Текст книги "Fangirl"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

SIXTEEN

Cath didn’t wake up when the door swung open.

But she jumped when it slammed closed. That’s when she felt Levi sprawled out beneath her, the warm scrape of his chin against her forehead. Then she woke up.

Reagan was standing at the end of Cath’s bed, staring at them. She was still wearing last night’s jeans, and her silvery blue eyeshadow had drifted onto her cheeks.

Cath sat up. And Levi sat up. Groggily. And Cath felt her stomach barreling up into her throat.

Levi reached for Cath’s phone and looked at it. “Shit,” he said. “I’m two hours late for work.” He was up then and putting on his coat. “Fell asleep reading,” he said, half to Reagan, half to the floor.

“Reading,” Reagan said, looking at Cath.

“Later,” Levi said, more to the floor than to either of them.

And then he was gone. And Reagan was still standing at the end of Cath’s bed.

Cath’s eyes were sticky and sore, and suddenly full of tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling it. Feeling it in her stomach and in every sore muscle between her shoulders. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t,” Reagan said. She was obviously furious.

“I … I’m just so sorry.”

“Don’t. Do not apologize.”

Cath crossed her legs and hunched over, holding her face. “But I knew he was your boyfriend.” Cath was crying now. Even though it would probably just make Reagan more angry.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Reagan said, very nearly shouting. “Not anymore. Not … for a long time, actually. So just, don’t.” Reagan inhaled loudly, then let it out. “I just didn’t expect this to happen,” she said. “And, if it did happen, I didn’t expect it to bother me. I just … it’s Levi. And Levi always likes me best.”

He’s not her boyfriend? “He still likes you best,” Cath said, trying not to whimper.

“Don’t be an idiot, Cather.” Reagan’s voice was serrated. “I mean, I know that you are. About this. But try not to be an idiot right this moment.”

“I’m sorry…,” Cath said, trying and failing to look up at her roommate. “I still don’t know why I did it. I swear I’m not that kind of girl.”

Reagan finally turned away. She dropped her bag on the bed and grabbed her towel. “What kind of girl is that, Cath? The girl kind?… I’m gonna take a shower. When I come back, I’ll be over this.”

*   *   *

And when she came back, she was.

Cath had curled up on her bed and let herself cry like she hadn’t all Thanksgiving weekend. She found The Outsiders wedged between the bed and the wall, and threw it on the floor.

Reagan saw the book when she came back to the room. She was wearing yoga pants and a tight gray hoodie, and square brown glasses instead of contacts.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, picking up the book. “I was supposed to help him study.” She looked over at Cath. “Were you actually just reading?”

“Not just,” Cath said, her voice a hiccupy wheeze.

“Stop crying,” Reagan said. “I mean it.”

Cath closed her eyes and rolled toward the wall.

Reagan sat at the end of her own bed. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said solemnly. “And I knew he liked you—he was here constantly. I just didn’t know that you liked him back.”

“I thought he was here constantly because he was your boyfriend,” Cath said. “I didn’t want to like him back. I tried to be mean to him.”

“I thought you were just mean,” Reagan said. “I liked that about you.”

Cath laughed and rubbed her eyes for the five hundredth time in twelve hours. She felt like she had pink eye.

“I’m over it,” Reagan said. “I was just surprised.”

“You can’t be over it,” Cath said, sitting up and leaning against the wall. “Even if I didn’t kiss your boyfriend, I thought I was kissing your boyfriend. That’s how I was going to repay you for all the nice things you’ve done for me.”

“Wow…,” Reagan said, “when you put it that way, it is pretty fucked up.”

Cath nodded miserably.

“So why’d you do it?”

Cath thought of Levi’s warmth against her arm last night. And his ten thousand smiles. And his forty-acre forehead.

She closed her eyes, then pressed the heels of her hands into them. “I just really, really wanted to.”

Reagan sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s the deal. I’m hungry, and I have to finish reading The Outsiders. Levi likes you, you like him—I’m over it. It could get weird around here real fast if you start dating my high school boyfriend, but there’s no turning back, you know?”

Cath didn’t answer. Reagan kept talking.

“If he were still my boyfriend, we’d have to throw down. But he’s not. So let’s go have lunch, okay?”

Cath looked up at Reagan. And nodded her head.

*   *   *

Cath had already missed her morning classes. Including Fiction-Writing. She thought about Nick, and right at that moment it was like thinking about almost anybody.

Reagan was eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. “Okay,” she said, stabbing her spoon at Cath, “now what?”

“Now what, what?” Cath said, her mouth full of grilled cheese.

“Now what with Levi?”

Cath swallowed. “Nothing. I don’t know. Do I have to know what?”

“Do you want my help with this?”

Cath looked at Reagan. Even without her makeup and hair, the girl was terrifying. There was just no fear in her. No hesitation. Talking to Reagan was like standing in front of an oncoming train.

“I don’t know what this is,” Cath said. She clenched her fists in her lap and forced herself to keep talking. “I feel like … what happened last night was just an aberration. Like it could only have happened in the middle of the night, when he and I were both really tired. Because if it had been daylight, we would have seen how inappropriate it was—”

“I already told you,” Reagan said, “he’s not my boyfriend.”

“It’s not just that.” Cath turned her face toward the wall of windows, then back at Reagan, earnestly. “It was one thing when I had a crush on him and he was totally unattainable. But I don’t think I could actually be with someone like Levi. It would be like interspecies dating.”

Reagan let her spoon drop sloppily into her cereal. “What’s wrong with Levi?”

“Nothing,” Cath said. “He’s just … not like me.”

“You mean, smart?”

“Levi’s really smart,” Cath said defensively.

“I know,” Reagan said, just as defensively.

“He’s different,” Cath said. “He’s older. He smokes. And he drinks. And he’s probably had sex. I mean, he looks like he has.”

Reagan raised her eyebrows like Cath was talking crazy. And Cath thought—not for the first time, but for the first time since last night—that Levi had probably had sex with Reagan.

“And he likes to be outside,” Cath said, just to change the subject. “And he likes animals. We don’t have anything in common.”

“You’re making him sound like he’s some rowdy mountain man who, like, smokes cigars and has sex with prostitutes.”

Cath laughed, despite herself. “Like a dangerous French fur trapper.”

“He’s just a guy,” Reagan said. “Of course he’s different from you. You’re never going to find a guy who’s exactly like you—first of all, because that guy never leaves his dorm room.…”

“Guys like Levi don’t date girls like me.”

“Again—the girl kind?”

“Guys like Levi date girls like you.”

“And what does that mean?” Reagan asked, tilting her head.

“Normal,” Cath said. “Pretty.”

Reagan rolled her eyes.

“No,” Cath said, “seriously. Look at you. You’ve got your shit together, you’re not scared of anything. I’m scared of everything. And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”

Reagan rolled her eyes again. Cath made a mental note to stop rolling her eyes at people.

“What would we do together?” Cath asked. “He’d want to go to the bar, and I’d want to stay home and write fanfiction.”

“I’m not going to talk you into this,” Reagan said, “especially if you’re going to be stupid. But I will say this: You’re being stupid. He already likes you. He even likes your creepy fanfiction, he won’t stop talking about it. Levi’s just a guy. A really, really good—maybe even the best—guy, and nobody’s saying you have to marry him. So stop making everything so hard, Cath. You kissed him, right? The only question is, do you want to kiss him again?”

Cath clenched her fists until her fingernails bit into her palms.

Reagan started stacking the empty dishes on her tray.

“Why did you break up?” Cath blurted.

“I kept cheating on him,” Reagan said flatly. “I’m a pretty good friend, but I’m a shitty girlfriend.”

Cath picked up her tray and followed Reagan to the trash.

*   *   *

She didn’t see Levi that night. He worked Wednesday nights. That’s when Cath realized that she knew Levi’s work schedule.

But he texted her about a party Thursday at his house. “party? thursday? my house?”

Cath didn’t text him back—she tried to. She kept starting messages and deleting them. She almost sent back just a smiley-face emoticon.

Reagan got home from work late that night and went straight to bed. Cath was at her desk, writing. “Levi killed our Outsiders quiz,” Reagan said, stifling a yawn.

Cath smiled down at her laptop. “Did you talk about me?”

“No. I didn’t think you’d want me to. I told you, I’m a pretty good friend.”

“Yeah, but you’re more Levi’s friend than mine.”

“Bros before hos,” Reagan said.

Before she left the room the next morning, Reagan asked Cath if she wanted to go to Levi’s party.

“I don’t think so,” Cath said. “I have class Friday morning at eight thirty.”

“Who registers for a class that meets Friday morning at eight thirty?”

Cath shrugged.

She didn’t want to go to Levi’s party. Even though she liked him, she didn’t like parties. And she didn’t want the first time she saw him after what had happened to be at a party. With party people. With any people.

*   *   *

Cath was pretty sure she was the only person in Pound Hall tonight. She tried to tell herself that it was kind of cool to have a twelve-story building to herself. Like being trapped in the library overnight.

This is why I can’t be with Levi. Because I’m the kind of girl who fantasizes about being trapped in a library overnight—and Levi can’t even read.

Cath immediately felt bad for thinking that. Levi could read. (Sort of.)

She’d always thought that either people could read or they couldn’t. Not this in-between thing that Levi had, where his brain could catch the words but couldn’t hold on to them. Like reading was one of those rip-off claw games they had at the bowling alley.

But Levi clearly wasn’t dumb. He remembered everything. He could quote extensively from the Simon Snow movies, and he knew everything there was to know about bison and piping plovers.… And why was she even arguing this point with herself?

It’s not like she was going to send Abel Levi’s ACT scores.

She should have texted him back. (Levi, not Abel.)

But that would have been engaging in this situation. Like moving a chess piece. Or kicking off from the ground on a teeter-totter. Better to leave Levi up in the air for a day or two than to end up stuck there by herself.…

The fact that she was thinking about whatever this was in terms of playground equipment showed that she wasn’t ready for it. For him. Levi was an adult. He had a truck. And facial hair. And he’d slept with Reagan; she’d practically admitted it.

Cath didn’t want to look at a guy and picture the people he’d slept with.…

Which had never been an issue with Abel. Nothing was ever an issue with Abel. Because, she could hear Wren screaming, you didn’t like him!

Cath liked Levi. A lot. She liked looking at him. She liked listening to him—though sometimes she hated listening to him talk to other people. She hated the way he passed out smiles to everyone he met like it didn’t cost him anything, like he’d never run out. He made everything look so easy.…

Even standing. You didn’t realize how much work everyone else put into holding themselves upright until you saw Levi leaning against a wall. He looked like he was leaning on something even when he wasn’t. He made standing look like vertical lying down.

Thinking about Levi’s lazy hips and loose shoulders just dragged Cath’s memory back to her bed.

She’d spent the night with a boy. Slept with him. And never mind that that’s all they’d done, because it was still a huge deal. She wished she could talk to Wren about this.…

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.

Skinny jeans. Unskinny hips. A faded pink T-shirt that said, THE MAGIC WORD IS PLEASE. A pink-and-brown argyle cardigan. Her hair was pulled up into a floppy half bun on top of her head.

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.

“I’m not going to abandon you in there,” Reagan said, “even if I want to.”

Cath nodded again, and Reagan opened the door.

It was immediately warmer and brighter inside—and exactly not how Cath had imagined it.

Cath had pictured bare walls and the sort of furniture that sat out on curbs for a week before anybody decided to take it.

But Levi’s house was actually nice. Simple, but nice. There were a few paintings hanging on the walls, and houseplants everywhere—ferns and spider plants and a jade tree so big, it looked like an actual tree.

There was music playing—sleepy, electronic music—but not too loud. And somebody was burning incense.

There were plenty of people still there—all older than Cath, at least as old as Levi—and they were mostly just talking. Two guys standing next to the stereo were sort of dancing, sort of just being silly, and they didn’t seem to care that they were the only ones.

Cath stood as close as she could to Reagan’s back and tried not to be obvious about looking for Levi. (Inside her head, Cath was standing on tiptoe with her hand over her eyes, scanning the horizon for ships.)

Everybody there knew Reagan. Somebody handed them each a beer, and Cath took hers but didn’t open it. It was Levi’s roommate. One of them. Almost everybody Cath met in the next few minutes was one of Levi’s roommates. She looked right through them.

Maybe Levi was in the bathroom.

Maybe he’d already gone to bed. Maybe Cath could climb into his bed like Goldilocks, and if he woke up, she’d just say “later” and run away. Goldilocks plus Cinderella.

Reagan had finished half a beer before she asked somebody, “Where’s Levi?”

The person, a guy with a beard and black Ray-Ban frames, looked around the living room. “Kitchen, maybe?”

Reagan nodded like she didn’t care. Because she doesn’t really, Cath thought.

“Come on,” she said to Cath. “Let’s go find him.” And then, when they’d walked away from everyone else: “Be cool.”

The house had three big front rooms that were all connected—living room, dining room, and sunroom—and the kitchen was in the back, through a narrow doorway. Cath stuck close behind Reagan, so Reagan saw Levi before Cath was even through the door. “Shit,” Cath heard her whisper.

Cath stepped into the kitchen.

Levi was leaning back against the sink. (Levi. Always leaning.) He had a bottle of beer in one hand, the same hand he was pressing into a girl’s back.

The girl looked older than Cath. Even with her eyes closed. Levi’s other hand was tangled in her long, blond hair, and he was kissing her with his mouth smiling and open. He made it look so easy.

Cath looked down immediately and walked out of the kitchen, walked straight through the house to the front door. She knew Reagan was right behind her because she could hear her muttering. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what is the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”

“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.

“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”

“Is he a magician? Like us?”

“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…

“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long past the edge of exhaustion.

“But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”

—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie