Fangirl

Fuck Wren.

No … Damn her. Never mind her. All Wren did lately was complicate Cath’s world.

Cath had slept with a boy.

With a guy.

And it was awesome. Warm. And tangly. What would have happened if they’d woken up any other way? Without Reagan barging in. Would Levi have kissed her again? Or would he still have rushed off with nothing more than a “later”?

Later …

Cath stared at her laptop. She’d been working on the same paragraph for two hours. It was a love scene (a pretty mild one), and she kept losing track of where Baz and Simon’s hands were supposed to be. It was confusing sometimes with all the hes and the hims, and she’d been staring at this paragraph for so long, she was starting to feel like she’d written every sentence before. Maybe she had.

She shut the laptop and stood up. It was almost ten o’clock. What time did parties end? (What time did they start?) Not that it mattered, at this point. Cath didn’t have any way to get to Levi’s house.

She walked over and stood in front of the full-length mirror that was mounted on their door.

Cath looked like exactly who she was—an eighteen-year-old nerd who knew eff-all about boys or parties.

Ski

Cath pulled the rubber band out of her hair and took off her glasses; she had to step closer to the mirror to see herself clearly.

She lifted her chin up and forced her forehead to relax. “I’m the Cool One,” she told herself. “Somebody give me some tequila because I’ll totally drink it. And there’s no way you’re going to find me later having a panic attack in your parents’ bathroom. Who wants to French-kiss?”

This is why she couldn’t be with Levi. She still called it “French-kissing,” and he just went around putting his tongue in people’s mouths.

Cath still didn’t look like the Cool One. She didn’t look like Wren.

She pushed her shoulders back, let her chest stick out. There was nothing wrong with her breasts (that she knew of). They were big enough that nobody ever called her flat-chested. She wished they were a little bigger; then they’d balance out her hips. Then Cath wouldn’t have to check “pear-shaped” on those “how to dress for your body type” guides. Those guides try to convince you that it’s okay to be any shape, but when your body type is a synonym for FUBAR, it’s hard to believe it.

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.