Eliza and Her Monsters - Francesca Zappia Page 0,81
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 big Monstrous Sea is, 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’s awesome. 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 want my ending, Eliza. They want yours. 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.”
“You have to finish, Eliza.”
“I can’t even touch a pencil right now. You’ve had that before, haven’t you? Where you can’t do anything because nothing’s flowing, nothing’s coming out, like your head is empty—”
“You have to finish.” His voice is hard. I wish I’d kept my pillow as a shield. “I’m never going to get a chance like this again. If this doesn’t happen, it’s going to be four more years of doing what other people tell me to do. Maybe longer than that. I can’t anymore. Please, Eliza. It’s only a few chapters, just push through and finish it.”
He doesn’t get it. Or he doesn’t want to.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Why not?”
“There’s . . . there’s nothing there.”
“Why not? There doesn’t have to be anything there. Artists create when they have no motivation all the time. If I could do it for you, I would—I would kill to write something without motivation if it meant I got to make what I wanted later.”
I have never had that problem. I have never been forced to make anything. I don’t understand how that works.
“I can’t.”
He pushes himself off the bed. His hands scrape through his hair, then ball into thick fists at his sides. A muscle jumps in his jaw. He looks around, scanning the empty walls, the empty desk, the silent computer. “You have a perfect life,” he says, “and you can’t draw a couple of chapters.”
“My life isn’t perfect,” I say.
“You made this awesome thing that millions of people love and adore you for. Everyone knows what you’ve done. They recognize your talent. You don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay for college, or get a real job, or figure out what you’re supposed to be doing with your life. You don’t have anyone telling you what to do or who to be. All you have to do is draw a few more pages. That’s it. It’ll take you, what, a week or two at most? So please, Eliza, draw the pages.”
When I can’t come up with any words, I shake my head.
Wallace turns and leaves. His footsteps clomp back down the stairs. The front