I use my sweatshirt sleeve to wipe my forehead. My freaking eyebrows are sweating, and I can’t even tell Emmy or Max about it. A few people go in the room before me, and I creep inside in their shadows.
Wallace isn’t there yet. I put the pages on his seat and curl up with my sketchbook. I trace the lines on an old drawing, making them too dark and too thick. Wallace arrives a minute later, lumbers in, and grabs the papers before sitting down. He flips through them, stares at the drawing I did in the back over the Doctor Faustus quote. My sketchbook slips out of my hands, and I have to catch it between my legs.
Then Wallace pulls out a new piece of paper. He writes something, then slides it onto my desk.
This picture is really awesome. No comments though?
I close the sketchbook and stop pretending. My writing comes out shaky against the paper.
Just one, but I didn’t want to mess up your nice writing. Gyurhei comes out of the sea to swallow the sun every thousand years, not every hundred.
When he reads this, he covers his face with a hand and shakes his head. I shouldn’t have corrected him. Why did I correct him?
He sends the paper back.
Wow. You are completely right.
Then, below that:
My usual betas wouldn’t have caught that.
Because your usual betas aren’t the creator of the world.
I hesitate for a minute, then write, It was really really good. And shove the paper back at him before my fingers spasm and rip it to pieces.
Thanks! Are you feeling okay? You look pale.
I’m fine—I always look like this.
Like a drowned rat in sweatpants.
Mrs. Grier gets up and starts taking attendance.
Okay then. Lunch again today?
It’s going to be too cold in the courtyard. Wind.
I’ll punch someone for a seat in the cafeteria. I’m good at stuff like that.
After I read this, he makes a show of placing his elbow on his desk and flexing his arm like he’s stretching. His bicep bulges against his shirt sleeve. Then his elbow slips off the desk and he catches himself, glancing around. A laugh escapes me.
Mrs. Grier pauses, looking back with her onion earrings swinging in her ears, and says nothing. She never calls out students for things like this. I clamp my lips shut until she continues reading. Then I write:
I don’t have anything to top that. Sorry.
He smiles and replies, Can’t top genius.
Wallace does find us a table at lunch, but it’s because he gets there early, not because he punches anyone.
The table is at the end of the lunch lines, so after I get my food he’s sitting right there, smiling like he’s proud of what he’s done. His lunch is the same as yesterday: two hamburgers, two orders of fries, two milks. One Drumstick. There are papers on the table across from him, with a note stuck to the front.
Only if you want.
The top page says Chapter Two.
“Really?” I notice too late, again, that I’ve said it out loud. Wallace doesn’t seem to mind, though—he grabs another piece of paper to write on.
New beta?
I don’t have a pen handy. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely.” I know my voice is too quiet now. When he doesn’t speak, it feels like I shouldn’t either, like I’m ruining the atmosphere. I dig in my bag for my pencil, then reach for his paper. He gladly hands it over.
Sorry I keep forgetting to write. You think I’d remember, considering how much time I spend online.
It’s okay. You don’t have to if you’d rather talk.
I don’t know if I would.
He smiles a little. So you’re online. On the MS forums?
Yes. Sometimes.
Username?
I give him the only one I can, the only other username I have.
MirkerLurker.
Let me guess—you don’t post much.
Not if I can help it. What about you?
Do you read the MS fanfiction?
Sometimes.
You know rainmaker?
Everyone knows rainmaker.
Hi.
No fucking way. I look up and he’s looking down, putting ketchup on his french fries like he said nothing of significance. There is no fucking way this kid sitting in front of me is THE rainmaker. The head honcho of Monstrous Sea fanfiction, the most popular person on the forums behind LadyConstellation, shepherd of a million fans. This is NOT the guy who winky faced at me last week.
I write:
NO FUCKING WAY.
and I hold it right under his nose.
He gingerly takes the paper from me.
I’ll message you later to prove it.
I almost believe you right now because people don’t lie about being RAINMAKER. Is this why you like Dallas so much?!
I became rainmaker because I liked Dallas, not the other way around.
I scan the cafeteria. Someone else must be witnessing this right now. Someone else must be in on this monumental revelation, because this doesn’t happen in everyday life. Rainmaker does not just wander into my school and drop a transcription of Monstrous Sea into my lap.
But he has. And no one around us understands what has just happened. No one at the nearby tables knows who we are or what we’re sharing.
Right now, it’s only us.
Here.
Wallace takes the paper back and writes, What are you doing for Halloween on Friday?
Probably going to be dead in my grave because rainmaker goes to my school and I didn’t know it until just now.
He purses his lips together to hold back a smile. But really.
He wants to change the subject like that? Fine, whatever. Probably hiding in my room and watching the Dog Days Halloween special.
That DOES sound like the holiday of a lifetime.
Why, what are you doing?
There’s a bookstore my friends and I hang out in that throws a Halloween party every year. We’re going to dress up as MS characters.
I’ve seen tons of pictures of Monstrous Sea cosplay online—and it’s all pretty great cosplay, if I do say so myself. But I’ve never seen it in real life.
Let me guess. You go as Dallas.
Very astute. Anyway, I was thinking, if you didn’t have anything else to do, maybe you’d want to go. It’s a bookstore, so it’s not like the party gets wild, and everyone there is nerdy book people. If you don’t want to, that’s fine.
He wants me to go to a party. I haven’t been to a party since Kenny Smith from next door invited me to his birthday when we were eight, and that ended with me getting pushed into his pool and laughed at all the way home.
Can I think about it?
Yeah, of course.
I’m not going. I like to tell myself I might go—I like to tell myself I might do a lot of things—but I and my brain and everyone else know that I’m going to chicken out in the end and barricade myself in my bedroom with a plate of pizza rolls and my Netflix subscription.
I feel bad writing it down on the paper, that I’m going to think about it.
Monstrous Sea Private Message
2:54 p.m. 28 - Oct -16
rainmaker: Hey, it’s Wallace. Please tell me I blew your mind again. You make the best face when your mind is being blown.
MirkerLurker: Whoa that sounded dirty.
rainmaker: Too much?
MirkerLurker: Ummmmmmmmmm
rainmaker: Too much. Noted.
MONSTROUS SEA FORUMS
USER PROFILE
rainmaker *
Fanfiction Moderator
AGE: Not telling you
LOCATION: NO
INTERESTS: MS. Writing things. Campfires. Sweaters. Sleeping in. Dogs.
Followers 1,350,199 | Following 54 | Posts 9,112
[Unique Works 144]
UPDATES
View earlier updates
Oct 20 2016
The next chapter of the Auburn Blue fanfic will probably be a little late. Just started at the new school. So, that’s fun.
Oct 21 2016
Thanks to @joojooboogee for my new avatar! #DallasRainerForever
Oct 23 2016
If math homework were a real person, I’d be doing 25 to life. #Mathslaughter
Oct 24 2016
There might actually be other MS fans at this school. THANK JESUS I’M SAVED.
Oct 26 2016
Life is destroying me today. No time to write. Stupid math. #Mathslaughter
Oct 27 2016
Definitely another MS fan at this school. Pros: Awesome; Not alone; Pretty girl. Cons: Pretty girl. #Fuuuuuuuuck
Oct 28 2016
Heyyyy let’s not talk about the pretty girl anymore okay she’s probably looking at this.