Eliza and Her Monsters

Sully and Church take matters into their own hands and explain Eliza’s “hobby” to their parents. They show them the post that exposes her as Monstrous Sea’s creator, along with the MS forums. Their parents still struggle to understand the extent of Eliza’s fame—and their crucial part in exposing her—and Sully blows up at them for never having even googled Monstrous Sea. Her parents realize that Eliza has been listening to the conversation and attempt to apologize to her. She goes back to her room. Sully follows and tells Eliza that he and Church have been MS fans for a long time, even though their parents don’t get it.

Before dawn on a Tuesday morning, Eliza drives out to Wellhouse Turn and carefully makes her way down the treacherous incline. She gazes at the stars, thinking about her childhood self and Wallace’s father’s death. She lets herself just be Eliza and nothing else.

Two weeks after Eliza hits her head, Wallace comes to visit. She doesn’t want to see him, but after he texts her to say he’s just going to keep coming back, she lets him come upstairs. He’s too angry to speak, so he sends her a barrage of text messages. She finally responds that she wasn’t trying to fool him or upset his attachment to Monstrous Sea.

Wallace calms down and tells her that no one at school hates her; many of her classmates think that it’s cool. Neither one of them has looked at the forums. Eliza wonders how people have reacted to her not posting pages, saying she isn’t sure she’ll do any more. Wallace hesitates and then tells her that he has a deal to publish his MS transcription in book form. However, they won’t publish it until Eliza writes an ending. He tells her she has to finish, and she argues that she can’t. Eventually, he pleads with her. She can’t think of anything to say, and he leaves quietly.

For Wallace’s sake, Eliza tries to draw more pages. Everything seems off, and now that everyone knows who she is, Eliza fears that they will express their disappointment to her in person. She googles Olivia Kane and wonders if she’s going to end up the same way. She’s not sure she’s any good if she can’t produce her art.

Eliza reluctantly returns to school for the last two weeks of senior year. She finds fan mail in her locker, which rattles her. Wallace helps her clean the notes out of her locker, but they don’t talk to each other. She wonders if his online identity has been altered by the events of the past couple weeks, since rainmaker and MirkerLurker were known to have a thing on the forums before MirkerLurker was revealed to be LadyConstellation. She can’t even imagine what the Angels think. Eliza knows she should be grateful to her fans but can’t help but wish none of them had ever found her work.

Feeling desperate, Eliza writes a letter to Olivia Kane about her situation, wondering if she would be willing to talk to her about issues with fame and fans.

Wallace notices Eliza’s letter and asks if he can read it, but Eliza tells him it’s just for Olivia. She mails it to Olivia’s publisher that afternoon, not thinking that it will actually get to her.

Eliza sees the therapist, who asks her about her online and offline friendships and convinces her to talk about Monstrous Sea. She reveals that she feels like she is letting her fans down and has nightmares about the story. The therapist replies that it’s important for her to separate her self-worth from her art, something that Eliza has never considered before. She tells the therapist that she feels like she has to finish the story for Wallace’s sake, but the therapist says that even that can’t be her responsibility. When asked what she might do after Monstrous Sea, Eliza doesn’t have a great answer. Her therapist suggests taking a gap year before starting college, and this seems like a good idea to Eliza.