Fangirl

Levi’s eyes smiled almost shut. She kissed the corner of his mouth, and he moved his face to catch her lips.

When Cath heard the eggs start to snap, she pulled away—but Levi took hold of her waist.

“Why, then?” he asked. “Doesn’t Wren like me? Do I cramp your style? I can tell you don’t want me around when she’s there.”

Cath pushed against his chest, away, and went back to the stove, quickly grating the cheese over the eggs. “It has nothing to with you.”

Levi tried to move into her line of sight, leaning against the counter next to the stove. “How do you figure?”

“It’s just … nothing, it’s weird,” she said. “It’d be different if you’d grown up with us, or if you’d met us both at the same time—”

“What would be different?”

Cath shrugged and scraped at the omelette with a wooden spatula. “Then I would know that you had enough information to choose me.”

Levi leaned over the stove, trying again to catch her eye.

“Get back,” Cath said, “you’re going to burn yourself.”

He backed up, but only few inches. “Of course I chose you.”

“But you didn’t know Wren.”

“Cath…”

She wished there was more to do with omelettes than watch them. “I know you think she’s pretty—”

“You know that because I think you’re pretty.”

“You said she was hot.”

“When?”

“When you met her.” Levi looked confused for a second, one eyebrow arched beautifully. “You called her Superman,” Cath said.

“Cather,” he said, remembering, “I was trying to get your attention. I was trying to say that you were hot without actually saying it.”

“Well, it sucked.”

“I’m sorry.” He reached out for her waist again. She kept looking down at the eggs.

“I know that you like me,” she said.

“You know that I love you.”

Cath kept staring at the pan. “But she’s a lot like me. Some of our best friends couldn’t even tell us apart. And then, when they could, it would be because Wren was the better one. Because she talked more or smiled more—or just flat-out looked better.”

“I can tell you apart just fine.”

“Long hair. Glasses.”

“Cath … come on, look at me.” He pulled at her belt loops, and she flipped the omelette before she let herself turn toward him. “I can tell you apart,” he said.

“We sound the same. We kind of talk the same. We have all the same gestures.”

“True,” he said, nodding, holding her chin up, “but it’s almost like that makes your differences more dramatic.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means, sometimes your sister will say something, and it will sort of shock me to hear her saying it with your voice.”

Cath looked up to his eyes, unsure. They were big and earnest. “Like what?”

“I can’t think of anything specific,” he said. “It’s like … she smiles more than you. But she’s harder somehow. Closed up.”

“I’m the one who never leaves my room.”

“I’m not explaining this right.… I like Wren,” he said, “what I know of her. But she’s more … forceful than you.”

“Confident.”

“Partly. Maybe. More like—she takes what she wants from a situation.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, I know,” Levi said. “But it’s not you. You don’t push through every moment. You pay attention. You take everything in. I like that about you—I like that better.”

Cath closed her eyes and felt tears catch on her cheeks.

“I like your glasses,” he said. “I like your Simon Snow T-shirts. I like that you don’t smile at everyone, because then, when you smile at me.… Cather.” He kissed her mouth. “Look at me.”

She did.

“I choose you over everyone.”

Cath took a painful breath and reached up with one hand to touch his chin. “I love you,” she said. “Levi.”

Levi’s face broke open just before he kissed her.

He pulled away again a few seconds later.…

“Say it again.”

*   *   *

She had to make him another omelette.

“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”

Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”

“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”

“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”

She held her ringed hand out to him and gri

Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault. When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.

—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie

THIRTY-FIVE

“Look at them,” Reagan said, shaking her head fondly. “They’re all grown up.”

Cath turned to the cereal bar and watched two very hungover freshmen fumble with the scoops.

“I can still remember the night they came home with their first My Little Pony tattoos,” Reagan said.

“And the morning that we noticed those tattoos were infected,” Cath added, drinking her tomato juice. That’s something Cath would miss about the dorms. Four different kinds of juice on tap, including tomato—where else could you get tomato juice? Reagan hated watching her drink it. “It’s like you’re drinking blood,” Reagan would say, “if blood had the consistency of gravy.”

Reagan was still gazing at the hungover girls. “I wonder how many familiar faces we’ll see next year. Every year it’s a new batch, and most of them don’t come back to the dorms for a second tour.”

“Next year,” Cath said, “I won’t make the mistake of getting so attached.”

Reagan snorted. “We need to turn in our housing forms if we want the same room next year.”

Cath set down her juice glass. “Wait … Are you saying you want to live with me again?”

“Eff yeah, you’re never even home. It’s like I’ve finally got a room to myself.”

Cath smiled. Then took another long pull of tomato juice. “Well … I’ll think about it. Do you have any more hot ex-boyfriends?”

*   *   *

Wren was right.

She’d been on Cath to post a chapter of Carry On, Simon every single night. “Otherwise you’re never going to beat The Eighth Dance.”

They were going to go to the midnight release party at the Bookworm, back in Omaha. Levi wanted to go, too.

“Are we go

“We haven’t done costumes since junior high.” Cath was sitting on the love seat with her laptop. She could write with him in the room now; she was so focused on Carry On, she could have written in a room full of circus animals.

“Damn,” he said, “I wanted to do costumes.”

“Who do you want to go as?”

“The Mage. Or maybe one of the vampires—Count Vidalia. Or Baz. Would that make you wild with desire?”

“I’m already wild with desire.”

“She said from across the room.”

“Sorry,” Cath said, rubbing her eyes. Levi had been needling her all night. Teasing her. Trying to get her to come out of her head and play. “I just need to finish this chapter if I want Wren to read it before she falls asleep.”

Cath was so close to the end of Carry On that every chapter felt important. If she wrote something stupid now, she wouldn’t be able to fix it or rein it in later. There was no room left for filler; every chapter meant the resolution of a plot line or a character’s last big scene. She wanted all of them to get the ending they deserved. Not just Baz and Simon and Agatha and Penelope, but all the other characters, too—Declan the reluctant vampire hunter, Eb the goatherd, Professor Benedict, Coach Mac.…

Cath was trying not to pay attention to her hit counts—that just added more pressure—but she knew they were off the chart. In the tens of thousands. She was getting so many comments that Wren had taken to handling them for her, using Cath’s profile to thank people and answer basic questions.