Текст книги "Fangirl"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

And then she kissed my receding hairline and cried, she imagined him saying. In her imagination, Levi was Danny Zuko, and his roommates were the rest of the T-Birds. Tell me more, tell me more.

His face felt hot in her hands.

“Come here,” he said, catching her jaw with one hand, chinning his mouth up to hers.

Right.

There was this. Kissing Levi.

This and this and this.

*   *   *

“You’re not all hands…,” he whispered later. He was tucked back into the corner of the love seat, and she was resting on top of him. She’d spent hours on top of him. Curled over him like a vampire. Even exhausted, she couldn’t stop rubbing her numb lips into his flannel chest. “You’re all mouth,” he said.

“Sorry,” Cath said, biting her lips.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, pulling her lips free of her teeth with his thumb. “And don’t be sorry … ever again.”

He hitched her up, so her face was above his. Her eyes wandered down to his chin, out of habit. “Look at me,” he said.

Cath looked up. At Levi’s pastel-colored face. Too lovely, too good.

“I like you here,” he said, squeezing her. “With me.”

She smiled, and her eyes started to drift downward.

“Cather…”

Back up to his eyes.

“You know that I’m falling in love with you, right?”

“You knew all along?”

“Not all along,” Penelope said. “But a long. At least since fifth year, when you insisted we follow Baz around the castle every other day. You made me go to all of his football games.”

“To make sure he wasn’t cheating,” Simon said, out of habit.

“Right,” Penelope said. “I was starting to wonder whether you’d ever figure it out. You have figured it out, haven’t you?”

Simon felt himself smiling and blushing, not for first time this week. Not for the fiftieth. “Yeah…”

—from Carry On, Simon, posted March 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath

THIRTY-TWO

Wren was back, and it felt like someone had turned Cath’s world right side up. Like she’d been hanging from the floor all year long, trying not to drop through the ceiling.

Cath could call Wren now whenever she wanted. Without thinking or worrying. They met for lunch and for dinner. They wrapped their schedules around each other’s, filling in all the small spaces.

“It’s like you got your lost arm back or something,” Levi said. “Like you’re a happy starfish.” The way he was beaming, you’d think he was the one who got his sister back. “That was some bad medicine. Not talking to your mom. Not talking to your sister. That was some Jacob-and-Esau business.”

“I’m still not talking to my mom,” Cath said.

She had talked to Wren about their mom. A lot, actually.

Wren wasn’t surprised that Laura hadn’t stayed at the hospital. “She doesn’t do heavy stuff,” Wren said. “I can’t believe she even came.”

“She probably thought you were dying.”

“I wasn’t dying.’”

“How do you not do the heavy stuff?” Cath said, indignant. “Being a parent is all heavy stuff.”

“She doesn’t want to be a parent,” Wren said. “She wants me to call her ‘Laura.’”

Cath decided to start calling Laura “Mom” again in her head. Then she decided to stop calling Laura anything at all in her head.…

Wren still talked to her (She Who Would Not Be Named). She said they texted mostly and that they were friends on Facebook. Wren was okay with that amount of involvement; she seemed to think it was better than nothing and safer than everything.

Cath didn’t get it. Her brain just didn’t work that way. Her heart didn’t.

But she was done fighting with Wren about it.

Now that Cath and Wren were Cath and Wren again, Levi thought they should all be hanging out all the time. The four of them. “Did you know that Jandro’s in the Ag School?” he asked. “We’ve even had classes together.”

“Maybe we should go on lots of double dates,” Cath said, “and then we can get married on the same day in a double ceremony, in matching dresses, and the four of us will light the unity candle all at the same time.”

“Pfft,” Levi said, “I’m picking out my own dress.”

The four of them had all hung out together once or twice, incidentally. When Jandro was coming to get Wren. When Levi was coming to get Cath.

“You don’t want to hang out with Wren and me,” Cath had tried to tell him. “All we do is listen to rap music and talk about Simon.”

There were only six weeks left until The Eighth Dance came out, and Wren was more stressed out about it than Cath was. “I just don’t know how you’re going to wrap everything up,” she’d say.

