Fangirl

everything for them. They needed her to carry them through.
    Baz and Simon in her head. Levi in her stomach.
    Levi somewhere, gone.
    In nine days, it would be over. In twelve days, Cath wouldn’t be a freshman anymore. And in fourteen …
    God, she was an idiot.
    Was she always going to be this stupid? Her whole miserable life?
    Cath cried until it felt pointless, then stumbled off the bed to get a drink of water. When she opened her door, Levi was sitting in the hallway, his legs bent in front of him, hunched forward on his knees. He looked up when she stepped out.
    “I’m such an idiot,” he said.
    Cath fell between his knees and hugged him.
    “I can’t believe I said that,” he said. “I can’t even go nine hours without seeing you.”
    “No, you’re right,” Cath said. “I’ve been acting crazy. This whole thing is crazy. It isn’t even real.”
    “That’s not what I meant—it is real. You have to finish.”
    “Yeah,” she said, kissing his chin, trying to remember where she’d left off. “But not today. You were right. There’s time. They’ll wait for me.” She pushed her hands inside his jacket.
    He held her by her shoulders. “You do what you have to,” he said. “Just let me be there. For the next two weeks, okay?”
    She nodded. Fourteen days. With Levi. And then curtains closed on this year.
     
    “Maybe fighting him isn’t the answer,” Simon said.
    “What?” Baz was leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath. His hair was hanging in slimy tendrils, and his face was smeared with muck and blood. Simon probably looked even worse. “You’re not giving up now,” Baz said, reaching for Simon’s chest and pulling him forward, fiercely, by the buckled straps of his cape. “I won’t let you.”
    “I’m not giving up,” Simon said. “I just … Maybe fighting isn’t the answer. It wasn’t the answer with you.”
    Baz arched an elegant brow. “Are you going to snog the Humdrum—is that your plan? Because he’s eleven. And he looks just like you. That’s both vain and deviant, Snow, even for you.”
    Simon managed a laugh and raised a hand to the back of Baz’s neck, holding him firmly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m done fighting, Baz. If we go on like this, there won’t be anything left to fight for.”

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

 
    THIRTY-SEVEN
    “Cather.”
    “Mmmm.”
    “Hey. Wake up.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “I have to go to work. If we don’t leave soon, I’ll be late.”
    Cath opened her eyes. Levi had already showered and put on his gothy Starbucks clothes. He smelled like an actual Irish spring.
    “Can I stay?” she asked.
    “Here?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’ll be stuck here all day.”
    “I like here. And anyway, I’m just writing.”
    He grinned. “Okay—sure. I’ll bring back dinner.… You write all the words,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Give Simon and Baz my best.”
    She thought she might go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. She got up and took a shower (now she smelled like Levi), glad not to see anyone else in the hall. At least one of his roommates was home. She could hear music.
    Cath climbed back to Levi’s room. It had been warm last night, and they’d fallen asleep with the windows open. But the weather had shifted—it was too cold in here now, especially for someone with wet hair. She grabbed her laptop and crawled under his quilt, doubling it up on top of her; she didn’t want to close the windows.
    She pressed the Power button and waited for her computer to wake up. Then she opened a Word document and watched the cursor blink at her—she could see her face in the blank screen. Ten thousand words, and none of them had to be good; only one other person would ever read them. It didn’t even matter where Cath started, as long she finished. She started typing.…
    I sat on the back steps.
    No …
    She sat on the back steps.
    Every word felt heavy and hurt, like Cath was chipping them one by one out of her stomach.
    A plane flew overhead, and that was wrong, all wrong, and her sister knew it, too, because she squeezed her hand like they’d both disappear if she didn’t.
    This wasn’t good, but it was something. Cath could always change it later. That was the beauty in stacking up words—they got cheaper, the more you had of them. It would feel good to come back and cut this when she’d worked her way to something