Fangirl (21 page)

It’s not like she was going to send Abel Levi’s ACT scores.

She should have texted him back. (Levi, not Abel.)

But that would have been engaging in this situation. Like moving a chess piece. Or kicking off from the ground on a teeter-totter. Better to leave Levi up in the air for a day or two than to end up stuck there by herself.…

The fact that she was thinking about whatever this was in terms of playground equipment showed that she wasn’t ready for it. For
him.
Levi was an adult. He had a truck. And facial hair. And he’d slept with Reagan; she’d practically admitted it.

Cath didn’t want to look at a guy and picture the people he’d slept with.…

Which had never been an issue with Abel. Nothing was ever an issue with Abel.
Because,
she could hear Wren screaming,
you didn’t like him!

Cath liked Levi. A lot. She liked looking at him. She liked listening to him—though sometimes she hated listening to him talk to other people. She hated the way he passed out smiles to everyone he met like it didn’t cost him anything, like he’d never run out. He made everything look so easy.…

Even standing. You didn’t realize how much work everyone else put into holding themselves upright until you saw Levi leaning against a wall. He looked like he was leaning on something even when he wasn’t. He made standing look like vertical lying down.

Thinking about Levi’s lazy hips and loose shoulders just dragged Cath’s memory back to her bed.

She’d spent the night with a boy.
Slept
with him. And never mind that that’s all they’d done, because it was still a huge deal. She wished she could talk to Wren about this.…

Fuck Wren.

No …
Damn
her.
Never mind
her. All Wren did lately was complicate Cath’s world.

Cath had slept with a boy.

With a guy.

And it was awesome. Warm. And tangly. What would have happened if they’d woken up any other way? Without Reagan barging in. Would Levi have kissed her again? Or would he still have rushed off with nothing more than a “later”?

Later …

Cath stared at her laptop. She’d been working on the same paragraph for two hours. It was a love scene (a pretty mild one), and she kept losing track of where Baz and Simon’s hands were supposed to be. It was confusing sometimes with all the
he
s and the
him
s, and she’d been staring at this paragraph for so long, she was starting to feel like she’d written every sentence before. Maybe she had.

She shut the laptop and stood up. It was almost ten o’clock. What time did parties end? (What time did they start?) Not that it mattered, at this point. Cath didn’t have any way to get to Levi’s house.

She walked over and stood in front of the full-length mirror that was mounted on their door.

Cath looked like exactly who she was—an eighteen-year-old nerd who knew eff-all about boys or parties.

Skinny jeans. Unskinny hips. A faded pink T-shirt that said,
THE MAGIC WORD IS
PLEASE
.
A pink-and-brown argyle cardigan. Her hair was pulled up into a floppy half bun on top of her head.

Cath pulled the rubber band out of her hair and took off her glasses; she had to step closer to the mirror to see herself clearly.

She lifted her chin up and forced her forehead to relax. “I’m the Cool One,” she told herself. “Somebody give me some tequila because I’ll totally drink it. And there’s no way you’re going to find me later having a panic attack in your parents’ bathroom. Who wants to French-kiss?”

This is why she couldn’t be with Levi. She still called it “French-kissing,” and he just went around putting his tongue in people’s mouths.

Cath still didn’t look like the Cool One. She didn’t look like Wren.

She pushed her shoulders back, let her chest stick out. There was nothing wrong with her breasts (that she knew of). They were big enough that nobody ever called her flat-chested. She wished they were a little bigger; then they’d balance out her hips. Then Cath wouldn’t have to check “pear-shaped” on those “how to dress for your body type” guides. Those guides try to convince you that it’s okay to be any shape, but when your body type is a synonym for FUBAR, it’s hard to believe it.

Cath pretended she was Wren; she pretended she didn’t care. She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin and told her eyes to say,
Have you met me yet? I’m the Pretty One, too.

The door flew open and the doorknob caught Cath in the ribs.

“Shit,” she said, falling halfway onto her bed, halfway onto the floor. Her arms were over her head—she’d managed to protect her face.

“Shit,” Reagan said. She was standing over Cath. “Are you okay?”

Cath brought a hand to her side and finished sliding onto the floor. “Jesus,” she moaned.

“Cath?
Shit.
”

Cath sat up slowly. Nothing seemed broken.

“Why were you standing right in front of the door?” Reagan demanded.

“Maybe I was on my way out,” Cath said. “Jesus. Why do you have to kick the door open every single time you come home?”

“My hands are always full.” Reagan set down her backpack and her duffel bag and offered Cath a hand. Cath ignored it and pulled herself up using the bed. “If you
know
I always kick the door open,” Reagan said, “you should know not to stand there.”

“I thought you were at the party.…” Cath put her glasses back on. “Is this how you say you’re sorry?”

“Sorry,” Reagan said. Like it cost her all her tips. “I had to work. I’m going to the party now.”

“Oh. “

Reagan kicked one of her shoes into her closet. “Are you coming with?”

She didn’t look at Cath. If she had, Cath might have said something other than what she did—“Sure.”

Reagan stopped mid-kick and looked up. “Oh? Okay … Well. I’m just going to change.”

“Okay,” Cath said.

“All right…” Reagan grabbed her toothbrush and makeup bag and glanced back at Cath, smiling in approval.

Cath looked at the ceiling. “Just change.”

As soon as Reagan left, Cath jumped up, wincing and feeling her side again, and opened her closet. Baz glared at her from the back side of her closet door.

“Don’t just stand there,” she mumbled to the cutout. “Help me.”

When she and Wren divided up their clothes, Wren had taken anything that said “party at a boy’s place” or “leaving the house.” Cath had taken everything that said “up all night writing” or “it’s okay to spill tea on this.” She’d accidentally grabbed a pair of Wren’s jeans at Thanksgiving, so she put those on. She found a white T-shirt that didn’t have anything on it—anything Simon anyway; there was a weird stain she’d have to hide with a sweater. She dug out her least pilled-up black cardigan.