“I’ve got an outline,” Cath kept telling her.

“Yeah, but you’ve got classes, too. Let me see your outline.”

Usually, they huddled over the laptop in Cath’s room. It was closer to campus.

“Don’t expect me to tell you apart,” Reagan said when this became a routine.

“I have short hair,” Wren said, “and she wears glasses.”

“Stop,” Reagan groaned, “don’t make me look at you. It’s like The Shining in here.”

Wren cocked her head and squinted. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cath said. “Ignore her.”

Reagan scowled at Cath. “Are you Zack, or are you Cody?”

Today they were in Wren’s room, just to give Reagan a break. They were sitting on Wren’s bed, the laptop resting on both their knees. Courtney was there, too, getting ready to go out; she was studying with the Sigma Chis tonight.

“You can’t kill Baz,” Wren said, pressing the down-arrow key and skimming Cath’s Carry On outline. They kept coming back to this point; Wren was adamant.

“I never thought I would kill Baz,” Cath said. “Ever. But it’s the ultimate redemption, you know? If he sacrifices himself for Simon, after all their years of fighting, after this one precious year of love … it makes everything they’ve been through together that much sweeter.”

“I’ll have to kill you if you kill Baz,” Wren said. “And I’ll be first in a long line.”

“I totally think Basil’s going to die in the last movie,” Courtney said, putting on her jacket. “Simon has to kill him—he’s a vampire.”

“He’ll have to die in the last book first,” Cath said. She still couldn’t tell whether Courtney was actually stupid or whether she just couldn’t be bothered to think before she talked. Wren shook her head at Cath and rolled her eyes, like, Don’t waste your time with her.

“Don’t work too hard, ladies,” Courtney said, waving on her way out. Only Cath waved back.

Something had happened between Wren and Courtney. Cath wasn’t sure if it was the emergency room or something else. They were still friends; they still ate lunch together. But even small things seemed to irritate Wren—the way Courtney wore heels with jeans, or the way she thought “boughten” was the past participle of “bought.” Cath had tried to ask about it, but Wren always shrugged her off.

“She’s wrong,” Cath said now. “I don’t think GTL could ever kill off Baz.”

“And you can’t either,” Wren said.

“But it makes him the ultimate romantic hero. Think of Tony in West Side Story or Jack in Titanic—or Jesus.”

“That’s horseshit,” Wren said.

Cath giggled. “Horseshit?”

Wren elbowed her. “Yes. The ultimate act of heroism shouldn’t be death. You’re always saying you want to give Baz the stories he deserves. To rescue him from Gemma—”

“I just don’t think she realizes his potential as a character,” Cath said.

“So you’re going to kill him off? Isn’t the best revenge supposed to be a life well-lived? The punk-rock way to end Carry On would be to let Baz and Simon live happily ever after.”

Cath laughed.

“I’m serious,” Wren said. “They’ve been through so much together—not just in your story, but in canon and in all the hundreds of fics we’ve read about them.… Think of your readers. Think about how good it’ll feel to leave us with a little hope.”

“But I don’t want it to be cheesy.”

“Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.”

Cath studied Wren’s face. It was like looking at a lightly warped mirror. Through a glass, darkly. “Are you in love?”

Wren blushed and looked down at the laptop. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Baz and Simon.”

“I’m making it about you,” Cath said. “Are you in love?”

Wren pulled the computer fully onto her lap and started scrolling back up to the top of Cath’s outline. “Yes,” she said coolly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I didn’t say there was.” Cath grinned. “You’re in love.”

“Oh shut up, so are you.”

Cath started to argue.

“Give it up,” Wren said, pointing at Cath’s face. “I’ve seen you look at Levi. What’s that thing you wrote about Simon once, that his eyes followed Baz ‘like he was the brightest thing in the room, like he cast everything else into shadow’? That’s you. You can’t look away from him.”

