Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

  “Going out?” Reagan asked.

  “Levi just got back.”

  “Should I wait up for you?” she leered.

  “Yes,” Cath said. “You should. It will give you time to think about what a shameless ground-rule breaker you are.”

  Cath felt silly waiting for the elevator. Girls were walking by in their pajamas, and Cath was dressed to go out.

  When she stepped out into the lobby, Levi was there, leaning against a column and talking to somebody, some girl he must know from somewhere.… When he saw Cath, his smile widened and he pushed off the column with his shoulder, immediately waving good-bye to the girl.

  “Hey,” he said, kissing the top of Cath’s head. “Your hair’s wet.”

  “That’s what happens when you wash it.”

  He pulled up her hood. She took his hand before he could reach for hers, and he rewarded her with an especially toothy grin.

  When they walked out of the building, she knew in her heart, in her stomach, that she wasn’t coming back until morning.

  * * *

  At first Cath thought there was another party going on at Levi’s house. There was music playing, and there were people in almost every room.

  But they were all just his roommates—and his roommates’ friends and girlfriends and, in one case maybe, boyfriend.

  Levi introduced her to them all. “This is Cather.” “This is my girlfriend, Cather.” “Everyone? Cather.” She smiled tensely and knew that she wouldn’t remember any of their names.

  Then Levi led her up a staircase that couldn’t have been original to the house—the landings were strange and cramped, and the hallways shot out at irregular intervals. Levi pointed out everyone’s rooms. He pointed out the bathrooms. Cath counted three floors, and Levi kept climbing. When the staircase got so narrow they couldn’t walk side by side anymore, he led the way.

  The stairs turned one more time and ended at a single doorway. Levi stopped there and turned, awkwardly, holding on to the handrails on both sides of the hall.

  “Cather.” He grinned. “I have officially gotten you up to my room.”

  “Who knew it was at the end of a labyrinth?”

  He opened the door behind him, then took both her hands, pulling her up and in.

  The room was small, with narrow dormer windows pushing out of it on two sides. There was no overhead light, so Levi turned on a lamp next to the queen-sized bed. It really was just a room with a bed—and a shiny turquoise love seat that was at least fifty years old.

  She looked up and around. “We’re at the very top of the house, aren’t we?”

  “Servants’ quarters,” he said. “I was the only one willing to climb all these stairs.”

  “How’d you get this couch up here?”

  “Talked Tommy into helping me. It was terrible. I don’t know how anyone ever got this mattress up around all those corners. It’s been here since the beginning of time.”

  Cath shifted nervously, and the floor creaked beneath her. Levi’s bed was unmade, an old-looking quilt thrown over it, the pillows in disarray. He straightened the quilt and picked a pillow up off the floor.

  The room felt closer to the outdoors than to the rest of the house. Exposed. Cath could hear wind whistling in the window frames. “I’ll bet it gets cold up here—”

  “And hot in the summer,” he said. “Are you thirsty? I could make tea. I should have asked while we were still downstairs.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  Where Levi was standing, his hair brushed against the ceiling. “Do you mind if I change? I helped water the horses before I left. Got kind of muddy.”

  Cath tried to smile. “Sure, go ahead.”

  There were drawers built into a wall. Levi knelt over one, then ducked out of the room—the doorway was at least an inch too short for him—and Cath sat down carefully on the love seat. The fabric was cool beneath her. She ran her palm along it, some kind of slick cotton with nubby swirls and flowers.

  This room was worse than she thought.

  Dark. Remote. Practically in the trees. Practically enchanted.

  A calculus test would feel intimate in here.

  She took off her coat and set it on his bed, then tugged off her soggy boots and pulled her legs up onto the love seat. If she held her breath, she could hear Bon Iver quietly blaring at least two floors below.

  Levi was back before Cath was ready for him. (Which was bound to happen.) He looked like he’d washed his face, and he was wearing jeans and a baby blue flannel shirt. It was a nice color on him. It made his face tan and his hair yellow and his mouth pink. He sat down on the couch next to her—she knew he would. There was no room in this room for personal space.