Cath had makeup somewhere … in one of her drawers. She found mascara, an eyeliner pencil, and a crusty-looking bottle of foundation, then went to stand in front of Reagan’s makeup mirror.

When Reagan came back, gently opening the door, her face looked fresh, and her red hair was flat and smooth. Reagan looked kind of like Adele, Cath thought. If Adele had a harder, somewhat sharper twin sister. (Doppelgänger.)

“Look at you,” Reagan said. “You look … slightly nicer than usual.”

Cath groaned, feeling too helpless to snark back.

Reagan laughed. “You look fine. Your hair looks good. It’s like Kristen Stewart’s when she’s got extensions. Shake it out.”

Cath shook her head like she was emphatically disagreeing with something.

Reagan sighed and took Cath’s shoulders, pulling her head down and shaking her hair out at the roots. Cath’s glasses fell off.

“If you’re not going to blow it out,” Reagan said, “you may as well look like you’ve just been fucked.”

“Jesus,” Cath said, pulling her head back. “Don’t be gross.” She bent over to pick up her glasses.

“Do you need those?” Reagan asked.

“Yes”—Cath put them on—“I need them to keep me from becoming the girl in
She’s All That
.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Reagan said. “He already likes you. I think he’s into the nerdy schoolgirl thing. He talks about you like you’re something he found in a natural history museum.”

This confirmed everything Cath had ever feared about Levi wanting to buy a ticket to her freak show. “That’s not a good thing,” she said.

“It is if it’s Levi,” Reagan said. “He loves that stuff. When he gets really sad, he likes to walk around Morrill Hall.”

That was the museum on campus. There were wildlife dioramas and the world’s largest mammoth fossil. “He does?”
God that
’s
cute.

Reagan rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

*   *   *

It was almost eleven when they got to Levi’s house—but not exactly dark, because of all the snow. “Will anybody still be here?” Cath asked Reagan when they got out of the car.

“Levi will still be here. He lives here.”

The house was exactly as Cath had imagined it. It was in an old neighborhood with big white Victorian houses. Every house had a huge porch and way too many mailboxes next to the door. Parking was ridiculous. They had to park four blocks away, and Cath was glad she wasn’t wearing pointy, high-heeled boots like Reagan’s.

By the time they got to the door, Cath’s stomach had realized what was happening. It twisted painfully, and she could feel her breath coming and going too soon.

She couldn’t believe she was doing this.
Boy. Party. Strangers. Beer. Strangers. Party. Boy. Eye contact.

Reagan glanced over at her. “Don’t be a spaz,” she said sternly.

Cath nodded, looking down at the worn-smooth welcome mat.

“I’m not going to abandon you in there,” Reagan said, “even if I want to.”

Cath nodded again, and Reagan opened the door.

It was immediately warmer and brighter inside—and exactly
not
how Cath had imagined it.

Cath had pictured bare walls and the sort of furniture that sat out on curbs for a week before anybody decided to take it.

But Levi’s house was actually nice. Simple, but nice. There were a few paintings hanging on the walls, and houseplants everywhere—ferns and spider plants and a jade tree so big, it looked like an actual tree.

There was music playing—sleepy, electronic music—but not too loud. And somebody was burning incense.

There were plenty of people still there—all older than Cath, at least as old as Levi—and they were mostly just talking. Two guys standing next to the stereo were sort of dancing, sort of just being silly, and they didn’t seem to care that they were the only ones.

Cath stood as close as she could to Reagan’s back and tried not to be obvious about looking for Levi. (Inside her head, Cath was standing on tiptoe with her hand over her eyes, scanning the horizon for ships.)

Everybody there knew Reagan. Somebody handed them each a beer, and Cath took hers but didn’t open it. It was Levi’s roommate. One of them. Almost everybody Cath met in the next few minutes was one of Levi’s roommates. She looked right through them.

Maybe Levi was in the bathroom.

Maybe he’d already gone to bed. Maybe Cath could climb into his bed like Goldilocks, and if he woke up, she’d just say “later” and run away. Goldilocks plus Cinderella.

Reagan had finished half a beer before she asked somebody, “Where’s Levi?”

The person, a guy with a beard and black Ray-Ban frames, looked around the living room. “Kitchen, maybe?”

Reagan nodded like she didn’t care.
Because she doesn’t really,
Cath thought.

“Come on,” she said to Cath. “Let’s go find him.” And then, when they’d walked away from everyone else: “Be cool.”

The house had three big front rooms that were all connected—living room, dining room, and sunroom—and the kitchen was in the back, through a narrow doorway. Cath stuck close behind Reagan, so Reagan saw Levi before Cath was even through the door. “Shit,” Cath heard her whisper.

Cath stepped into the kitchen.

Levi was leaning back against the sink. (Levi. Always leaning.) He had a bottle of beer in one hand, the same hand he was pressing into a girl’s back.

The girl looked older than Cath. Even with her eyes closed. Levi’s other hand was tangled in her long, blond hair, and he was kissing her with his mouth smiling and open. He made it look so easy.

Cath looked down immediately and walked out of the kitchen, walked straight through the house to the front door. She knew Reagan was right behind her because she could hear her muttering. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what
is
the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”

“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them.
“Olly olly oxen free,”
he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.

“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”

“Is he a magician? Like us?”

“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a
he
—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…

“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long past the edge of exhaustion.

“But fight him we
must.
You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”

—from chapter 23,
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir,
copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

SEVENTEEN

They didn’t talk in the car. And Cath didn’t cry. She was grateful for that. She already felt like such a fool.…