Cole marches back, chest puffed out in pride, with three cups of punch for him, me, and Wallace. Megan has a no-spill water bottle that the toddler knocks over every ten seconds. I nurse the punch close against my chest and hunker down in my seat while the five of them talk. I am better this way, unseen and unheard, hidden in Wallace’s bulky shadow. Some of the other Monstrous Sea fans have migrated away from our table, so I turn my face to the empty space beside me whenever I need to breathe.
I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for myself, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think:
I am here. I am okay.
Then I let myself listen in on the conversation again, and slowly slip back into it.
It is amazing how much you can learn when you keep your mouth shut. In half an hour, I know that Cole is a high-school sophomore, a rising baseball star who keeps his love of Monstrous Sea a secret to ward off any unwanted questions about his potency on the diamond; Leece is the biggest collector of Monstrous Sea merchandise probably anywhere, and is a world-class gymnast living in Colorado who uses the comic as her go-to relaxation therapy; Chandra’s across the Atlantic, in India, and though her parents don’t entirely approve of the subject matter of her drawings—most of which involve different Monstrous Sea characters embracing in one fashion or another—she sees it as a way of life; and Megan lives a few towns away and is a single mother to the toddler, Hazel, and she works one job as an office assistant during the day and the graveyard shift at the Blue Lane Bowling Alley at night.
Megan was into Monstrous Sea first, Wallace tells me, and she got Cole into it, and that was how he and I met. Then we found Leece and Chandra and took our Angel personas, and the rest is history.
Every once in a while they ask something about me. Friendly questions. How old am I? How did I meet Wallace? What do I do for fun besides read Monstrous Sea? I do my best to answer them, not just for Wallace’s sake, but a little bit for my own too.
These are not enemies. They’re not going to make fun of me for what I like or how I spend my time. They may not be my friends, but they are my people, and just because they’re not behind a screen doesn’t mean they’re not worth talking to.
Still. I miss my quiet bedroom and Davy and my computer. What’s going on with Dog Days right now? Are people missing LadyConstellation in the chat?
When sushi-suit girl calls up entrants to show off their costumes, Cole manages to pull Wallace out of his seat to stand awkwardly out there, but I refuse when my name is called.
“It’s just for a second,” Cole says, motioning me out with his hands. “Come on. Just a second.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t really want to.”
Wallace gently pushes Cole out of the way so he can get back to his seat and grab his phone.
If she doesn’t want to, don’t make her do it.
Cole sighs so overdramatically he must be joking, then turns to tell sushi girl I won’t be participating after all. A few more people from other groups around the room go up. There’s a panel of teenaged judges stationed behind one short bookcase like it’s a desk, and at the very end they get together to deliberate before they announce one of the Hogwarts students as the winner.
“Oh, come on!” Cole cries. “The Harry Potter people always win! They’ve had like twelve years to put their costumes together!”
“I’ve done my waiting,” Megan says to Hazel, pulling up the little girl’s arms. “Twelve years of it! In Azkaban!”
Cole and Wallace tear through most of the food on the table, which I guess means we’re not going to get sushi after all. By nine thirty, Leece and Chandra have both signed off and Cole has packed up his computer, and Hazel is fast asleep against Megan’s shoulder.
“Time for us to go, I think,” Megan says. “It was nice seeing all of you again. We’ll have to get together soon. We could plan a Monstrous Sea meet-up.”
Wallace gives Megan an awkward side-armed hug good-bye. When she pushes her way through the bookshop doors, she lets in a blast of chilly October air.
“I should probably go too,” Cole says, scrubbing at his hair and disheveling it even more.
I thought your curfew was eleven? Wallace texts.
“Nah, Mom moved it back to ten when I broke it two weeks ago. What’s that look for? I just forgot how late I was out! You know how it is when you’re at a girl’s house!”
Wallace rolls his eyes.
