MirkerLurker: No! You sent another one? You didn’t have to do that, Em!
emmersmacks: :DDD I love sending stuff to you guys!! Besides this ones got good stuff in it
Apocalypse_Cow: when do they not have good stuff in them?
Apocalypse_Cow: also where’s MY care package???
emmersmacks: Oh calm down youre getting one too dummy
emmersmacks: E youre going to be around for the Dog Days livewatch right
MirkerLurker: Duh. The day I miss Dog Days is the day I eat my own foot.
Apocalypse_Cow: *takes screenshot*
Apocalypse_Cow: let it be known on this day that if eliza ever misses dog days, she will eat her own foot.
emmersmacks: Masterminds would love that one
emmersmacks: Creator of Monstrous Sea eats own foot over teen soap opera
Apocalypse_Cow: tacky teen soap opera.
MirkerLurker: Tacky teen soap opera? Yes. Wildly entertaining? Also yes.
emmersmacks: Amen
“Are you texting your boyfriend again?” Sully nudges up against my side, putting his chin on my shoulder. At his words, Church pulls away from the car window on my other side and leans in too. I slam my phone facedown on the sketchbook in my lap.
“Stop reading over my shoulder,” I snap. “And it’s not my boyfriend. It’s just Max and Emmy.”
“Oh, just Max and Emmy,” Sully says, making air quotes. “Sure.” Church snickers and copies the air quotes a second later.
“Be nice back there,” Mom chirps from the passenger seat. Dad makes a sound of agreement.
We pull into the parking lot of the gym where Sully and Church play indoor soccer. The half-hour drive went fast thanks to Max and Emmy, but I don’t look at the phone again until the two nightmares climb out of the car. Then I follow Mom and Dad into the building, with my nose in the phone.
Apocalypse_Cow: but seriously tho, dog days is the worst
emmersmacks: Not worse than the second season when Chris got with Ben
Apocalypse_Cow: chris got with jason in the second season, not ben
emmersmacks: Says the guy who doesnt watch Dog Days
Apocalypse_Cow: . . .
emmersmacks: Ah how the mighty have fallen
I snicker. Dad looks over his shoulder at me. “What’s so funny, Eggs?”
I turn off the phone and press it to my sketchbook again. Annoyance pings over my humor, little dark spots in the lightness. “Nothing.”
Until I’m sure neither Mom or Dad are looking back again, I keep the phone down and my eyes up. This gym is more like a warehouse than anything. A big empty room with movable walls as dividers between different courts. Volleyball, basketball, tennis. The place is huge. In the center is a walled-in soccer field with bleachers and everything. I take a picture and send it to the chat.
MirkerLurker: This place is actual hell.
emmersmacks: My sister hangs out at one of those gyms
emmersmacks: They make me want to shower
Apocalypse_Cow: that is weirdly specific, ems. sorry for your luck, e.
MirkerLurker: When I die here, bury me with my art.
Apocalypse_Cow: songs will be sung. potential mourned. someone will have to notify the fans, of course. as head security admin for the ms forums, i accept this responsibility.
emmersmacks: When did you start calling yourself Head Security Admin
emmersmacks: All you do is ban trolls
“Oh, Eliza, look.” Mom’s hand brushes my shoulder. I look up and find her examining a poster on a board by the gym entrance. Dad and the boys have already taken off toward the soccer field, where the teams warm up for their game. “They’re starting tennis lessons soon. I really think you’d love tennis—it’s a solitary game, and it’s great exercise.”
“No,” I say, and go back to my phone. She gives up immediately.
We’ve evolved this process steadily over the years. When I was little and didn’t have a say in the matter, my parents signed me up for every sport under the sun. Little League Baseball. Soccer. Basketball. Volleyball. I hated all of them because I didn’t—don’t—have any coordination and I didn’t—don’t—like to talk, so I didn’t play well, so my teammates wanted me gone. The first time I told my dad I wanted to quit softball, he flipped out and didn’t speak to me for a week. Mom tried to reason me back into it.
It would build character. It would help me make friends. It would be good exercise.
I refused. Then I quit all the other sports too. Casting them off was like casting off a set of old, heavy armor. Church and Sully loved sports, so some of the focus fell away from me, but Mom and Dad still tried. If I said no, they kept trying. I kept saying no.
Now we are at that place where they suggest something and I say no and that’s the end of it.
I follow Mom to the soccer field and perch beside her at the foot of the bleachers. Dad stands on the sidelines, coach’s clipboard in hand, talking to a group of gangly fourteen-and-under boys in sky-blue uniforms. I take my pencils and eraser out of my pocket and crack open my sketchbook.
“I wish you wouldn’t take that everywhere,” Mom says. “Why can’t you watch your brothers play?”
I look up at her, then at the field, then back down at my sketchbook. There’s no answer I can give her that she wants to hear, so I won’t give her one at all.
We get home in time for Dog Days. I scramble out of the car over a sweaty Church, grab a water bottle from the fridge in my rush to my room, turn on the small TV on the crook of the desk beside the computer, and flip the channels until I find the one I want. The opening credits are starting. I wake up the computer and hurry to the website.
Monstroussea.com is not only the first place to find all the Monstrous Sea pages I’ve done up to this point, it’s also the link to the largest fan forums for the comic and a chat page where once a week I show up under my pen name to watch Dog Days with the fans. This is the only time LadyConstellation speaks live.
LadyConstellation: I’M HERE! Nobody worry, I’m here!
moby66: Yay!
GirlWho: yayayay
hustonsproblem: We thought you wouldn’t show up!
A flood of other comments follows those. Usually there are so many people in the chat I can’t actually reply to any of them. I blurt out things about the show and let them respond. They hold conversations with themselves. Mostly the point is that I’m there, and we’re watching the same thing, and for once no one is talking about Monstrous Sea.
I love Monstrous Sea as much—probably more—as them, but even I need something simple to talk about every once in a while.
A private chat comes up on my phone, where I’m still logged in to my MirkerLurker account.
Apocalypse_Cow: looking forward to this one! will spencer find out jane’s a lesbian and is also dating his ex??
Max will never admit it to the public, but he loves watching Dog Days as much as the rest of us. Only Emmy and I know, but right now Emmy’s too busy frolicking with the other fans in the main chat.
I send some senseless emojis to Max and start commenting in main chat through the opening scenes of Dog Days, where Spencer does indeed discover Jane has come out as a lesbian and is now dating his ex-girlfriend Jennifer. I can’t tell if this is mindless plot twisting or if the show is actually trying to make some statement about gay rights. I send that to chat. They love it.
At the first commercial break, I scan into the computer the new Monstrous Sea page I sketched out in school today and bring it up in Photoshop to start the good line work. My pen display waits for me like a prized stallion ready to launch out of the gate, its screen duplicating the screen of my computer. I pull my smudge guard—an old glove with the thumb, index, and middle fingers cut off—over my right hand, to keep the pen display screen from getting gross, and to let my hand move smoothly across it. Nothing ruins a piece faster than poor hand movement.