Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

  “The rhythm,” Cath said. “The rhythm is good.”

  “Yeah?” He smiled.

  “Yeah. It reads like a waltz.”

  “Make you jealous?” He smiled some more. His eyeteeth were crooked, but not bad enough to get braces.

  “Definitely,” Cath said. “I could never write a waltz.”

  Sometimes, when they talked like this, she was sure they were flirting. But when the notebook closed, the light always went off in Nick’s eyes. At midnight, he’d rush off to wherever he always rushed off to, probably to wrap a beer around a blond girl’s waist. To kiss her with his twisted eyeteeth showing.

  Cath kept working on the scene; a whole new conversation took shape in the margin. When she looked up, Nick was still smiling at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, laughing.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just … It’s crazy that this works. Between you and me. That we can actually write together. It’s like … thinking together.”

  “It’s nice,” Cath said, meaning it. “Writing is lonely.”

  “You wouldn’t think we’d be on the same wavelength, you know? We’re so different.”

  “We’re not that different.”

  “Totally different,” he said. “Look at us.”

  “We’re both English majors,” Cath said. “We’re both white. We live in Nebraska. We listen to the same music, we watch the same TV shows, we even have the same pair of Chuck Taylors—”

  “Yeah. But it’s like John Lennon writing with … Taylor Swift instead of Paul McCartney.”

  “Get over yourself,” Cath said. “You’re not half as pretty as Taylor Swift.”

  “You know what I mean.” Nick poked her in the arm with the end of his pen.

  “It’s nice,” she said, looking up at him, still not sure if they were flirting—pretty sure she didn’t want them to be. “Writing is lonely.”

  There wasn’t time for Cath to write a page of her own in the notebook. She and Nick spent the rest of their night in the stacks, revamping his section. The Volvo became a rusty Neon, and the dandelion detail blew away completely.

  At eleven forty-five, they packed up. When they got to the library’s front steps, Nick was already checking his phone. “Hey,” Cath said, “do you feel like walking past Pound Hall on your way to your car? We could walk together.”

  He didn’t look up from his phone. “Better not. I need to get home. See you in class, though.”

  “Yeah,” Cath said, “see ya.” She got out her phone and started dialing 911 before he’d disappeared into the shadows.

  * * *

  “Dad? It’s Cath. I was just calling to say hi. I was thinking about coming home this weekend. Give me a call.”

  ___

  “Dad, I’m calling you at work now. It’s Thursday. I think I’m gonna come home tomorrow. Call me back, okay? Or e-mail me? Love you.”

  ___

  “Hey, honey, it’s your dad. Don’t come home this weekend. I’m going to be gone all weekend at the Gravioli shoot. In Tulsa. I mean, come home if you want to. Throw a big party. Like Tom Cruise in … God, what is that movie? Not Top Gun—Risky Business! Have a big party. Invite a bunch of people over to watch Risky Business. I don’t have any booze, but there’s still some green bean casserole left. I love you, Cath. Are you still fighting with your sister? Don’t.”

  * * *

  Love Library was busier than normal that weekend; it was the week before finals, and everybody seemed to be digging in. Cath had to roam deeper and deeper into the library to find an empty study carrel. She thought of Levi and his theory that the library invented new rooms the more that you visited. Tonight she walked by a half-sized door in a stairwell. The sign said SOUTH STACKS, and Cath would swear she’d never seen it before.

  She opened the door, and there was an immediate step down into a normal-sized hallway. Cath ended up in another siloish room, the mirror image of Nick’s; the wind was even blowing in the opposite direction.

  She found an empty cubicle and set down her bag, taking off her coat. A girl sitting on the other side of the gray partition was watching her.

  The girl sat up a little, so that Cath could see she was smiling. She looked quickly around the room, then leaned forward, holding on to the cubicle wall. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I love your shirt.”

  Cath glanced down. She was wearing her KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON shirt from Etsy, the one with Baz and Simon’s faces.

  “Oh,” Cath said, “thanks.”

  “It’s always so cool to meet somebody else who reads fanfiction in real life.…”

  Cath must have looked surprised. “Oh my God,” the girl said, “do you even know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah,” Cath said. “Of course. I mean, I think so. Carry On, Simon?”

  “Yes!” The girl laughed quietly and looked around the room again. “That was almost embarrassing. I mean, it’s like having a secret life sometimes. People think it’s so weird.… Fanfiction. Slash. You know.”

  Cath nodded. “Do you read a lot of fic?”

  “Not as much anymore,” the girl said. “I was an addict in high school.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a sweatshirt that read VERDIGRE FOOTBALL—FIGHT, HAWKS, FIGHT! She didn’t look like a creepy shut-in.… “What about you?” she asked.

  “I still read a lot…,” Cath said.

  “Magicath is my absolute favorite,” the girl interrupted, like she couldn’t hold it back. “I’m obsessed with Carry On. Have you been keeping up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s been posting so much lately. Every time there’s a new chapter, I have to stop everything to read it. And then read it again. My roommate thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “But it’s just so good. Nobody writes Simon and Baz like Magicath. I’m in love with her Baz. Like, in love. And I used to be a major Simon/Agatha shipper.”

  Cath wrinkled her nose. “No.”

  “I know, I was young.”

  “If Agatha actually cared about either of them,” Cath said, “she’d pick one.”

  “I know, right? When Simon broke it off with her in Carry On—such a good scene.”

  “You didn’t think it was too long?”

  “No,” the girl said, “did you?”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “I never think the chapters are too long. I just want more and more and more.” The girl waved her hands in front of her mouth like she was Cookie Monster eating cookies. “I’m telling you, I’m obsessed with Carry On. I feel like something big is about to happen soon.”

  “Me, too,” Cath said. “I think the Mage might turn on Simon.”

  “No! You think?”

  “I’ve just got a feeling about it.”

  “It killed me how long it took Simon and Baz to get together. And now I’m dying for them to have a big love scene. That’s my only complaint about Carry On—not enough Simon/Baz action.”

  “She almost never writes love scenes,” Cath said, feeling her cheeks pink.

  “Yeah, but when she does, they’re hot.”

  “You think?”

  “Um,” the girl laughed. “Yes.”

  “This is why people think we’re crazy perverts,” Cath said.

  The girl just giggled some more. “I know. Sometimes I forget that there’s still a real book coming out—like, it’s hard for me to imagine that the story is going to end any other way than the way Magicath writes it.”

  “Sometimes…,” Cath said, “when I’m reading canon, I forget that Simon and Baz aren’t in love.”

  “Right? I love Gemma T. Leslie, I always will—I feel like she was this major force in my childhood—and I know that Magicath wouldn’t exist without GTL. But now, I think I love Magicath more. Like she might be my favorite author. And she’s never even written a book.…”

  Cath’s jaw was hanging slightly open
, and she was shaking her head. “That’s crazy.”

  “I know,” the girl said, “but I think it’s true.… Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’m talking your ear off. I just never get to talk about this stuff in real life. Except to my boyfriend. He knows what a freak I am about it.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Cath said. “This was cool.”

  The girl sat down, and so did Cath. She opened up her laptop and thought for a minute about Professor Piper, then opened up the latest chapter of Carry On. Something big was about to happen soon.

  * * *

  “Dad, it’s Cath. Are you back from Tulsa? Just checking in. Call me.”

  ___

  “Dad? It’s Cath. Call me.”

  ___

  “Hey, Cath, it’s your dad. I’m back. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Worry about school. No, scratch that, don’t worry at all. Try not worrying, Cath—it’s an amazing way to be. Like flying. Love you, honey, tell your sister hi.”

  ___

  “Dad? I know you don’t want me to worry. But I would worry less if you called me back. And not at three A.M.”

