Fangirl

She opened the door, and there was an immediate step down into a normal-sized hallway. Cath ended up in another siloish room, the mirror image of Nick’s; the wind was even blowing in the opposite direction.

She found an empty cubicle and set down her bag, taking off her coat. A girl sitting on the other side of the gray partition was watching her.

The girl sat up a little, so that Cath could see she was smiling. She looked quickly around the room, then leaned forward, holding on to the cubicle wall. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I love your shirt.”

Cath glanced down. She was wearing her KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON shirt from Etsy, the one with Baz and Simon’s faces.

“Oh,” Cath said, “thanks.”

“It’s always so cool to meet somebody else who reads fanfiction in real life.…”

Cath must have looked surprised. “Oh my God,” the girl said, “do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Yeah,” Cath said. “Of course. I mean, I think so. Carry On, Simon?”

“Yes!” The girl laughed quietly and looked around the room again. “That was almost embarrassing. I mean, it’s like having a secret life sometimes. People think it’s so weird.… Fanfiction. Slash. You know.”

Cath nodded. “Do you read a lot of fic?”

“Not as much anymore,” the girl said. “I was an addict in high school.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a sweatshirt that read VERDIGRE FOOTBALL—FIGHT, HAWKS, FIGHT! She didn’t look like a creepy shut-in.… “What about you?” she asked.

“I still read a lot…,” Cath said.

“Magicath is my absolute favorite,” the girl interrupted, like she couldn’t hold it back. “I’m obsessed with Carry On. Have you been keeping up?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s been posting so much lately. Every time there’s a new chapter, I have to stop everything to read it. And then read it again. My roommate thinks I’m crazy.”

“Mine, too.”

“But it’s just so good. Nobody writes Simon and Baz like Magicath. I’m in love with her Baz. Like, in love. And I used to be a major Simon/Agatha shipper.”

Cath wrinkled her nose. “No.”

“I know, I was young.”

“If Agatha actually cared about either of them,” Cath said, “she’d pick one.”

“I know, right? When Simon broke it off with her in Carry On—such a good scene.”

“You didn’t think it was too long?”

“No,” the girl said, “did you?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“I never think the chapters are too long. I just want more and more and more.” The girl waved her hands in front of her mouth like she was Cookie Monster eating cookies. “I’m telling you, I’m obsessed with Carry On. I feel like something big is about to happen soon.”

“Me, too,” Cath said. “I think the Mage might turn on Simon.”

“No! You think?”

“I’ve just got a feeling about it.”

“It killed me how long it took Simon and Baz to get together. And now I’m dying for them to have a big love scene. That’s my only complaint about Carry On—not enough Simon/Baz action.”

“She almost never writes love scenes,” Cath said, feeling her cheeks pink.

“Yeah, but when she does, they’re hot.”

“You think?”

“Um,” the girl laughed. “Yes.”

“This is why people think we’re crazy perverts,” Cath said.

The girl just giggled some more. “I know. Sometimes I forget that there’s still a real book coming out—like, it’s hard for me to imagine that the story is going to end any other way than the way Magicath writes it.”

“Sometimes…,” Cath said, “when I’m reading canon, I forget that Simon and Baz aren’t in love.”

“Right? I love Gemma T. Leslie, I always will—I feel like she was this major force in my childhood—and I know that Magicath wouldn’t exist without GTL. But now, I think I love Magicath more. Like she might be my favorite author. And she’s never even written a book.…”

Cath’s jaw was hanging slightly open, and she was shaking her head. “That’s crazy.”

“I know,” the girl said, “but I think it’s true.… Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’m talking your ear off. I just never get to talk about this stuff in real life. Except to my boyfriend. He knows what a freak I am about it.”

“Don’t apologize,” Cath said. “This was cool.”

The girl sat down, and so did Cath. She opened up her laptop and thought for a minute about Professor Piper, then opened up the latest chapter of Carry On. Something big was about to happen soon.

*   *   *

“Dad, it’s Cath. Are you back from Tulsa? Just checking in. Call me.”

___

“Dad? It’s Cath. Call me.”

___

“Hey, Cath, it’s your dad. I’m back. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Worry about school. No, scratch that, don’t worry at all. Try not worrying, Cath—it’s an amazing way to be. Like flying. Love you, honey, tell your sister hi.”

___

“Dad? I know you don’t want me to worry. But I would worry less if you called me back. And not at three A.M.”

*   *   *

“Ten days…,” Professor Piper said.

Instead of sitting in her usual spot on her desk, she was striking a pose at the windows. It was snowing outside—it had already snowed so much this year, and it was only early December—and the professor cut a dramatic figure against the icy glass.

“I’d like to believe that you’re all finished with your short stories,” she said, turning her blue eyes on them. “That you’re just tweaking and tinkering now, tugging every last loose thread—”

She walked back toward their desks and smiled at a few of them one by one. Cath felt a thrill when their eyes met.

“—but I’m a writer, too,” the professor said. “I know what it’s like to be distracted. To seek out distractions. To exhaust yourself doing every other little thing rather than face a blank page.” She smiled at one of the boys. “A blank screen …

“So if you haven’t finished—or if you haven’t started—I understand, I do. But I implore you … start now. Lock yourself away from the world. Turn off the Internet, barricade the door. Write as if your life depended on it.

“Write as if your future depended on it.

“Because I can promise you this one small thing.…” She let her eyes rest on another one of her favorites and smiled. “If you’re pla

“This class is for writers,” she said. “For people who are willing to set aside their fears and move past distractions.

“I love you all—I do—but if you’re going to waste your time, I’m not going to waste mine.” She stopped at Nick’s desk and smiled at him. “Okay?” she said only to him.

Nick nodded. Cath looked down at her desk.

*   *   *

She hadn’t washed her sheets, but there wasn’t any Levi left in them.

Cath pushed her face into her pillow as nonchalantly as she could, even though there was no one else in the room to judge her for it.

Her pillowcase smelled like a dirty pillowcase. And a little bit like Tostitos.

Cath closed her eyes and imagined Levi lying next to her, his legs touching and crossing hers. She remembered the way her throat had rasped that night and the way he’d put his arm around her, like he wanted to hold her up, like he wanted to make everything easy for her.

She remembered his fla

And then she was crying and her nose was ru

Simon ran as fast as he could. Faster. Casting spells on his feet and legs, casting spells on the branches and stones in his path.

He could already be too late—at first he thought he was, when he saw Agatha lying in a heap on the forest floor.… But it was a trembling heap. Agatha may be frightened, but she was still whole.