He withdraws the paper a little, then holds it out again. In his other hand is a lunch tray.
The only noise comes from the leaves tap dancing across the ground and “Propane Nightmares” blasting from my headphones.
I take the paper. There’s the last thing I wrote earlier—Were you writing MS fanfiction?—and below that, his response—Yes. Then on the next line, in pencil instead of pen, Can I sit here?
I’m sweating again. Dammit. Also I just realized I ripped the paper out of his hands, and now it shakes because I’m shaking. He doesn’t think we’re friends because I told Travis and Deshawn to stop picking on him, does he? Because we’re definitely not. Does he think he owes me something?
I use my drawing pencil and write. Can you talk?
He takes the paper back, reads it, then puts it on the empty half of his tray to write. He hands it back.
Yes. Sometimes. Is this weird?
Weird? Yes. Bad? Depends.
You can sit down.
I move my sketchbook, backpack, and phone so he can set his tray down across from me. He really does look like he should be a football player—he has to fold his legs into the little picnic table bench, his shoulders hunched so his elbows reach the table—and he eats like a football player too. Two hamburgers, two french fries, two cartons of milk, and a Drumstick. His nose is crooked like it’s been broken, and his cheeks are red from the cold.
When our eyes meet, he smiles a little. Just a little. He holds the paper down with one huge hand and curls the other around his pencil to carefully spell out something new. His lips move as he writes, like he’s sounding out the words as he puts them down.
Thanks. I know Mrs. Grier already introduced us, but I’m Wallace. I write fanfiction about Monstrous Sea. It’s kind of hard to make friends when you switch schools partway through senior year.
Probably also hard when you don’t talk, I write back. I’m Eliza.
He eats with one hand and writes with the other.
Hi, Eliza. Yes, also the talking.
What kind of fanfiction were you working on?
He looks up after he reads that, then looks back down, then taps his pencil on the paper. Right now I’m working on transcribing the comic into prose form. Into books.
Books? I’ve thought of doing that myself—and I