  * * *

  “Ten days…,” Professor Piper said.

  Instead of sitting in her usual spot on her desk, she was striking a pose at the windows. It was snowing outside—it had already snowed so much this year, and it was only early December—and the professor cut a dramatic figure against the icy glass.

  “I’d like to believe that you’re all finished with your short stories,” she said, turning her blue eyes on them. “That you’re just tweaking and tinkering now, tugging every last loose thread—”

  She walked back toward their desks and smiled at a few of them one by one. Cath felt a thrill when their eyes met.

  “—but I’m a writer, too,” the professor said. “I know what it’s like to be distracted. To seek out distractions. To exhaust yourself doing every other little thing rather than face a blank page.” She smiled at one of the boys. “A blank screen …

  “So if you haven’t finished—or if you haven’t started—I understand, I do. But I implore you … start now. Lock yourself away from the world. Turn off the Internet, barricade the door. Write as if your life depended on it.

  “Write as if your future depended on it.

  “Because I can promise you this one small thing.…” She let her eyes rest on another one of her favorites and smiled. “If you’re planning to take my advanced course next semester, you won’t get in unless you get a B in this class. And this short story is half your final grade.

  “This class is for writers,” she said. “For people who are willing to set aside their fears and move past distractions.

  “I love you all—I do—but if you’re going to waste your time, I’m not going to waste mine.” She stopped at Nick’s desk and smiled at him. “Okay?” she said only to him.

  Nick nodded. Cath looked down at her desk.

  * * *

  She hadn’t washed her sheets, but there wasn’t any Levi left in them.

  Cath pushed her face into her pillow as nonchalantly as she could, even though there was no one else in the room to judge her for it.

  Her pillowcase smelled like a dirty pillowcase. And a little bit like Tostitos.

  Cath closed her eyes and imagined Levi lying next to her, his legs touching and crossing hers. She remembered the way her throat had rasped that night and the way he’d put his arm around her, like he wanted to hold her up, like he wanted to make everything easy for her.

  She remembered his flannel shirt. And his needy, pink mouth. And how she hadn’t spent nearly enough time with her fingers in the back of his hair.

  And then she was crying and her nose was running. She wiped it on her pillow because, at this point, what did it matter?

  Simon ran as fast as he could. Faster. Casting spells on his feet and legs, casting spells on the branches and stones in his path.

  He could already be too late—at first he thought he was, when he saw Agatha lying in a heap on the forest floor.… But it was a trembling heap. Agatha may be frightened, but she was still whole.

  Baz was kneeling over her and trembling just as hard. His hair hung forward in a way he normally wouldn’t allow, and his pale skin glowed oddly in the moonlight, like the inside of a shell. Simon wondered for a moment why Agatha wasn’t trying to escape. She must be dazed, he thought. Vampires could do that, couldn’t they?

  “Go. Away,” Baz hissed.

  “Baz…,” Simon said, holding his hand out.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  Simon avoided Baz’s eyes, but he didn’t look away. “I’m not afraid of you,” Simon said.

  “You should be. I could kill you both. Her first, then you, before you’d even realized I was doing it. I’m so fast, Simon.…” His voice broke on the last two words.

  “I know.…”

  “And so strong…”

  “I know.”

  “And so thirsty.”

  Simon’s voice was almost a whisper. “I know.”

  Baz’s shoulders shook. Agatha started to sit up—she must be recovering. Simon looked at her gravely and shook his head. He took another step toward them. He was close now. In Baz’s reach.

  “I’m not afraid of you, Baz.”

  “Why not?” Baz whined. It was an animal whine. Wounded.

  “Because I know you. And I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” Simon held out his hand and gently pushed back the errant lock of black hair. Baz’s head tilted up with the touch, his fangs popped and gleaming. “You’re so strong, Baz.”

  Baz reached for him then, clutching Simon around the waist and pressing his face into his stomach.