  He picked Cath’s hand up off the couch and held it loosely in both of his, looking down at it, then running his fingertips along the back, up and down her fingers.

  She took a deep breath. “How did you end up living here?”

  “I worked with Tommy at Starbucks. One of his old roommates graduated and moved out, I was living in a house with three deadbeats, and I didn’t mind the stairs.… Tommy’s dad bought this house as a real estate investment. He’s lived here since he was a sophomore.”

  “What is he now?”

  “Law student.”

  Cath nodded. The more that Levi touched her hand, the more that it tickled. She stretched out her fingers and took a soft breath.

  “Feel nice?” he asked, looking up at her with his eyes without lifting his head. She nodded again. If he kept touching her, she wouldn’t be able to do even that; she’d have to blink once for yes, twice for no.

  “So what happened this weekend?” he asked. “How is everybody?”

  Cath shook her head. “Crazy. Fine. I—I think Wren and I are okay again. I think we made up.”

  His lips twitched up on one side. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s great.” You could tell that he really thought so.

  “Yeah,” Cath said. “It is. I feel—”

  Levi brought one leg up between them and bumped her thigh with his knee. She practically jumped back over the arm of the couch.

  He made a frustrated noise that was half laugh, half sigh, and wrinkled his nose. “Are you really that nervous?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know why? I mean, what’s making you nervous? I meant what I said earlier about the table, and what’s on and off of it.”

  “There is no table in here,” Cath said. “There’s just a bed.”

  He pulled her hand into his chest. “Is that what you’re scared of?”

  “I don’t know what I’m scared of.…” That was a lie. A giant one. She was scared that he’d start touching her, and then that they wouldn’t stop. She was scared that she wasn’t ready to be that person yet. The person who doesn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” she said. Levi looked down at their hands, and he looked so disappointed and confused—and it was such a piss-poor way to treat him. Dishonestly. Distantly. After he’d put himself out there for her again and again.

  “This weekend…,” Cath said, and she tried to scoot closer. She knelt on the couch cushion next to him. “Thank you.”

  Levi smiled again and lifted his eyes, just his eyes, up to her.

  “I don’t think I can tell you how much it meant to me,” she said. “That you were there at the hospital. That you came.” He squeezed her hand. Cath pressed on: “I don’t think I can tell you how much you mean to me,” she said. “Levi.”

  He lifted his whole face. His eyes were hopeful now. Wary.

  “C’mere,” he said, tugging on her hand.

  “I’m not sure I know how.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I have an idea.”

  “I can’t read you fanfiction,” she said, teasing. “I don’t have my computer.”

  “Don’t you have your phone?”

  She tilted her head. “Was that really your idea? Fanfiction?”

&nb
sp; “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the palm of her hand. “It always relaxes you.”

  “I thought you’d been asking me to read to you because you liked the story—”

  “I do like the story. And I like the way it relaxes you. You never finished reading me the rabbit one, you know. And you’ve never read me anything from Carry On.”

  Cath looked over at her coat. Her phone was in her pocket. “I feel like I’m failing you,” she said. “I was supposed to come over here and do stuff with you, not read lame fanfiction.”

  Levi bit his lip and stifled a laugh. “Do stuff. Is that the street name for it? Come on, Cath, I want to know what happens. They just killed the rabbit, and Simon had finally figured out that Baz was a vampire.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Levi smiled, still looking overly cautious, and nodded.

  Cath leaned off the couch and found her phone. She wasn’t used to googling her own stories, but when she typed in “Magicath” and “The Fifth Hare,” her story came right up.

  While she looked for their place, Levi gently put his hands on her waist and pulled her back against him. “Okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Have I read this part, ‘Simon didn’t know what to say. How to respond to … this. All this bloody information’?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Did we get to the part where the rabbit caught fire?”

  “What? No.”

  “Okay,” Cath said. “I think I’ve got it.” She leaned back against Levi’s chest and felt his chin in her hair. This is fine, she told herself. I’ve been just here before. She propped her glasses in her hair and cleared her throat.

  Simon didn’t know what to say. How to respond to … this. All this bloody information.

  He picked up the sword and wiped it clean on his cloak. “You all right?”

  Baz licked his bloody lips—like they were dry, Simon thought—and nodded his head.

  “Good,” Simon said, and realized that he meant it.

  Then a plume of flame shot up behind Baz, throwing his face into shadow.

  He whipped around and backed away from the rabbit. Its paw was well and truly on fire now, and the flames were already crawling up the beast’s chest.

  “My wand…,” Baz said, looking around him on the floor. “Quick, cast an extinguishing spell, Snow.”

  “I … I don’t know any,” Simon said.

  Baz reached for Simon’s wand hand, and wrapped his own bloody fingers around Simon’s. “Make a wish!” he shouted, flicking the wand in a half circle.

  The fire sputtered out, and the nursery fell dark.

  Baz let go of Simon’s hand and started hunting around on the floor for his wand. Simon stepped closer to the gruesome corpse. “Now what?” he asked it.

  As if in answer, the rabbit began to shimmer, then fade—and then it was gone, leaving nothing behind but the smell of pennies and burnt hair.

  And something else …

  Baz conjured one of his blue balls of light. “Ah,” he said, picking up his wand. “Filthy bugger was lying on it.”

  “Look,” Simon said, pointing to another shadow on the floor. “I think it’s a key.” He stooped to pick it up—an old-fashioned key with fanged white rabbit’s teeth on its blade.

  Baz stepped closer to look. He was dripping with blood; the smell of gore was overwhelming.

  “Do you think this is what I was meant to find?” Simon asked.

  “Well,” Baz said thoughtfully, “keys do seem more useful than giant, murderous rabbits.… How many more of these do you have to fight?”

  “Five. But I can’t do it alone. This one would have murdered me if—”

  “We have to clean up this mess,” Baz said, looking down at the stains on the thick-piled rug.

  “We’ll have to tell the Mage when he comes back,” Simon said. “There’s too much damage here to handle ourselves.”

  Baz was silent.

  “Come on,” Simon said, “we can at least get ourselves cleaned up now.”

  The boys’ showers were as empty as the rest of the school. They chose stalls at opposite ends.…

  “What’s wrong?” Levi asked.

  Cath had stopped reading.

  “I feel weird reading this mushy gay stuff out loud—your roommates are here. Is one of them gay? I don’t think I can read this with actual gay people in the house.”

  Levi giggled. “Micah? Trust me, it’s okay. He watches straight stuff in front of me all the time. He’s obsessed with Titanic.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Cath, it’s okay. Nobody can hear you.… Wait, is this really a shower scene? Like, a shower scene?”

  “No,” Cath said. “Geez.”

  Levi moved his arms around her waist until he was holding her properly. Then he pushed his mouth into her hair. “Read to me, sweetheart.”

  Simon finished first and put on fresh jeans. When he looked back at Baz’s stall, the water was still running pink at the other boy’s ankles.

  Vampire, Simon thought, allowing himself to think the word for the first time, watching the water run.

  It should have filled him with hate and revulsion—the thought of Baz usually filled him with those things. But all Simon could feel right now was relief. Baz had helped him find the rabbit, helped him fight it, had kept both of them alive.

  Simon was relieved. And grateful.

  He shoved his singed and stained clothes into the trash, then went back to their room. It was a long time before Baz joined him. When he did, he looked better than Simon had seen him look all year. Baz’s cheeks and lips were flushed dark pink, and his grey eyes had come out of their shadows.

  “Hungry?” Simon asked.

  Baz started laughing.