“I…” Cath was pretty sure that Levi actually was the brightest thing in the room, in any room. Bright and warm and crackling—he was a human campfire. “I really like him.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“No.” Cath knew what Wren meant, knew she didn’t want to hear about Levi’s grandmother’s quilt and the way they’d slept curled up in each other, like stackable chairs. “Have you? With Jandro?”

Wren laughed. “Duh. So … are you going to?”

Cath rubbed her right wrist. Her typing wrist. “Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”

Wren grabbed Cath’s arm, then shoved her away. “Oh. My. God. Will you tell me about it when you do?”

“Duh.” Cath pushed her back. “Anyway, I don’t feel like it has to happen now, like immediately, but he makes me want to. And he makes me think … that it’ll be okay. That I don’t have to worry about screwing it up.”

Wren rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to screw it up.”

“Well, I’m not going to nail it either, am I? Remember how long it took me to learn how to drive? And I still can’t backwards skate—”

“Think of how many beautiful first times you’ve written for Simon and Baz.”

“That’s totally different,” Cath said dismissively. “They don’t even have the same parts.”

Wren started giggling and then couldn’t stop. She hugged the laptop to her chest. “You’re more comfortable with their parts than—” She couldn’t stop giggling.”—your own and … and you’ve never even seen their parts.…”

“I try to write around it.” Cath was giggling, too.

“I know,” Wren said, “and you do a really good job.”

When they were done laughing, Wren punched Cath’s arm. “You’ll be fine. The first few times you do it, you only get graded on attendance.”

“Great,” Cath scoffed. “That makes me feel better.” She shook her head. “This whole conversation is premature.”

Wren smiled, but she looked serious, like she wanted something. “Hey, Cath—”

“What now?”

“Don’t kill Baz. I’ll even beta for you, if you want. Just … don’t kill him. Baz deserves a happy ending more than anybody.”

“Shhh.”

“I just—”

“Hush.”

“I worry—”

“Don’t.”

“But—”

“Simon.”

“Baz?”

“Here.”

—from Carry On, Simon, posted September 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath

THIRTY-THREE

“Have you started?” Professor Piper asked.

“Yes,” Cath lied.

She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t say no—Professor Piper was liable to abort this whole endeavor. Cath still hadn’t shown her any progress …

Because Cath hadn’t made any progress.

There was just too much else going on. Wren. Levi. Baz. Simon. Her dad … Actually, Cath wasn’t as worried about her dad as she used to be. That was one nice thing about Wren going home every weekend. On the weekends that Wren was stuck at home, she was so bored, she practically live-blogged the whole thing for Cath, sending constant texts and emails. “dad is making me watch a lewis & clark documentary. it’s like he’s DRIVING me to drink.” Wren didn’t even know about Cath’s Fiction-Writing assignment.

Cath had considered telling Professor Piper—again—that she wasn’t cut out for fiction-writing, that she was practically fiction-phobic. But once Cath was here, looking up at Professor Piper’s hopeful, confident face …

She could never get it out. She’d rather endure these excruciating checkups than tell the truth—that she only ever thought about her project when she was sitting in this room.

“That’s wonderful,” the professor said, leaning forward off her desk to pat Cath’s arm, smiling just the way Cath wanted her to. “I’m so relieved. I thought I was going to have to give you another ‘blood, toil, tears, and sweat’ speech—and I didn’t know if I had one in me.”

Cath smiled. And thought about what a repugnant creature she was.

“So, tell me about it,” the professor said. “May I read what you have so far?”

Cath shook her head too quickly, then kept shaking her head at a more normal pace. “No, I mean, not yet. I just … not yet.”

“Fair enough.” Professor Piper looked suspicious. (Or maybe Cath was just paranoid.) “Can you tell me what you’re writing about?”

“Yeah,” Cath said. “Of course. I’m writing about…” She imagined a big wheel spinning around. Like on The Price Is Right or Wheel of Fortune. Wherever it landed, that would be it—that’s what she’d have to write. “I’m writing about…”

Professor Piper smiled. Like she knew Cath was lying, but still really wanted her to pull this off.

“My mom,” Cath said. And swallowed.

“Your mom,” the professor repeated.

