Fangirl

got it,” she said when Levi tried to help her in. She waited for him to walk away before heaving herself up onto the seat. Levi slid behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat and the windshield wipers, and holding his hands up to the vents. “Seat belt,” he said after a minute.
    “Oh, sorry…” Cath dug for the seat belt.
    She buckled up. The truck still didn’t move.
    “You did the right thing, you know.”
    Levi.
    “No,” Cath said. “I don’t know.”
    “You had to go check on her. Nine-one-one is nine-one-one.”
    “And then I left her—completely wasted—with a stranger and a moron.”
    “That guy didn’t seem like a stranger,” Levi said.
    Cath almost laughed. Because he hadn’t argued with the moron part. “I’m her sister. I’m supposed to look out for her.”
    “Not against her will.”
    “What if she passes out?”
    “Does that happen a lot?”
    Cath looked over at him. His hair was wet, and you could see the tracks where he’d pushed his fingers through it.
    “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said.
    “Okay … Are you hungry?”
    “No.” She looked down at her lap.
    The truck still didn’t move.
    “Because I’m hungry,” he said.
    “Aren’t you supposed to meet up with Reagan?”
    “Yep. Later.”
    Cath rubbed her face again. The ice in her hair was melting and dripping into her eyes. “I’m wearing pajamas.”
    Levi put the truck into reverse. “I know just the place.”
    *   *   *
    The pajama pants weren’t a problem.
    Levi took her to a twenty-four-hour truck stop near the edge of town. (Nothing in Lincoln was too far from the edge of town.) The place felt like it hadn’t been redecorated ever, like maybe it had been built sixty years ago out of materials that were already worn and cracking. The waitress started pouring them coffee without even asking if they wanted any.
    “Perfect,” Levi said, smiling at the waitress and shuffling out of his coat. She set the cream on the table and brushed his shoulder fondly.
    “Do you come here a lot?” Cath asked, when the waitress left.
    “More than I go other places, I guess. If you order the corned beef hash, you don’t have to eat for days.… Cream?”
    Cath didn’t usually order coffee, but she nodded anyway, and he topped off her cup. She pulled her saucer back and stared down at it. She heard Levi exhale.
    “I know how you feel right now,” he said. “I have two little sisters.”
    “You don’t know how I feel.” Cath dumped in three packs of sugar. “She’s not just my sister.”
    “Do people really do that to you guys all the time?”
    “Do what?” Cath looked up at him, and he looked away.
    “The twin thing.”
    “Oh. That.” She stirred her coffee, clacking the spoon too hard against her cup. “Not all the time. Only if we’re around drunks or, like, walking down the street.…”
    He made a face. “People are depraved.”
    The waitress came back, and Levi lit up for her. Predictably. He ordered corned beef hash. Cath stuck with coffee.
    “She’ll grow out of it,” he said when the waitress walked away from their booth. “Reagan’s right. It’s a freshman thing.”
    “I’m a freshman. I’m not out getting wasted.”
    Levi laughed. “Right. Because you’re too busy throwing dance parties. What was the emergency anyway?”
    Cath watched him laugh and felt the sticky black pit yawn open in her stomach. Professor Piper. Simon. Baz. Neat, red F.
    “Were you anticipating an emergency?” he asked, still smiling. “Or maybe summoning one? Like a rain dance?”
    “You don’t have to do this,” Cath said.
    “Do what?”
    “Try to make me feel better.” She felt the tears coming on, and her voice wobbled. “I’m not one of your little sisters.”
    Levi’s smile fell completely. “I’m sorry,” he said, all the teasing gone. “I … I thought maybe you’d want to talk about it.”
    Cath looked back at her coffee. She shook her head a few times, as much to tell him no as to shake away the stinging in her eyes.
    His corned beef hash came. A whole mess of it. He moved Cath’s coffee cup to the table and scooped hash onto her saucer.
    Cath ate it—it was easier than arguing. She’d been arguing all day, and so far, no one had listened. And besides, the corned beef hash was really good, like they made it fresh with real corned beef, and there were two sunny-side-up eggs on top.
    Levi piled more onto her plate.
    “Something