Текст книги "Fangirl"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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“So…,” Professor Piper purred. “Maybe to make sense of ourselves?”

“To set ourselves free,” a girl said.

To get free of ourselves.

“To show people what it’s like inside our heads,” said a boy in tight red jeans.

“Assuming they want to know,” Professor Piper added. Everyone laughed.

“To make people laugh.”

“To get attention.”

“Because it’s all we know how to do.”

“Speak for yourself,” the professor said. “I play the piano. But keep going—I love this. I love it.”

“To stop hearing the voices in our head,” said the boy in front of Cath. He had short dark hair that came to a dusky point at the back of his neck.

To stop, Cath thought.

To stop being anything or anywhere at all.

“To leave our mark,” Mia Farrow said. “To create something that will outlive us.”

The boy in front of Cath spoke up again: “Asexual reproduction.”

Cath imagined herself at her laptop. She tried to put into words how it felt, what happened when it was good, when it was working, when the words were coming out of her before she knew what they were, bubbling up from her chest, like rhyming, like rapping, like jump-roping, she thought, jumping just before the rope hits your ankles.

“To share something true,” another girl said. Another pair of Ray-Bans.

Cath shook her head.

“Why do we write fiction?” Professor Piper asked.

Cath looked down at her notebook.

To disappear.

He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.

“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.

“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.

“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.

She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”

With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.

“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.

“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”

Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.

“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.

“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.

“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.

—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

THREE

It was impossible to write like this.

First of all, their dorm room was way too small. A tiny little rectangle, just wide enough on each side of the door for their beds—when the door opened, it actually hit the end of Cath’s mattress—and just deep enough to squeeze in a desk on each side between the beds and the windows. If either of them had brought a couch, it would take up all the available space in the middle of the room.

Neither of them had brought a couch. Or a TV. Or any cute Target lamps.

Reagan didn’t seem to have brought anything personal, besides her clothes and a completely illegal toaster—and besides Levi, who was lying on her bed with his eyes closed, listening to music while Reagan banged at her computer. (A crappy PC, just like Cath’s.)

Cath was used to sharing a room; she’d always shared a room with Wren. But their room at home was almost three times as big as this one. And Wren didn’t take up nearly as much space as Reagan did. Figurative space. Head space. Wren didn’t feel like company.

Cath still wasn’t sure what to make of Reagan.…

On the one hand, Reagan didn’t seem interested in staying up all night, braiding each other’s hair, and becoming best friends forever. That was a relief.

On the other hand, Reagan didn’t seem interested in Cath at all.

Actually, that was a bit of a relief, too—Reagan was scary.

She did everything so forcefully. She swung their door open; she slammed it shut. She was bigger than Cath, a little taller and a lot more buxom (seriously, buxom). She just seemed bigger. On the inside, too.

When Reagan was in the room, Cath tried to stay out of her way; she tried not to make eye contact. Reagan pretended Cath wasn’t there, so Cath pretended that, too. Normally this seemed to work out for both of them.

But right at the moment, pretending not to exist was making it really hard for Cath to write.

She was working on a tricky scene—Simon and Baz arguing about whether vampires could ever truly be considered good and also whether the two of them should go to the graduation ball together. It was all supposed to be very funny and romantic and thoughtful, which were usually Cath’s specialties. (She was pretty good with treachery, too. And talking dragons.)

But she couldn’t get past, “Simon swept his honey brown hair out of his eyes and sighed.” She couldn’t even get Baz to move. She couldn’t stop thinking about Reagan and Levi sitting behind her. Her brain was stuck on INTRUDER ALERT!

Plus she was starving. As soon as Reagan and Levi left the room for dinner, Cath was going to eat an entire jar of peanut butter. If they ever left for dinner—Reagan kept banging on like she was going to type right through the desk, and Levi kept not leaving, and Cath’s stomach was starting to growl.

She grabbed a protein bar and walked out of the room, thinking she’d just take a quick walk down the hall to clear her head.

But the hallway was practically a meet-and-greet. Every door was propped open but theirs. Girls were milling around, talking and laughing. The whole floor smelled like burnt microwave popcorn. Cath slipped into the bathroom and sat in one of the stalls, unwrapping her protein bar and letting nervous tears dribble down her cheeks.