  Agatha slid out from between them and ran toward the fortress. Simon held Baz by the back of his neck and curved his body over him. “I know,” Simon said. “I know everything.”

  —from Carry On, Simon, posted February 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath

  EIGHTEEN

  “Do you just hang out here now?” Nick pushed his library cart to her table.

  “Just trying to write,” Cath said, closing her laptop before he started peeking at her screen.

  “Working on your final project?” He slipped into the chair beside her and tried to open the computer. She laid her arm on top of it. “Have you settled on a direction yet?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Cath said. “Lots of them.”

  He frowned for a second, then shook his head. “I’m not worried about you. You can write ten thousand words in your sleep.”

  She practically could. She’d written ten thousand words of Carry On in one night before. Her wrists had really hurt the next day.… “What about you?” she asked. “Done?”

  “Almost. Well … I have an idea.” He smiled at her. It was one of those smiles that made her think he might be flirting.

  Smiling is confusing, she thought. This is why I don’t do it.

  “I think I’m going to turn in my anti-love story.” He raised his Muppet eyebrows and stretched his top lip across his teeth.

  Cath felt her mouth hanging open and closed it. “The story? Like … the story we’ve been working on?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said excitedly, raising his eyebrows high again. “I mean, at first I thought it was too frivolous. A short story is supposed to be about something. But it’s like you always say, it’s about two people falling in love—what could be bigger than that? And we’ve workshopped it enough, I think it’s ready.” He pushed his elbow into hers and tapped his front teeth with the tip of his tongue. He was watching her eyes. “So what do you think? It’s a good idea, right?”

  Cath snapped her mouth shut again. “It’s … it’s just that…” She looked down at the table, where the notebook usually sat. “We worked on it together.”

  “Cath…,” he said. Like he was disappointed in her. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Well, you’re calling it your story.”

  “You call it that,” he said, cutting her off. “You’re alwa
ys saying that you feel more like an editor than a cowriter.”

  “I was teasing you.”

  “Are you teasing me now? I can’t tell.”

  She glanced up at his face. He looked impatient. And let down. Like Cath was letting him down.

  “Can we just be honest?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “This story was my idea. I started it. I’m the only one who works on it outside the library. I appreciate all of your help—you’re a genius editor, and you’ve got tons of potential—but do you really think it’s your story?”

  “No,” Cath said. “Of course not.” She felt her voice shrink into a whine. “But we were writing together. Like Lennon–McCartney—”

  “John Lennon and Paul McCartney have been quoted multiple times saying they wrote their songs separately, then showed them to each other. Do you really think John Lennon wrote half of ‘Yesterday’? Do you think Paul McCartney wrote ‘Revolution’? Don’t be naïve.”

  Cath clenched her fists in her lap.

  “Look,” Nick said, smiling like he was forcing himself to do it. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done. You really get me, as an artist, like nobody else ever has. You’re my best sounding board. And I want us to keep showing each other our stuff. I don’t want to feel like, if I offer you a suggestion, it belongs to me. Or vice versa.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not…” She didn’t know what to say, so she pulled her laptop toward her and started wrapping the cord around it. The one Abel had given her. (It really was a good gift.)

  “Cath … don’t. You’re freaking me out here. Are you actually mad about this? Do you really think I’m stealing from you?”

  She shook her head again. And put her computer in her bag.

  “Are you angry?” he asked.

  “No,” she whispered. They were still in a library, after all. “I’m just…” Just.

  “I thought you’d be happy for me,” he said. “You’re the only one who knows how hard I’ve worked on this. You know how I’ve poured myself into this story.”

  “I know,” she said. That part was true. Nick had cared about the story; Cath hadn’t. She’d cared about the writing. About the magic third thing that lived between them when they were working together. She would have met Nick at the library to write obituaries. Or shampoo packaging. “I’m just…,” she said. “I need to work on my story now. It’s almost finals week.”