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.…
Because she was one.
What had she been thinking—that Levi really liked her? How could she have believed that, especially after she’d spent the last two days explaining to herself all the reasons he never would.
Maybe she’d thought it was possible because Reagan thought it was possible, and Reagan wasn’t anybody’s fool.…
When they got back to the dorms, Reagan stopped Cath from getting out of the car. “Wait.”
Cath sat, holding the passenger door open.
“I’m sorry,” Reagan said. “I really didn’t expect that to happen.”
“I just want to pretend that it didn’t,” Cath said, feeling tears burning again in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this—and, I mean, I know he’s your best friend, but I really don’t want you to talk to him about tonight.… Or about me. Ever. I already feel like such an ass.”
“Sure,” Reagan said, “whatever you want.”
“I want to pretend this didn’t happen.”
“Okay.”
* * *
Reagan was good at not talking about things.
She didn’t mention Levi for the rest of the weekend. He called Cath Saturday morning, but she didn’t pick up. A few seconds later, Reagan’s phone rang.
“Don’t ignore him on my account,” Cath said. “It never happened.”
“Hey…,” Reagan said into the phone. “Yeah … All right … Just call me when you’re downstairs. Cath is trying to study.”
A half hour later, Reagan’s phone rang again, and she got up to leave. “See ya,” she said.
Cath nodded. “Later.”
Levi tried calling Cath again that weekend. Twice. And once he sent her a text that said, “so they found the 5th hare, now what? will trade gingerbread lattes and pumkin bread for this information.”
The fact that he misspelled “pumpkin” made Cath wince.
If she hadn’t gone to the party—if she hadn’t seen Levi in action—she would have thought this text was him asking her out on a date.
She knew she’d have to see him again. He was still Reagan’s best friend, the two of them still studied together.…
Reagan would probably keep him away completely if Cath wanted that, but Cath didn’t want Levi to ask questions. So Cath stayed away instead. She started going to the library after dinner and hanging out in Nick’s stacks. Nick generally wasn’t there; nobody was. Cath brought her laptop and tried to work on her final project, her ten-thousand-word short story, for Fiction-Writing. She’d started it—she’d started it half a dozen times—but she still didn’t have anything she wanted to finish.
Usually she ended up working on Carry On, Simon. Cath was on a streak, posting long chapters almost every night. Switching from her Fiction-Writing homework to Simon and Baz was like realizing she’d been driving in the wrong gear. She could actually feel the muscles in her forearms loosen. Her typing got faster; her breathing got easier. She’d catch herself nodding her head as she wrote, almost like she was keeping time with the words as they rushed out of her.
When the library closed, Cath would dial 911 on her phone, then run back to the dorm as fast as she could with her finger on Call.
It was more than a week before she saw Levi again. She came home from class late one afternoon, and he was sitting on Reagan’s bed while Reagan typed.
“Cather,” he said, grinning, pulling his earphones out of his head. He was listening to a lecture; she knew that now. Reagan said he listened to them all the time, and that he even saved the ones he really liked.
“Hey,” he said. “I owe you a beverage. Your choice, hot or fermented. I rocked that Outsiders quiz. Did Reagan tell you? I got an A.”
“That’s great,” Cath said, trying not to let her face show how much she wanted to kiss and kill him.
She’d thought Reagan had to work tonight. That was the only reason Cath had come home. But she didn’t have to stay here. She was going to meet Nick at the library later anyway.…
Cath pretended to get something she needed out of her desk. A pack of gum.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m taking off.”
“But you just got here,” Levi said. “Don’t you want to stay and talk about the symbolism of Johnny’s relationship with Ponyboy? And the struggle between Sodapop and Darry? Hey, do you think there’s such a thing as Outsiders fanfiction?”
“I’ve gotta go,” Cath said, trying to say it to Reagan. “Meeting somebody.”
“Who are you meeting?” Levi asked.
“Nick. My writing partner.”
“Oh. Right. Do you want me to walk you home later?”
“Nick’ll probably walk me home,” she said.
“Oh.” Levi brought his eyebrows together, but still smiled. “Cool. Later.”
She couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She got to the library and wrote a thousand words of Carry On before Nick showed up.
* * *
“Shut that thing down,” Nick said. “You’re corrupting my creative centers with static.”
“That’s what she said,” Cath said, closing her laptop.
Nick looked dubious.
“It was sort of a metaphysical ‘that’s what she said.’”
“Ah.” He set down his backpack and pulled out their notebook. “You working on your final project?”
“Indirectly,” Cath said.
“What does that mean?”
“Have you ever heard sculptors say that they don’t actually sculpt an object; they sculpt away everything that isn’t the object?”
“No.” He sat down.
“Well, I’m writing everything that isn’t my final project, so that when I actually sit down to write it, that’s all that will be left in my mind.”
“Clever girl,” he said, pushing the open notebook toward her. She flipped through it. Nick had filled five pages, front and back, since they’d last met.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I might turn in a story I worked on this summer.”
“Isn’t that cheating?”
“I don’t think so. It’s more like being really ahead of schedule.… All I can think about right now is this story.” He nudged the notebook toward Cath again. “I want you to read what I did.”
This story. Their story. Nick kept trying to call it an anti-love story. “But it’s not anti-love,” she’d argued.
“It’s anti- everything you usually find in a love story. Gooey eyes and ‘you complete me.’”
“‘You complete me’ is a great line,” Cath said. “You wish you came up with ‘you complete me.’”
Cath didn’t tell him that she’d been writing love stories—rewriting the same love story—every day for the last five years. That she’d written love stories with and without the goo, love-at-first-sight stories, love-before-first-sight stories, love-to-hate-you stories.…
She didn’t tell Nick that writing love stories was her thing. Her one true thing. And that his anti-love story read like somebody’s very first fanfic—Mary Sue to the tenth power. That the main character was obviously Nick and that the girl was obviously Winona Ryder plus Natalie Portman plus Selena Gomez.
Instead Cath fixed it. She rewrote his dialogue. She reined in the quirk.
“Why’d you cross that out?” Nick said tonight, leaning over her left shoulder. He smelled good. (Breaking news: Boys smell good.) “I liked that part,” he said.
“Our character just stopped her car in a parking lot to wish on a dandelion.”
“It’s refreshing,” Nick said. “It’s romantic.”
Cath shook her head. Her ponytail brushed Nick’s neck. “It makes her seem like a douche.”
“You have something against dandelions?”
“I have something against twenty-two-year-old women wishing on dandelions. Stopping the car to wish on dandelions. Also, the car? No. No to vintage Volvos.”
“It’s a character detail.”
“It’s a cliché. I swear to God, every surviving Volvo produced between 1970 and 1985 is being driven by quirky fictional girls.”
Nick pouted down at the paper. “You’re crossing out everything.”
“I’m not crossing out everything.”
“What are you leaving?” He leaned over more and watched her write.
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