Fangirl

His hair tickled her chin, and it broke the spell in Cath’s head. Or cast a new one.
    “Okay,” she sighed, kissing his head and rocking into his stomach. “Okay. Intermission.”
    *   *   *
    “You’ve got to give Penelope her own chapter,” Wren said. They were walking back to the dorms, sloshing through puddles. Wren had yellow rubber boots, and she kept jumping into puddles, soaking Cath’s legs and ankles.
    “Where would I put it?” Cath puffed. The snow was melting, but she could still see her breath. “I should have written it two weeks ago. Now it’ll seem forced.… This is why real authors wait until they’ve got a whole book before they show anybody; I’d kill to go back to the beginning and rewrite.”
    “You’re a real author,” Wren said, splashing. “You’re like Dickens. He wrote in installments, too.”
    “I’m going to destroy those boots.”
    “Jealous.” Wren stepped in another puddle.
    “I’m not jealous. They’re gross. I bet they make your feet sweat.”
    “Who cares, nobody can tell.”
    “I’ll be able to tell when you get back to my room and take them off. They’re disgusting.”
    “Hey,” Wren said, “I sort of want to talk to you about that.”
    “What.”
    “Your room. Rooms. Roommates … I was thinking that next year we could room together. We could live in Pound, if you want; I don’t care.”
    Cath stopped and turned to her sister. Wren kept walking for a second before she noticed and stopped, too.
    “You want to be roommates?” Cath asked.
    Wren was nervous. She shrugged. “Yeah. If you want to. If you’re not still mad about … everything.”
    “I’m not mad,” Cath said. She remembered the day last summer when Wren told her she didn’t want to live together. Cath had never felt so betrayed. Almost never. “I’m not mad,” she said again, this time really meaning it.
    Wren’s lips quirked up, and she stamped a puddle between them. “Good.”
    “But I can’t,” Cath said.
    Wren’s face fell. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, I already told Reagan I’d live with her again.”
    “But Reagan hates you.”
    “What? No, she doesn’t. Why would you say that?”
    “She’s so mean to you.”
    “That’s just her way. I think I’m her best girl friend, actually.”
    “Oh,” Wren said. She looked small and wet. Cath wasn’t sure what to say.…
    “You’re my best friend,” Cath said awkwardly. “You know. Built-in. For life.”
    Wren nodded. “Yeah … No, it’s okay. I should have thought of that, of you guys living together again.” She started walking and Cath followed.
    “What about Courtney?”
    “She’s moving into the Delta Gamma house.”
    “Oh,” Cath said. “I forgot she was a pledge.”
    “But that’s not why I asked you,” Wren said, like it was important to say so.
    “You should move to Pound. You could live on our floor—I’m serious.”
    Wren smiled and squared her shoulders, already recovering herself. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Why not? It’s closer to campus.”
    Cath leapt into the next big puddle, soaking Wren up to her thighs. Wren jumped and screamed, and it was totally worth it. Cath’s feet were already soaked.
     
    “Morgan’s grace, Simon—slow down.” Penelope held an arm out in front of his chest and glanced around the weirdly lit courtyard. “There’s more than one way through a flaming gate.”

    —from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie

 
    THIRTY-SIX
    Cath had been writing for four hours, and when she heard someone knocking at her door, it felt like she was standing at the bottom of a lake, looking up at the sun.
    It was Levi.
    “Hey,” she said, putting on her glasses. “Why didn’t you text? I would have come down.”
    “I did,” he said, kissing her forehead. She took her phone out of her pocket. She’d missed two texts and a call. Her ringer was turned off.
    “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Let me just pack up.”
    Levi fell onto her bed and watched. Seeing him there, leaning against the wall, brought back so many memories and so much tenderness, she climbed onto the bed and started kissing his face all over.
    He grinned and draped his long arms around her. “Do you have much writing to do?”
    “Yeah,” she said, rubbing her chin into his. “‘Miles to go before I sleep.’”
    “Have you shown anything to your professor yet?”
    Cath had just started to bite his chin and she pulled