“Yeah. I mean … I’m starting there.”

The professor’s face turned almost playful. “Everyone does.”

*   *   *

“The aerie,” Cath said, “that’s what this is.”

Levi was sitting against his headboard, and Cath was in his lap, her knees around his hips. She’d spent a lot of time in his lap lately. She liked to be on top, to feel like she could move away if she wanted to. (She almost never wanted to.) She also spent a lot of time deliberately not thinking about anything else that might be happening in his lap; his lap was abstract territory, as far as Cath was concerned. Unfixed. Unmapped. If she thought about Levi’s lap in concrete terms, she ended up crawling off the bed and curling up by herself on the love seat.

“What’s an aerie?” he asked.

“An eagle’s nest.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Right.” He ran a hand up through his hair. Cath followed with her own hand, feeling his hair slip silkily through her fingers. He smiled at her like she was someone who’d just ordered a peppermint latte.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

He nodded and kissed her nose. “Of course.” When he smiled again, only his mouth moved.

“What’s wrong?” Cath started to move off his lap, but he caught her.

“Nothing. Nothing important, I just—” He closed his eyes, like he had a headache. “—I got a test back today. It wasn’t good, even for me.”

“Oh. Did you study for it?”

“Clearly not enough.”

Cath wasn’t sure how much Levi studied. He never cracked a book—but he went everywhere with earbuds. He was always listening to a lecture when she came down to his truck. He always pulled them out when she climbed in.

Cath thought back to the way he used to study with Reagan, flash cards spread all over the room, asking question after question.…

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Indirectly,” she said. “You’re not studying with anyone else.”

“Cather. Look at me. I’ve never been this happy in my life.”

“You don’t seem happy.”

“I didn’t mean right this minute.” He smiled; it was tired, but genuine. Cath wanted to kiss his little pink mouth immobile.

“You need to study,” she said, punching his chest.

“Okay.”

“With Reagan. With all those girls you exploit.”

“Right.”

“With me, if you want. I could help you study.”

He reached up to her ponytail and started tugging out the rubber band. She let her head fall back.

“You have enough homework,” he said. “And thousands of Simon Snow fans hanging on your every word.”

Cath looked up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling while he worked the hair tie free. “If it meant being here, in the aerie, with you,” she said, “instead of you being somewhere else with someone else, I would gladly make the sacrifice.”

He pulled her hair forward; it fell just past her shoulders. “I can’t decide if you love me,” he said, “or this room.”

“Both,” Cath said, then thought through his choice of words and blushed.

He smiled, like he’d tricked her. “Okay,” he said, playing with her hair. “I’ll study more.” He lifted his legs up and bounced her forward. “Take off your glasses.”

“Why? I thought you liked my glasses.”

“I love your glasses. I especially love the moment when you take them off.”

“Do you need to study tonight?”

“Nope. I just bombed a test. I got nothing to study for.” He bounced her on his legs again.

She rolled her eyes and took off her glasses.

Levi grinned. “What color are your eyes?”

She opened them as wide as she could.

“I can see them,” he said. “But I can’t decide what color they are. What does it say on your driver’s license?”

“Blue.”

“They’re not blue.”

“They are. On the outside.”

“And brown in the middle,” he said. “And gray on the edge and green in between.”

Cath shrugged and looked down at his neck. There was a mole just below his ear, and another one at the bottom of his throat. He was paler now than when she’d first met him; he’d seemed so tan that day, like a little kid who’d been playing outside all summer.

“What are you doing this summer?” she asked.

“Working on the ranch.”

“Will I see you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“We’ll make it work.” He touched her cheek.

“Not like this…”

Levi looked around the room and took her face in his hands. “Not like this,” he conceded.

Cath nodded and bent to kiss the spot under his ear. “You’re sure you don’t need to study?”

“Do you?”

“No,” she said. “It’s Friday.”

Levi had just shaved, so his jaw and neck were something extra. Soft plus minty. She ran a hand down the front of his flannel shirt until her fingers caught at the first button—and decided right then to unbutton it.