“Look,” Cole says, leaning on the edge of the table so he can stare Wallace in the eye. “That new school has got to be better than the old one. It has to be. Right? Things have died down, but you’re better off there.”
Wallace shrugs. Cole claps him on the shoulder. Then it’s me and Wallace in a rapidly emptying bookstore. Why would Westcliff be better than his last school? I don’t dare ask, at least not right now. All I want right now is to get out of here.
You up for that sushi?
“You still want to get it?” I ask. “You just ate all this food.”
He smiles. You obviously haven’t been paying attention to my lunches. If you say eat, I shall eat. And I can eat a ton right now. So, sushi?
“Yes, please sushi.”
We push through the door, and the cold air tears through my costume. We hurry to Wallace’s car; I jump into the passenger seat while he throws his wig and scarf in the back, cranks the heater, and sets off for the sushi place he knows.
“Why do you know so many more places to go around here than I do?” I say. “You haven’t been here that long.”
He shrugs, still smiling. When we get to the restaurant, the glowing sign above the door says SUSHI.
“Is this minimalist, or could they not think of a name?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Wallace admits. It’s nice to hear his voice again. “Honestly, it could be either one.”
It’s late enough that the dinner crowd is dying down, and the post-trick-or-treating stoner crowd hasn’t shown up yet. The inside of this vaguely named place is actually very clean and chic. The hostess seats Wallace and me in a booth, and the walls behind the seats rise up to hide us from our neighbors.
“Fridays are half-price night too,” he says, looking eagerly through the menu. “What do you usually get?”
“Um.” I hate telling things like this to people. “Just California and Philadelphia rolls.” I know exactly what people think about stuff like this: “Do you even like sushi?” “You just get the boring rolls. You’re not even eating the good stuff.” “Wow, you’re boring. What is even the point of you?” “Be more interesting.”
“Oh, that’s an awesome idea,” Wallace says, still looking at the menu. “Keep it simple. I could eat a whole table of Philly rolls right now.”
We order as soon as the waiter brings our hot towels. I wrap mine around my cold hands and melt into my seat. My family always says I have cold hands, but I don’t notice until something warms them up.
“Was the party okay?” Wallace asks. “I’m glad you were able to go.”
“Able to go,” meaning “barely beat doubt back into its corner,” so I guess he’s right with that.
“Yeah. It was . . . it was fun.”
Wallace, who has been staring at his hands, glances up. “Really? You didn’t say much.”
“I usually don’t.”
“You talk a lot at school.”
I smile. “I write a lot at school. And I didn’t do that, either, before you showed up.”
He hesitates. “How come?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t like it.”
“You’re not super into school, are you?”
“Not really, no.”
“I’m not, either.” He looks down at the table again. “It feels like I already know what I want to do, and school is wasting my time. Like they assume we don’t know what we want to do, so they make us keep doing everything. I can’t wait to leave.”
“Right?” The force of my voice shocks even me. Wallace looks up again. “I . . . I mean—yes, it’s exhausting. I keep telling my parents that. I just want to focus on art, and I’ll probably get into college, so why does the rest of senior year even matter?”
“It’s stupid, right?”
“So stupid.”
He leans back in his seat. “Thank god. I thought I had cabin fever or something.”
“High school fever.”
“High school fever: like The Shining, but with teenagers.”
I laugh. Wallace smiles. The waiter brings us our sushi, and happiness trickles from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. Part of me knows it’s silly to be happy that someone finally gets it. My parents get it. They know I don’t like school and I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m sure most of my teachers know that too. They know I care about my art more than any homework, or sporting event, or dance. They might even get that it’s easier to be online, though I doubt that one.
But Wallace is the first person I’ve met who gets all of it.
Sometimes, when Amity woke from her rebirth dreams, in the long minutes she spent watching Faren sleep, she imagined what it would be like if she had never accepted the Watcher’s offer.
Faren would be dead.
Maybe she would be too.
The Watcher would have no host, and the Nocturnians would wait patiently until it did.