Fangirl

—from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

SEVEN

When Cath saw Abel’s name pop up on her phone, she thought at first that it was a text, even though the phone was obviously ringing.

Abel never called her.

They e-mailed. They texted—they’d texted just last night. But they never actually talked unless it was in person.

“Hello?” she answered. She was waiting in her spot outside Andrews Hall, the English building. It was really too cold to be standing outside, but sometimes Nick would show up here before class, and they’d look over each other’s assignments or talk about the story they were writing together. (It was turning into another love story; Nick was the one turning it that way.)

“Cath?” Abel’s voice was gravelly and familiar.

“Hey,” she said, feeling warm suddenly. Surprisingly. Maybe she had missed Abel. She was still avoiding Wren—Cath hadn’t even eaten lunch at Selleck since Wren drunked at her. Maybe Cath just missed home. “Hey. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just told you last night that I was fine.”

“Well. Yeah. I know. But it’s different on the phone.”

He sounded startled. “That’s exactly what Katie said.”

“Who’s Katie?”

“Katie is the reason I’m calling you. She’s, like, every reason I’m calling you.”

Cath cocked her head. “What?”

“Cath, I’ve met someone,” he said. Just like that. Like he was in some telenovela.

“Katie?”

“Yeah. And it’s, um, she made me realize that … well, that what you and I have isn’t real.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean our relationship, Cath—it isn’t real.” Why did he keep saying her name like that?

“Of course it’s real. Abel. We’ve been together for three years.”

“Well, sort of.”

“Not sort of,” Cath said.

“Well … at any rate”—his voice sounded firm—“I met somebody else.”

Cath turned to face the building and rested the top of her head against the bricks. “Katie.”

“And it’s more real,” he said. “We’re just … right together, you know? We can talk about everything—she’s a coder, too. And she got a thirty-four on the ACT.”

Cath got a thirty-two.

“You’re breaking up with me because I’m not smart enough?”

“This isn’t a breakup. It’s not like we’re really together.”

“Is that what you told Katie?”

“I told her we’d drifted apart.”

“Yes,” Cath spat out. “Because the only time you ever call is to break up with me.” She kicked the bricks, then instantly regretted it.

“Right. Like you call me all the time.”

“I would if you wanted me to,” she said.

“Would you?”

Cath kicked the wall again. “Maybe.”

Abel sighed. He sounded more exasperated than anything else—more than sad or sorry. “We haven’t really been together since junior year.”

Cath wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t think of anything convincing. But you took me to the military ball, she thought. But you taught me how to drive. “But your grandma always makes tres leches cake for my birthday.”

“She makes it anyway for the bakery.”

“Fine.” Cath turned and leaned back against the wall. She wished she could cry—just so that he’d have to deal with it. “So noted. Everything is noted. We’re not broken up, but we’re over.”

“We’re not over,” Abel said. “We can still be friends. I’ll still read your fic—Katie reads it, too. I mean, she always has. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

Cath shook her head, speechless.

Then Nick rounded the corner of the building and acknowledged her the way he always did, looking her in the eye and quickly jerking up his head. Cath lifted her chin in answer.

“Yeah,” she said into the phone. “Coincidence.”

Nick had set his backpack on a stone planter, and he was digging through his books and notebooks. His jacket was unbuttoned, and when he leaned over like that, she could kind of see down his shirt. Sort of. A few inches of pale skin and sparse black hair.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Oh,” Abel said. “Okay. Do you still want to hang out over Thanksgiving?”

“I’ve got to go,” she said, and pressed End.

Cath took a slow breath. She felt lightheaded and strained, like something too big was hatching inside her ribs. She pushed her shoulders back into the bricks and looked down at the top of Nick’s head.

He looked up at her and smiled crookedly, holding out a few sheets of paper. “Will you read this? I think maybe it sucks. Or maybe it’s awesome. It’s probably awesome. Tell me it’s awesome, okay? Unless it sucks.”

*   *   *

Cath texted Wren just before Fiction-Writing started, hiding her phone behind Nick’s broad shoulders.

“abel broke up with me.”

“oh god. sorry. want me to come over?”

“yeah. at 5?”

“yeah. you OK?”

“think so. end tables end.”

*   *   *

“Have you cried yet?”

They were sitting on Cath’s bed, eating the last of the protein bars.

“No,” Cath said, “I don’t think I’m going to.”

Wren bit her lip. Literally.

“Say it,” Cath said.

“I don’t feel like I have to. I never thought that not saying it would be this satisfying.”

“Say it.”

“He wasn’t a real boyfriend! You never liked him like that!” Wren pushed Cath so hard, she fell over.

Cath laughed and sat back up, drawing her legs up into her arms. “I really thought I did, though.”

“How could you think that?” Wren was laughing, too.

Cath shrugged.

It was Thursday night, and Wren was already dressed to go out. She was wearing pale green eyeshadow that made her eyes look more green than blue, and her lips were a shiny red. Her short hair was parted on one side and swept glamorously across her forehead.

“Seriously,” Wren said, “you know what love feels like. I’ve read you describe it a thousand different ways.”

Cath pulled a face. “That’s different. That’s fantasy. That’s … ‘Simon reached out for Baz, and his name felt like a magic word on his lips.’”

“It’s not all fantasy…,” Wren said.

Cath thought of Levi’s eyes when Reagan teased him.

She thought of Nick tapping his short, even teeth with the tip of his tongue.

“I can’t believe Abel told me this girl’s ACT score,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with that? Offer her a scholarship?”

“Are you sad at all?” Wren reached under the bed and shook an empty protein bar box.

“Yeah … I’m embarrassed that I held on for so long. That I really thought we could go on like we were. And I’m sad because it feels like now high school is finally over. Like Abel was this piece of a really happy time that I thought I could take with me.”

“Do you remember when he bought you a laptop power cord for your birthday?”

“That was a good gift,” Cath said, pointing at her sister.

Wren grabbed her finger and pulled it down. “Did you think of him every time you booted up?”

“I needed a new power cord.” Cath leaned back against the wall again, facing Wren. “He kissed me that day, on our seventeenth birthday, for the first time. Or maybe I kissed him.”

“Was it charged with passion?”

Cath giggled. “No. But I remember thinking … that he made me feel safe.” She rubbed her head back against the painted cinder blocks. “I remember thinking that me and Abel would never be like Dad and Mom, that if Abel ever got tired of me, I’d survive it.”

Wren was still holding on to Cath’s hand. She squeezed it. Then she laid her head against the wall, mirroring Cath. Cath was crying now.

“Well, you did,” Wren said. “Survive it.”

Cath laughed and pushed her fingers up behind her glasses to wipe her eyes. Wren took hold of that hand, too. “You know my stand on this,” she said.