Levi inhaled.

She found the next button.

When she’d finished with the third, he pulled away from her and yanked the shirt up over his head. The T-shirt came next. Cath looked down at his chest like she’d never seen anything like it before. Like she’d never been to a public swimming pool.

“You look thinner with your clothes on,” she said with surprise, tracing her fingers over his shoulders.

He laughed. “Is that a compliment?”

“It’s a … I didn’t expect you to look so strong.”

He tried to kiss her, but she leaned back—she wasn’t ready to look away. Levi wasn’t noticeably muscular. Not like Jandro. Not even like Abel. But he was firm and nicely shaped, muscles curving around his shoulders, over his arms, across his chest.

Cath wanted to go back and rewrite every scene she’d ever written about Baz or Simon’s chests. She’d written them flat and sharp and hard. Levi was all soft motion and breath, curves and warm hollows. Levi’s chest was a living thing.

“You’re beautiful,” she said.

“That’s you.”

“Don’t argue with me. You’re beautiful.”

*   *   *

Taking off Levi’s shirt had been such an inspired idea, Cath was thinking about losing her own. Levi was thinking about it, too. He was playing with the hem, sliding his fingers just underneath it while they kissed. Kissed. Cath loved that word. She used it sparingly in her fic, just because it felt so powerful. It felt like kissing to say it. Well done, English language.

Levi kissed with his jaw and his bottom lip. She hadn’t done this with enough people to know whether that was distinctive, but she felt like it was. He kissed her, and ran his fingers under her hem; and if she just raised her arms now, he’d probably take care of her shirt. She could count on him to pitch in. Cath couldn’t remember what she was waiting for, what she was so scared of.…

Was she waiting for marriage? At the moment, it was hard to think beyond Levi … whom she was nowhere near marrying. That fact only made her want him more. Because if she didn’t end up marrying Levi, she wouldn’t have lifetime access to his chest and his lips and whatever might be happening in his lap. What if they married other people? She should probably have sex with him now, while she still could.

Flawed logic, her brain was shouting. Miserably flawed.

How do you even know when you’re anywhere near marrying someone? she wondered. Is that question about time? Or distance?

Cath’s phone chimed.

Levi licked her mouth like he was trying to get the last bit of jam off the back of her throat.

Her phone chimed again.

It probably wasn’t important. Wren. Complaining about their dad. Or their dad complaining about Wren. Or one of them being rushed to a hospital …

Cath pulled away, catching Levi’s hands and trying to catch her breath.

“Let me check,” she said. “Wren—”

He nodded and pulled his hands away from her shirt. Cath resisted the urge to slide down his legs like he was a hobby horse. (It would feel good, but she might never recover her dignity.) Instead she climbed drunkenly off him, reaching off the bed for her phone.

He crawled after her, trying to read over her shoulder.

Wren. “hey, you should come to omaha. jandro’s here, we’re going dancing later at guaca maya. fun! come!”

“can’t,” Cath texted back. “levi time.”

She threw her phone on the floor, then tried to find her way back to Levi’s lap. But he’d already leaned back against the headboard with his knees up. Lap unavailable.

She tried to move his knees out of the way, but he wouldn’t let her. He was looking at her like he was still trying to figure out what color her eyes were.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, kneeling in front of him.

“Yeah. Everything okay on your end?” He moved his chin toward her phone.

Cath nodded. “Perfectly.”

Levi nodded.

Cath nodded again.

Then she lifted her arms up over her head.

Agatha wrung her fingers in her cape miserably. (But still prettily. Even Agatha’s tear-stained face was a thing of beauty.) Simon wanted to tell her it was all right, to forget the whole scene with Baz in the forest.… Agatha standing in the moonlight, holding both of Baz’s pale hands in her own …

“Just tell me,” Simon said, his voice shaking.

“I don’t know what to say,” she wept. “There’s you. And you’re good. And you’re right. And then there’s him.… And he’s different.”

“He’s a monster.” Simon clenched his square jaw.

Agatha just nodded. “Perhaps.”

—from chapter 18, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie