I sit at my desk with a sheet of blank paper and my pencil. The pencil is next to the paper, aligned parallel with the short bottom edge. I stare at the pencil. The pencil stares back.
A few chapters. The end. I don’t know the details, but I have a vague idea of what’s going to happen. It can’t be that hard.
Blank pages are supposed to be an invitation. A challenge, even. Here is your canvas—how creative can you be? What limits can you stretch to bring to life that creature in your head? A blank piece of paper is infinite possibilities.
Now when I look at it, all I see is an abyss. Where ideas and excitement used to spring up inside me, now there’s a granite block. Huge, immovable, and so cold it makes my limbs go numb. Looking at paper only reminds me that I’m not strong enough to shift it.
I have to try. For Wallace, I have to try.
I reach for the pencil. My hand stalls, my fingers curling in, my wrist dropping until it rests on the edge of the desk. It’s not going to look right, though. The characters. The scenery.
People will know. They’ll know it’s wrong. I’ll have to put the pages up online because the publisher won’t take Wallace’s transcription until the story is complete, and all the readers who have been circling the boards all this time will know that the panels aren’t as good as they could be. The art isn’t as good, and the characters aren’t as good, and the story isn’t as good.
And when they know that, they’ll know where to find me and how to find me and they’ll be able to question me directly. Some of them probably at school.
What if they send me mail?
What if they come to my house?
What if they start talking about me the way they talk about Olivia Kane? Hermit Eliza ran to a cave in the mountains and chases people off her property with a shotgun. Sets booby traps for her own fans. She drew so many monsters that she became a monster herself.
I realize I’m gripping the edge of the desk so hard my nails have left shallow grooves in the wood, and I let go. I force myself to breathe, to shove all other thoughts to the back of my mind, and think of Wallace. Wallace will have a book deal. Wallace will be able to use that money to pay for college, and he’ll be able to major in what he really likes. Wallace won’t have to worry about appeasing Tim, or falling into a job that makes him hate himself.
I have to try.
I reach for the pencil again. Pick it up. A shock races up my arm, raising the hairs on my head, sending ripples of disgust through my muscles. I grip the pencil tighter only so I don’t toss it away. The first line I draw is lopsided. I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. The edge of a panel? A plane in a character’s face?
Where in the story am I? I don’t remember anymore.
I press my hands to my forehead. My chest tightens and tightens and tightens. This used to come so easily to me. Monstrous Sea has never been difficult. Even when I wasn’t sure where I wanted the story to go, I could just start drawing and it would eventually spill out. Now there’s nothing but aching panic. Panic because there’s nothing. Because even though I know it’s silly to think so, because I know everyone would call me ridiculous for it, I feel like something terrible is going to happen to Wallace if I don’t finish.
I don’t know exactly what, or how. All I know is dread rising in my throat.
I try to start again. Anything. Faces. Eyes. Clothing. Nothing comes out right. It’s too dark, then too light, then skewed to the left. The proportions are off. The lines are shaky. The weight is in all the wrong places.
The pencil ends its life in two halves, one behind my monitor, the other jammed into the space between the desk and the wall. I shove over to the other side of my desk, wake my computer, and Google “Olivia Kane disappearance.” The results are all speculation from online news, fan forums, and social media. Cole’s cave-and-shotgun theory is near the top. Other people think Olivia Kane went all-purpose insane, as if that’s really a thing. Some people say she tried to kill herself. A lot of people. The theory is everywhere. Have I really never seen that one before, or did I ignore it? Was I so naive I thought she’d just hidden somewhere?
Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten.
I curl into myself on my chair, head tucked between my knees and my arms banded over me as a barricade. I can’t cry anymore. I want the tears to come out because I might feel better if they did, but my parents would hear, or Sully and Church would hear, or someone on the omniscient internet would hear and find me and rip me apart. I can’t cry and I can’t draw and I can’t get online and I can’t talk to anyone, so what good am I?
What is the point of me?