Fangirl

Fiction-Writing.”
    “You write fiction all the time.”
    “I write fan fiction.”
    “Don’t be tricky with me right now. I’m driving through a blizzard.” A car materialized ahead of them, and Levi’s face tensed.
    Cath waited until he relaxed again. “I don’t want to make up my own characters, my own world—I don’t have that inside of me.”
    Neither of them spoke. They were moving so slowly.… Something caught Cath’s eye through Levi’s window; a semi truck had jackknifed in the median. She took a stuttering breath, and Levi found her hand again.
    “Only fifteen miles,” he said.
    “Does he need help?”
    “There was a State Patrol car.”
    “I didn’t see it.”
    “I’m so sorry about this,” Levi said.
    “Stop,” she said. “You didn’t make it snow.”
    “Your dad’s going to hate me.”
    She raised his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. His forehead wrinkled, almost like it hurt.
    Cath listened to the windshield wipers and watched the front window for whatever was coming next.
    “Are you sure?” Levi asked after a few miles. “About the fiction-writing? Are you sure you don’t have that inside you? You’re fathomless when it comes to Simon and Baz—”
    “They’re different. They already exist. I just move them around.”
    He nodded. “Maybe you’re like Frank Sinatra. He didn’t write his own songs—but he was a genius interpreter.”
    “I hate Frank Sinatra.”
    “Come on, nobody hates Frank Sinatra.”
    “He treated women like things.”
    “Okay—” Levi adjusted himself in the seat, shaking his neck out. “—not Frank Sinatra, then … Aretha Franklin.”
    “Blech. Diva.”
    “Roy Acuff?”
    “Who?”
    Levi smiled, and it made Cath kiss his fingers again. He gave her a quick, questioning look.
    “The point is…,” he said softly. Something about the storm made them both talk softly. “There are different kinds of talent. Maybe your talent is in interpretation. Maybe you’re a stylist.”
    “And you think that counts?”
    “Tim Burton didn’t come up with Batman. Peter Jackson didn’t write Lord of the Rings. ”
    “In the right light, you are such a nerd.”
    His smile opened up. The truck hit a slick spot, and he pulled his hand away, but the smile lingered. A coffeepot-shaped water tower slowly moved past his window. They were on the edge of town now; there were more cars here, on the road and in the ditches.
    “You still have to write that story,” Levi said.
    “Why?”
    “To bring your grade up. Don’t you need to keep your GPA up for your scholarship?”
    She’d only just told him about the scholarship a few nights ago. (“I’m dating a genius,” he’d said, “and a scholar.”)
    Of course she wanted to keep her GPA up. “Yeah—”
    “So, write the story. It doesn’t have to be great. You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. You’re lucky you’re getting a second chance.”
    Cath sighed. “Yeah.”
    “I don’t know where you live,” he said. “You’re going to have to give me instructions.”
    “Just be careful,” Cath said, leaning in quickly to kiss his smooth cheek.
     
    “You can’t shave your head. You’ll look mental.”
    “I look worse than mental with this hair. I look evil.”
    “There’s no such thing as evil hair,” Simon giggled. They were lying on the floor of the library between two rows of shelves. Baz on his back. Simon propped up on one shoulder.
    “Look at me,” Baz said, pushing his chin-length hair back from his forehead. “Every famous vampire has a widow’s peak like this. I’m a cliché. It’s like I went to the barber and asked for ‘a Dracula.’”
    Simon was laughing so hard, he nearly fell forward onto Baz. Baz shoved him up with his free hand.
    “I mean, honestly,” Baz said, still holding back his hair, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s like an arrow on my face. This way to the vampire. ”
    Simon swatted Baz’s hand away and kissed the point of his hairline as gently as he could. “I like your hair,” Simon said against Baz’s forehead. “Really, really.”

    —from Carry On, Simon, posted March 2012 by FanFixx.net author Magicath

 
    TWENTY-SEVEN
    When they pulled crunchily into Cath’s driveway, Cath exhaled, completely, for the first time in two hours.
    Levi leaned back and let his head fall against the seat. He opened and closed his hands, stretching his fingers. “Let’s never do that again,” he said.
    Cath unbuckled her seat belt