God, she thought. God. Okay. This isn’t that bad. There’s actually nothing wrong, actually. What’s wrong, Cath? Nothing.

She felt tight everywhere. Snapping. And her stomach was on fire.

She took out her phone and wondered what Wren was doing. Probably choreographing dance sequences to Lady Gaga songs. Probably trying on her roommate’s sweaters. Probably not sitting on a toilet, eating an almond-flaxseed bar.

Cath could call Abel … but she knew he was leaving for Missouri Tech tomorrow morning. His family was throwing him a huge party tonight with homemade tamales and his grandmother’s coconut yoyos—which were so special, they didn’t even sell them in the family bakery. Abel worked in the panadería, and his family lived above it. His hair always smelled like cinnamon and yeast.… Jesus, Cath was hungry.

She pushed her protein-bar wrapper into the feminine-hygiene box and rinsed off her face before she went back to her room.

Reagan and Levi were walking out, thank God. And finally.

“See ya,” Reagan said.

“Rock on.” Levi smiled.

Cath felt like collapsing when the door closed behind them.

She grabbed another protein bar, flopped onto the old wooden captain’s chair—she was starting to like this chair—and opened a drawer to prop up her foot.

Simon swept his honey brown hair out of his eyes and sighed. “Just because I can’t think of any heroic vampires doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Baz stopped trying to levitate his steamer trunk and gave Simon a flash of gleaming fang. “Good guys wear white,” Baz said. “Have you ever tried to get blood out of a white cape?”

*   *   *

Selleck Hall was a dormitory right in the middle of campus. You could eat there even if you didn’t live there. Cath usually waited in the lobby for Wren and Courtney, so she wouldn’t have to walk into the cafeteria alone.

“So what’s your roommate like?” Courtney asked as they moved through the salad bar line. She asked it like she and Cath were old friends—like Cath had any idea what Courtney was like, outside of her taste for cottage cheese with peaches.

The salad bar at Selleck was completely wack. Cottage cheese with peaches, canned pears with shredded cheddar. “What is up with this?” Cath asked, lifting a scoop of cold kidney and green bean salad.

“Maybe it’s another Western Nebraska thing,” Wren said. “There are guys in our dorm who wear cowboy hats, like, all the time, even when they’re just walking down the hall.”

“I’m gonna get a table,” Courtney said.

“Hey”—Cath watched Wren pile vegetables on her plate—“did we ever write any fic with Simon and Baz dancing?”

“I don’t remember,” Wren said. “Why? Are you writing a dance scene?”

“Waltzing. Up on the ramparts.”

“Romantic.” Wren looked around the room for Courtney.

“I’m worried that I’m making Simon too fluffy.”

“Simon is fluffy.”

“I wish you were reading it,” Cath said, following her to the table.

“Isn’t every ninth-grader in North America already reading it?” Wren sat down next to Courtney.

“And Japan,” Cath said, sitting. “I’m weirdly huge in Japan.”

Courtney leaned toward Cath, swooping in, like she was in on some big secret. “Cath, Wren told me that you write Simon Snow stories. That’s so cool. I’m a huge Simon Snow fan. I read all the books when I was a kid.”

Cath unwrapped her sandwich skeptically. “They’re not over,” she said.

Courtney took a bite of her cottage cheese, not catching the correction.

“I mean,” Cath said, “the books aren’t over. Book eight doesn’t come out until next year.…”

“Tell us about your roommate,” Wren said, smiling flatly at Cath.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Then make something up.”

Wren was irritated. Which irritated Cath. But then Cath thought about how glad she was to be eating food that required silverware and talking to someone who wasn’t a stranger—and decided to make an effort with Wren’s shiny new roommate.

“Her name is Reagan. And she has reddish brown hair.… And she smokes.”

Courtney wrinkled her nose. “In your room?”

“She hasn’t really been in the room much.”

Wren looked suspicious. “You haven’t talked?”

“We’ve said hello,” Cath said. “I’ve talked to her boyfriend a little.”

“What’s her boyfriend like?” Wren asked.

“I don’t know. Tall?”

“Well, it’s only been a few days. I’m sure you’ll get to know her.” Then Wren changed the subject to something that happened at some party she and Courtney had gone to. They’d only been living together two weeks, and already they had a slew of inside jokes that went right over Cath’s head.

Cath ate her turkey sandwich and two servings of french fries, and shoved a second sandwich into her bag when Wren wasn’t paying attention.

*   *   *

Reagan finally stayed in their room that night. (Levi did not, thank God.) She went to bed while Cath was still typing.

“Is the light bothering you?” Cath asked, pointing at the lamp built into her desk. “I could turn it off.”

“It’s fine,” Reagan said.

Cath put in earbuds so that she wouldn’t hear Reagan’s falling-asleep noises. Breathing. Sheets brushing. Bed creaking.

How can she just fall asleep like that with a stranger in the room? Cath wondered. Cath left the earbuds in when she finally crawled into her own bed and pulled the comforter up high over her head.

*   *   *

“You still haven’t talked to her?” Wren asked at lunch the next week.

“We talk,” Cath said. “She says, ‘Would you mind closing the window?’ And I say, ‘That’s fine.’ Also, ‘Hey.’ We exchange ‘heys’ daily. Sometimes twice daily.”

“It’s getting weird,” Wren said.

Cath poked at her mashed potatoes. “I’m getting used to it.”

“It’s still weird.”

“Really?” Cath asked. “You’re really going to start talking about how I got stuck with a weird roommate?”

Wren sighed. “What about her boyfriend?”

“Haven’t seen him for a few days.”

“What are you doing this weekend?”

“Homework, I guess. Writing Simon.”

“Courtney and I are going to a party tonight.”

“Where?”

“The Triangle House!” Courtney said. She said it the same way you’d say “the Playboy Mansion!” if you were a total D-bag.

“What’s a Triangle House?” Cath asked.

“It’s an engineering fraternity,” Wren said.

“So they, like, get drunk and build bridges?”

“They get drunk and design bridges. Want to come?”

“Nah.” Cath took a bite of roast beef and potatoes; it was always Sunday-night dinner in the Selleck dining room. “Drunk nerds. Not my thing.”

“You like nerds.”

“Not nerds who join fraternities,” Cath said. “That’s a whole subclass of nerds that I’m not interested in.”

“Did you make Abel sign a sobriety pledge before he left for Missouri?”

“Is Abel your boyfriend?” Courtney asked. “Is he cute?”

Cath ignored her. “Abel isn’t going to turn into a drunk. He can’t even tolerate caffeine.”

“That right there is some faulty logic.”

“You know I don’t like parties, Wren.”

“And you know what Dad says—you have to try something before you can say you don’t like it.”

“Seriously? You’re using Dad to get me to a frat party? I have tried parties. There was that one at Jesse’s, with the tequila—”

“Did you try the tequila?”

“No, but you did, and I helped clean it up when you puked.”

Wren smiled wistfully and smoothed her long bangs across her forehead. “Drinking tequila is more about the journey than the destination.…”

“You’ll call me,” Cath said, “right?”

“If I puke?”

“If you need help.”

“I won’t need help.”

“But you’ll call me?”

“God, Cath. Yes. Relax, okay?”

“But, sir,” Simon pushed, “do I have to be his roommate every year, every year until we leave Watford?”

The Mage smiled indulgently and ruffled Simon’s caramel brown hair. “Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford.” His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”

“Yeah, but, sir…” Simon shuffled in his chair. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete git. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He practically cackled.”

The Mage gave his beard a few solemn strokes. It was short and pointed and just covered his chin.

“The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”

—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie

FOUR

The squirrels on campus were beyond domestic; they were practically domestically abusive. If you were eating anything at all, they’d come right up to you and chit-chit-chit in your space.

“Take it,” Cath said, tossing a chunk of strawberry-soy bar to the fat red squirrel at her feet. She took a photo of it with her phone and sent it to Abel. “bully squirrel,” she typed.

Abel had sent her photos of his room—his suite—at MoTech, and of him standing with all five of his nerdy Big Bang Theory roommates. Cath tried to imagine asking Reagan to pose for a photo and laughed a little out loud. The squirrel froze but didn’t run away.

On Wednesdays and Fridays, Cath had forty-five minutes between Biology and Fiction-Writing, and lately she’d been killing it right here, sitting in a shadowy patch of grass on the slow side of the English building. Nobody to deal with here. Nobody but the squirrels.

She checked her text messages, even though her phone hadn’t chimed.

She and Abel hadn’t actually talked since Cath left for school three weeks ago, but he did text her. And he e-mailed every once in a while. He said he was fine and that the competition at Missouri was already intense. “Everybody here was the smartest kid in their graduating class.”

Cath had resisted the urge to reply, “Except for you, right?”

Just because Abel got a perfect score on the math section of the SATs didn’t mean he was the smartest kid in their class. He was crap in American History, and he’d limped through Spanish. Through Spanish, for Christ’s sake.

He’d already told Cath that he wasn’t coming back to Omaha until Thanksgiving, and she hadn’t tried to convince him to come home any sooner.

She didn’t really miss him yet.

Wren would say that was because Abel wasn’t really Cath’s boyfriend. It was one of their recurring conversations:

“He’s a perfectly good boyfriend,” Cath would say.

“He’s an end table,” Wren would answer.

“He’s always there for me.”

“… to set magazines on.”

“Would you rather I dated someone like Jesse? So we can both stay up crying every weekend?”

“I would rather you dated someone you’d actually like to kiss.”

“I’ve kissed Abel.”

“Oh, Cath, stop. You’re making my brain throw up.”

“We’ve been dating for three years. He’s my boyfriend.”

“You have stronger feelings for Baz and Simon.”

“Duh, they’re Baz and Simon, like that’s even fair—I like Abel. He’s steady.”

“You just keep describing an end table.…”

Wren had started going out with boys in the eighth grade (two years before Cath was even thinking about it). And until Jesse Sandoz, Wren hadn’t stayed with the same guy for more than a few months. She kept Jesse around so long because she was never really sure that he liked her—at least that was Cath’s theory.

Wren usually lost interest in a guy as soon as she’d won him over. The conversion was her favorite part. “That moment,” she told Cath, “when you realize that a guy’s looking at you differently—that you’re taking up more space in his field of vision. That moment when you know he can’t see past you anymore.”

Cath had liked that last line so much, she gave it to Baz a few weeks later. Wren was annoyed when she read it.

Anyway, Jesse never really converted. He never had eyes only for Wren, not even after they had sex last fall. It threw off Wren’s game.

Cath was relieved when Jesse got a football scholarship to Iowa State. He didn’t have the attention span for a long-distance relationship, and there were at least ten thousand fresh guys at the University of Nebraska for Wren to convert.

Cath tossed another hunk of protein bar to the squirrel, but someone in a pair of periwinkle wingtips took a step too close to them, and the squirrel startled and lumbered away. Fat campus squirrels, Cath thought. They lumber.

The wingtips took another step toward her, then stopped. Cath looked up. There was a guy standing in front of her. From where she was sitting—and where he was standing, with the sun behind his head—he seemed eight feet tall. She squinted up but didn’t recognize him.

“Cath,” he said, “right?”

She recognized his voice; it was the boy with the dark hair who sat in front of her in Fiction-Writing—Nick.

“Right,” she said.

“Did you finish your writing exercise?”

Professor Piper had asked them to write a hundred words from the perspective of an inanimate object. Cath nodded, still squinting up at him.

“Oh, sorry,” Nick said, stepping out of the sun and sitting on the grass next to her. He dropped his bag between his knees. “So what’d you write about?”

“A lock,” she said. “You?”

“Ballpoint pen.” He grimaced. “I’m worried that everyone is going to do a pen.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “A pen is a terrible idea.”

Nick laughed, and Cath looked down at the grass.

“So,” he asked, “do you think she’ll make us read them out loud?”

Cath’s head snapped up. “No. Why would she do that?”

“They always do that,” he said, like it was something Cath should already know. She wasn’t used to seeing Nick from the front; he had a boyish face with hooded blue eyes and blocky, black eyebrows that almost met in the middle. He looked like someone with a steerage ticket on the Titanic. Somebody who’d be standing in line at Ellis Island. Undiluted and old-blooded. Also, cute.

“But there wouldn’t be time in class for all of us to read,” she said.

“We’ll probably break up into groups first,” he said, again like she should know this.

“Oh … I’m kind of new around here.”

“Are you a freshman?”

She nodded and rolled her eyes.

“How did a freshman get into Professor Piper’s three-hundred-level class?”

“I asked.”

Nick raised his furry eyebrows and pushed out his bottom lip, impressed. “Do you really think a pen is a terrible idea?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say now,” Cath answered.

*   *   *

“Do you have an eating disorder?” Reagan asked.

Cath was sitting on her bed, studying.

Reagan was holding on to her closet door, hopping, trying to pull on a black heeled boot. She was probably on her way to work—Reagan was always on her way somewhere. She treated their room like a way station, a place she stopped between class and the library, between her job at the Student Union and her job at the Olive Garden. A place to change clothes, dump books, and pick up Levi.

Sometimes there were other guys, too. Already in the last month, there’d been a Nathan and a Kyle. But none of them seemed to be a permanent part of Reagan’s solar system like Levi was.

Which made Levi part of Cath’s solar system, too. He’d seen her on campus today and walked with her all the way to Oldfather Hall, talking about some mittens he’d bought outside the Student Union. “Hand-knit. In Ecuador. Have you ever seen an alpaca, Cather? They’re like the world’s most adorable llamas. Like, imagine the cutest llama that you can, and then just keep going. And their wool—it’s not really wool, it’s fiber, and it’s hypoallergenic.…”

Reagan was staring at Cath now, frowning. She was wearing tight black jeans and a black top. Maybe she was going out, not to work.

“Your trash can is full of energy bar wrappers,” Reagan said.

“You were looking through my trash?” Cath felt a rush of anger.

“Levi was looking for a place to spit out his gum.… So? Do you have an eating disorder?”

“No,” Cath said, pretty sure it was exactly what she’d say if she did have an eating disorder.

“Then why don’t you eat real food?”

“I do.” Cath clenched her fists. Her skin felt drawn and tight. “Just. Not here.”

“Are you one of those freaky eaters?”

“No. I—” Cath looked up at the ceiling, deciding that this was one of those times when the truth would be simpler than a lie. “—I don’t know where the dining hall is.”

“You’ve been living here more than a month.”

“I know.”

“And you haven’t found the dining hall?”

“I haven’t actually looked.”

“Why haven’t you asked someone? You could have asked me.”

Cath rolled her eyes and looked at Reagan. “Do you really want me asking you stupid questions?”

“If they’re about food, water, air, or shelter—yes. Jesus, Cath, I’m your roommate.”

“Okay,” Cath said, turning back to her book, “so noted.”

“So, do you want me to show you where the dining hall is?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“You can’t keep living off diet bars. You’re running out.”

“I’m not running out.…”

Reagan sighed. “Levi might have eaten a few.”

“You’re letting your boyfriend steal my protein bars?” Cath leaned over her bed to check on her stash—all the boxes were open.

“He said he was doing you a favor,” Reagan said. “Forcing the issue. And he’s not my boyfriend. Exactly.”

“This is a violation,” Cath said angrily, forgetting for a moment that Reagan was probably the most intimidating person she’d ever met.

“Get your shoes,” Reagan said. “I’m showing you where the dining hall is.”

“No.” Cath could already feel the anxiety starting to tear her stomach into nervous little pieces. “It’s not just that.… I don’t like new places. New situations. There’ll be all those people, and I won’t know where to sit—I don’t want to go.”

Reagan sat at the end of her own bed, folding her arms. “Have you been going to class?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

“Class is different,” Cath said. “There’s something to focus on. It’s still bad, but it’s tolerable.”

“Are you on drugs?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should be.…”

Cath pushed her fists into her bed. “This isn’t any of your business. You don’t even know me.”

“This,” Reagan said. “This is why I didn’t want a freshman roommate.”

“Why do you even care? Am I bothering you?”

“We’re going to dinner right now.”

“No. We’re not.”

“Get your student ID.”

“I’m not going to dinner with you. You don’t even like me.”

“I like you fine,” Reagan said.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Jesus Christ, aren’t you hungry?”

Cath was squeezing her fists so hard, her knuckles were going white.

She thought about chicken-fried steak. And scalloped potatoes. And strawberry-rhubarb pie. And wondered whether the Pound dining hall had an ice cream machine like Selleck did.

And she thought about winning. About how she was letting this win, whatever this was—the crazy inside of her. Cath, zero. Crazy, one million.

She leaned over, compressing the knot in her stomach.

Then she stood up with as much dignity as she could scavenge and put on her Vans.

“I have been eating real food…,” she muttered. “I eat lunch at Selleck with my sister.”

Reagan opened the door. “Then why don’t you eat here?”

“Because I waited too long. I built up a block about it. It’s hard to explain.…”

“Seriously, why aren’t you on drugs?”

Cath walked past her out of the room. “Are you a licensed psychiatrist? Or do you just play one on TV?”

“I’m on drugs,” Reagan said. “They’re a beautiful thing.”

*   *   *

There was no awkward moment in the dining hall, no standing at the doorway with a tray, trying to decide on the most innocuous place to sit.

Reagan sat at the first half-empty table she came across. She didn’t even nod to the other people sitting there.

“Aren’t you going to be late for work?” Cath asked.

“I’m going out. But I was gonna eat dinner here first anyway. We pay for all these meals; may as well eat them.”

Cath’s tray had a plate of baked macaroni and two bowls of Brussels sprouts. She was ravenous.

Reagan took a big bite of pasta salad. Her long hair fell over her shoulders. It was a dozen shades of red and gold, none of them quite natural. “Do you really think that I don’t like you?” she asked with her mouth full.

Cath swallowed. She and Reagan had never had a conversation before today, never mind a serious one. “Um … I get the feeling that you don’t want a roommate.”

“I don’t want a roommate.” Reagan frowned. She frowned as much as Levi smiled. “But that has nothing to do with you.”

“Why live in the dorms, then? You’re not a freshman, right? I didn’t think upperclassmen lived on campus.”

“I have to,” Reagan said. “It’s part of my scholarship. I was supposed to get my own room this year—I was on the list—but all the residence halls are over capacity.”

“Sorry,” Cath said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I didn’t want a roommate either,” Cath said. “I mean … I thought I was going to live with my sister.”

“You have a sister who goes here?”

“Twin.”

“Ew. Weird.”

“Why is that weird?” Cath asked.

“It just is. It’s creepy. Like having a doppelgänger. Are you identical?”

“Technically.”

“Ew.” Reagan shuddered melodramatically.

“It’s not creepy,” Cath said. “What is wrong with you?”

Reagan grimaced and shuddered again. “So why aren’t you living with your sister?”

“She wanted to meet new people,” Cath said.

“You make it sound like she broke up with you.”

Cath speared another Brussels sprout. “She lives in Schramm,” she said to her tray. When she looked up, Reagan was scowling at her.

“You’re making me feel sorry for you again,” Reagan said.

Cath turned her fork on Reagan. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I can’t help it,” Reagan said. “You’re really pathetic.”

“I am not.”

“You are. You don’t have any friends, your sister dumped you, you’re a freaky eater … And you’ve got some weird thing about Simon Snow.”

“I object to every single thing you just said.”

Reagan chewed. And frowned. She was wearing dark red lipstick.

“I have lots of friends,” Cath said.

“I never see them.”

“I just got here. Most of my friends went to other schools. Or they’re online.”

“Internet friends don’t count.”

“Why not?”

Reagan shrugged disdainfully.

“And I don’t have a weird thing with Simon Snow,” Cath said. “I’m just really active in the fandom.”

“What the fuck is ‘the fandom’?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Cath sighed, wishing she hadn’t used that word, knowing that if she tried to explain herself any further, it would just make it worse. Reagan wouldn’t believe—or understand—that Cath wasn’t just a Simon fan. She was one of the fans. A first-name-only fan with fans of her own.

If she told Reagan that her Simon fics regularly got twenty thousand hits … Reagan would just laugh at her.

Plus, saying all that out loud would make Cath feel like a complete asshole.

“You’ve got Simon Snow heads on your desk,” Reagan said.

“Those are commemorative busts.”

“I feel sorry for you, and I’m going to be your friend.”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Cath said as sternly as she could. “I like that we’re not friends.”

“Me, too,” Reagan said. “I’m sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic.”

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