Fangirl

“No.” Angry. “I need her help. We were supposed to study last night and she put me off, and the test is tomorrow and—” He hurled a book down on Reagan’s bed, then sat at the end of Cath’s, looking away from her but still hiding his face. “She said she’d study with me.”

Cath walked over and picked up the book. “The Outsiders?”

“Yeah.” He looked up. “Have you read it?”

“No. Have you?”

“No.”

“So read it,” she said. “Your test is tomorrow? You have time. It doesn’t look very long.”

Levi shook his head and looked at the floor again. “You don’t understand. I have to pass this test.”

“So read the book. Were you just go

He shook his head again—not in answer, more like he was shaking his head at the very idea of reading the book.

“I told you,” he said. “I’m not much of a book person.”

Levi always said that. I’m not a book person. Like books were rich desserts or scary movies.

“Yeah, but this is school,” she said. “Would you let Reagan take the test for you?”

“Maybe,” he huffed. “If that was an option.”

Cath dropped the book next to him on her bed and went to her desk. “You may as well watch the movie,” she said distastefully.

“It’s not available.”

Cath made a noise like hunh in her throat.

“You don’t understand,” Levi said. “If I don’t get a C in this class, I get kicked out my program.”

“So read the book.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple,” Cath said. “You have a test tomorrow, your girlfriend isn’t here to do your work—read the book.”

“You don’t understand … anything.”

Levi was standing now; he’d walked to the door, but Cath wouldn’t turn to face him. She was tired of fighting. This fight wasn’t even hers.

“Okay,” she said, “I don’t understand. Whatever. Reagan isn’t here, and I have a ton of reading to do—and nobody to do it for me—so…” She heard him jerk open the door.

“I tried to read it,” he said roughly. “I’ve been trying for the last two hours. I just, I’m not a reader. I’ve … I’ve never finished a book.”

Cath turned to look at him, feeling a sudden guilty grab in her stomach. “Are you trying to tell me you can’t read?”

Levi pushed his hair back violently. “Of course I can read,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Well, then, what are you trying to tell me? That you don’t want to?”

“No. I—” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. “—I don’t know why I’m trying to tell you anything. I can read. I just can’t read books.”

“So pretend it’s a really long street sign and muddle through it.”

“Jesus,” he said, surprised. Hurt. “What have I ever done to make you be this mean to me?”

“I’m not being mean,” Cath said, knowing that she probably was. “I just don’t know what you want me to say—that I approve? What you and Reagan do isn’t any of my business.”

“You think I’m lazy.” His eyes were on the ground. “And I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“It’s like I can’t focus,” he said, turning away from her in the doorway. “Like I read the same paragraph over and over, and I still don’t know what it says. Like the words go right through me and I can’t hold on to them.”

“Okay,” she said.

He looked back, just far enough to face her. Levi’s eyes were too big in his face when he wasn’t smiling. “I’m not a cheater,” he said.

Then he walked away, letting the door close behind him.

Cath exhaled. Then inhaled. Her chest was so tight, it hurt both ways. Levi shouldn’t get to make her feel this way—he shouldn’t even have access to her chest.

Levi wasn’t her boyfriend. He wasn’t family. She didn’t choose him. She was stuck with him because she was stuck with Reagan. He was a roommate-in-law.

The Outsiders was still sitting on her bed.

Cath grabbed it and ran out the door. “Levi!” She ran down the hall. “Levi!”

He was standing in front of the elevator with his hands shoved into his coat pockets.

Cath stopped ru

“You forgot your book.” She held it up.

“Thanks,” he said, holding out his hand.

Cath ignored it. “Look … why don’t you come back? Reagan’s probably on her way.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said.

“Did you yell at me?”

“I raised my voice.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step backwards toward her room. “Come on.”

Levi looked in her eyes, and she let him.

“Are you sure?”

“Come on.” Cath turned toward her room and waited for him to fall into step beside her. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t realize we were having a serious conversation until we were.”

“I’m just really stressed about this test,” he said.

They stopped at her door, and Cath suddenly brought her wrists up to her temples. “Crap.” She held her hands on top of her head. “Crap, crap, crap. We’re locked out. I don’t have my keys.”

“I got ya.” Levi gri

Her jaw dropped. “You have a key to our room?”

“Reagan gave me her spare, for emergencies.” He unlocked the door and held it open for her.

“Then why are you always sitting in the hall?”

“That’s never an emergency.”

Cath walked in, and Levi followed. He was smiling again, but he was still obviously operating at thirty degrees below regular Levi. They might be done fighting, but he was still going to fail his test.

“So you couldn’t find the movie?” she asked. “Even online?”

“No. And the movie’s no good anyway. Teachers can always tell when you watch the movie.” He flopped down at the head of her bed. “Normally, I listen to the audiobook.”

“That counts as reading,” Cath said, sitting at her desk.

“It does?”

“Of course.”

He kicked one of the legs of her chair playfully, then rested his feet there, on the rail. “Well, then, never mind. I guess I have read lots of books.… This one wasn’t available.” He unzipped his jacket, and it fell open. He was wearing a green and yellow plaid shirt underneath.

“So, what? Was Reagan going to read it to you?”

“Usually we just go over the highlights. It helps her, too, to review it.”

Cath looked down at the paperback. “Well, I’ve got nothing for you. All I know about The Outsiders is ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy.’”

Levi sighed and pushed back his hair. Cath shuffled the pages with her thumb.… It really was a short book. With tons of dialogue.

She looked up at Levi. The sun was setting behind her, and he was sitting in a wash of orange light.

Cath turned her chair toward the bed, knocking his feet without warning to the ground. Then she rested her own feet on the bed frame and took off her glasses, tucking them in her hair. “‘When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house—’”

“Cath,” Levi whispered. She felt her chair wobble and knew he was kicking it. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Obviously,” she said. “‘When I stepped out into the bright sunlight—’”

“Cather.”

She cleared her throat, still focused on the book. “Shut up, I owe you one. At least one. And also, I’m trying to read here.… When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had just two things on my mind.…”

When Cath glanced up between paragraphs, Levi was gri

*   *   *

Cath had never read out loud this much before. Fortunately it was a good book, so she sort of forgot after a while that she was reading out loud and that Levi was listening—and the circumstances that got them here. An hour or so passed, maybe even two, before Cath dropped her hands and the book into her lap. The sun had finished setting, and the only light in her room was from her desk lamp.