Eliza and Her Monsters

Wallace sends Eliza an email, acknowledging that it’s a “weird” thing to do because that isn’t how they usually communicate. He’s decided to tell her everything about his past, including the fact that he didn’t move to Westcliff from Illinois—just from the other side of town, where he attended the same school as Cole. He was a football player there, and it was something his biological father was proud of. He tells Eliza that his father never had the chance to finish college and that his mother left the family shortly after Wallace was born. His father struggled a lot, but things got better when he married Vee and they had Lucy. Still, Wallace would sometimes discover him staring into space, and he knew his father was miserable at his job.

On a drive back home during winter break of Wallace’s sophomore year, he and his father argued because Wallace said he could see himself getting a job he didn’t like temporarily, just to pay the bills. At Wellhouse Bridge, Wallace’s father kicked him out of the car and drove straight over Wellhouse Turn. Wallace tried to run after the car, breaking his leg in the process, but his father had already died. The Westcliff Star treated it as another accident, but Wallace knows it wasn’t. After that, he stopped talking and got deeper into the Monstrous Sea fandom. Cole was the only person at his school with a similar interest, but they only hung out at the bookstore. Eventually, Vee remarried, and she and Tim let Wallace transfer schools for his senior year. Now that he’s met Eliza, he feels happier than he has in a long time.

Eliza is overwhelmed by everything Wallace told her. She’s especially moved that he used the “constellation line” in the subject. She talks this over online with Emmy—Max is MIA due to personal problems—and worries that he told her all these “sensitive” things while she’s been “lying” to him the whole time by failing to reveal that she’s LadyConstellation. Emmy asks Eliza to think about what she’d want to hear if she sent the email.

Eliza doesn’t acknowledge the email until they return from break. She’s still unsure how to handle it. Finally, via notes, she asks if Wallace is okay and assures him that his sharing doesn’t change anything between them. She says it was a lot to process, but not in a bad way. She knows that she’s going to have to tell him about being LadyConstellation since she now knows so much about him, but not yet.

In the first weeks of the semester, Eliza constantly rereads Wallace’s email and tries to think about how to reveal her identity. They don’t talk about the email with each other, though. Eliza worries that Emmy and Max are getting distant. In February, Eliza finally mentions the email directly. She tells him that she’s sorry about what happened to him and reminds him that she’s still there—the information wasn’t too much for her. They finally kiss each other, just like Amity and Dallas in Monstrous Sea.

Eliza’s parents make her come on their two-day family camping trip during spring break. They don’t allow her to bring her sketchbook, but she does bring her phone. On the drive, her brothers tease her that her parents made her come so she couldn’t have sex with Wallace while they were gone. Eliza is furious—even more so when her mother tells her it’s perfectly normal to have sex at her age—and then horrified when her father starts talking about the first time he had sex with their mother.

On the hike to the campsite, Eliza pauses to message with Emmy and Max. Her father catches her and takes her phone. She sulks most of the rest of the day and goes to bed early. She only pretends to be asleep, however, so she hears when her brothers whisper to each other in the tent. She realizes how little she actually knows about them. The next day, Eliza draws MS characters in the dirt while her family explores a cave. She misses her friends—both online and in real life—and realizes that she is starting to feel the same way about Wallace as she does about MS. Her parents try to talk to her again about their concern about her living her life through her phone, and Eliza says that all she wants is Monstrous Sea. They don’t understand each other.

After the trip, she messages Wallace to vent about the trip. He says her mother has a point since she almost missed Christmas because she was working so much, and he suggests talking to a therapist. Eliza doesn’t like the suggestion and stops responding to his messages.

Relations between Wallace and Eliza thaw when they see each other at school. Wallace gives her a copy of his latest transcription chapter, which she is eager to read. Eliza reflects that he’s never offered to let her read any of his original work—but, then again, he hasn’t asked her either. Eliza commits to posting five new MS pages a week, spending time with Wallace and the Angels on the weekends. She tries to make sure that she isn’t obsessing over MS and looks forward to how “glorious” it will be when she posts the last installment.

Each year, the parents of graduating seniors write messages to their children that are printed in the Westcliff Star. Eliza flips to her parents’ message and is horrified to realize that they have outed her as the creator of Monstrous Sea. Her homeroom teacher asks if it’s true and shows Eliza her tattoo of MS’s most famous line. Eliza tries to get Wallace not to read the message but fails. He is clearly shocked by the news and walks away from her. She looks for him the entire morning, feeling lightheaded and shaky. She barely registers it when Deshawn tells her that he’s into Monstrous Sea. She begins to panic because people appear to be looking at her and because she can’t find Wallace. She faints and hits her head on a table.

The news of LadyConstellation’s identity is posted to another forum, spreading the news outside Westcliff. Emmy and Max trade concerned messages.

Eliza’s parents are with her when she wakes up in the emergency room. Eliza remembers what happened and yells at her parents for having revealed that she is MS’s creator to millions of people—including, most importantly, Wallace. The doctor tells her she had a panic attack and suggests therapy.

Back home, Eliza checks the MS forums, which are “chaos.” The private messages for both LadyConstellation and MirkerLurker are full of messages from friends and strangers. Someone has found her yearbook photo. Emmy and Max are trying to run “damage control,” but Eliza feels defeated. Worst of all, there are no new messages from Wallace.

Over the next few days, news of Eliza’s identity spreads, partly as a backlash for her ability to have remained anonymous so long. She breaks her own rules and reads all the comments and messages. She doesn’t post new pages that Friday night; instead, she and her brothers watch Dog Days reruns. They tell her they saw Wallace’s sister, Lucy, at school. She told them Eliza should talk to Wallace.