  The sun hadn’t quite broken the horizon yet, and no one was about in the kitchens. Simon found bread and cheese and apples, and tossed them onto a platter. It seemed strange to sit alone in the empty dining hall, so he and Baz sat on the kitchen flagstones instead, leaning back against a wall of cabinets.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Baz said, biting into a green apple, obviously trying to seem casual. “Are you going to tell the Mage about me?”

  “He already thinks you’re a nasty git,” Simon said.

  “Yes,” Baz said quietly, “but this is worse, and you know it. You know what he’ll have to do.”

  Turn Baz over to the Coven.

  It would mean certain imprisonment, perhaps death. Simon had been trying for six years to get Baz expelled, but he’d never wanted to see him staked.

  Still … Baz was a vampire—a vampire, damn it. A monster. And he was already Simon’s enemy.

  “A monster,” Levi repeated. He raised one hand to unclip Cath’s hair. Her glasses were stuck there and fell sideways onto her arm. Levi picked them up and tossed them onto his bed. “Your hair’s still wet,” he said, shaking it out with one hand.

  Simon looked at Baz and tried again to summon the proper amount of horror. All he could manage was some weary dismay. “When did it happen?” he asked.

  “I already told you,” Baz said. “We’ve just left the scene of the crime.”

  “You were bitten in the nursery? As a child? Why didn’t anyone notice?”

  “My mother was dead. My father swooped in and swept me back to the estate. I think he might have suspected.… We’ve never talked about it.”

  “Didn’t he notice when you started drinking people’s blood?”

  “I don’t,” Baz snapped imperiously. “And besides, the … thirst doesn’t manifest itself right away. It comes on during adolescence.”

  “Like acne?”

  “Speak for yourself, Snow.”

  “When did it come on for you?”

  “This summer,” Baz said, looking down.

  “And you haven’t—”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Baz turned on him. “Are you kidding me? Vampires murdered my mother. And if I�
�m found out, I’ll lose everything.… My wand. My family. Possibly my life. I’m a magician. I’m not—” He gestured toward his throat and his face. “—this.”

  Simon wondered if he and Baz had ever been so close, had ever allowed each other to sit this close, in all their years of living together. Baz’s shoulder was nearly touching his own, and Simon could see every tiny bump and shadow on Baz’s admittedly very clear skin. Every line of his lips, every flare of blue in his grey eyes.

  “How are you staying alive?” Simon asked.

  “I manage, thanks.”

  “Not well,” Simon said. “You look like hell.”

  Baz smirked. “Again, thank you, Snow. You’re a comfort.”

  “I don’t mean now,” Simon said. “You look great now.” Baz raised one eyebrow and lowered the other. “But lately…,” Simon pressed on, “you just seem like you’re fading away. Have you been … drinking … anything?”

  “I do what I can,” Baz said, dropping his apple core onto the plate. “You don’t want to know the details.”

  “I do,” Simon argued. “Look, as your roommate, I have a vested interest in you not wandering around in a bloodlust.”

  Levi’s hand was still in Cath’s hair. She felt him lift it up, felt his mouth on the back of her neck. His other arm pulled her tight against him. Cath concentrated on her phone. It had been so long since she’d written this story, she couldn’t quite remember how it ended.

  “I’d never bite you,” Baz said, locking on to Simon’s eyes.

  “That’s good,” Simon said. “I’m glad you still plan to kill me the old-fashioned way—but you have to admit that this is hard on you.”

  “Of course it’s hard on me.” He threw a hand in the air in what Simon recognized as a very Baz-like gesture. “I’ve got the thirst of the ancients, and I’m surrounded by useless bags of blood all day.”

  “And all night,” Simon said softly.

  Baz shook his head and looked away again. “I said I’d never hurt you,” he muttered.

  “Then let me help.” Simon moved just an inch, so their shoulders were touching. Even through his T-shirt and through Baz’s cotton button-down, he could feel that Baz wasn’t freezing anymore. He was warm. He seemed healthy again.