Fangirl

happened in class,” Cath said. She didn’t look up at him. Maybe she could use a big brother right now—she was currently down a twin sister . Any port in a storm, and all that …
    “What class?” he asked.
    “Fiction-Writing.”
    “You take Fiction-Writing? That’s an actual class?”
    “That’s an actual question?”
    “Does this have something to do with your Simon Snow thing?”
    Cath looked up now and flushed. “Who told you about my Simon Snow thing?”
    “Nobody had to tell me. You’ve got Simon Snow stuff everywhere. You’re worse than my ten-year-old cousin.” Levi grinned; he looked relieved to be smiling again. “Reagan told me you write stories about him.”
    “So Reagan told you.”
    “That’s what you’re always working on, right? Writing stories about Simon Snow?”
    Cath didn’t know what to say. It sounded absolutely ridiculous when Levi said it.
    “They’re not just stories…,” she said.
    He took a giant bite of hash. His hair was still wet and falling (wetly, blondly) into his eyes. He pushed it back. “They’re not?”
    Cath shook her head. They were just stories, but stories weren’t just anything. Simon wasn’t just.
    “What do you know about Simon Snow?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “Everybody knows about Simon Snow.”
    “You’ve read the books?”
    “I’ve seen the movies.”
    Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”
    “I’m not really a book person.”
    “That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
    “Don’t change the subject,” Levi said, grinning some more. “You write stories about Simon Snow.…”
    “You think this is funny.”
    “Yes,” Levi said. “But also sort of cool. Tell me about your stories.”
    Cath pressed the tines of her fork into her place mat. “They’re just, like … I take the characters, and I put them in new situations.”
    “Like deleted scenes?”
    “Sometimes. More like what-ifs. Like, what if Baz wasn’t evil? What if Simon never found the five blades? What if Agatha found them instead? What if Agatha was evil?”
    “Agatha couldn’t be evil,” Levi argued, leaning forward and pointing at Cath with his fork. “She’s ‘pure of heart, a lion of dawn.’”
    Cath narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
    “I told you, I’ve seen the movies.”
    “Well, in my world, if I want to make Agatha evil, I can. Or I can make her a vampire. Or I can make her an actual lion.”
    “Simon wouldn’t like that.”
    “Simon doesn’t care. He’s in love with Baz.”
    Levi guffawed. ( You don’t get many opportunities to use that word, Cath thought, but this is one of them. )
    “Simon isn’t gay,” he said.
    “In my world, he is.”
    “But Baz is his nemesis. ”
    “I don’t have to follow any of the rules. The original books already exist; it’s not my job to rewrite them.”
    “Is it your job to make Simon gay?”
    “You’re getting distracted by the gay thing,” Cath said. She was leaning forward now, too.
    “It is distracting.…” Levi giggled. (Did guys “giggle” or “chuckle”? Cath hated the word “chuckle.”)
    “The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories—”
    “Fanfiction,” Levi said.
    “Yes.” Cath was embarrassed by how sincere she sounded, how excited she felt whenever she actually talked about this. She was so used to keeping it a secret—used to assuming people would think she was a freak and a nerd and a pervert.…
    Maybe Levi thought all those things. Maybe he just found freaks and perverts amusing.
    “Emergency dance party?” he asked.
    “Right.” She sat back in the booth again. “Our professor asked us to write a scene with an untrustworthy narrator. I wrote something about Simon and Baz.… She didn’t get it. She thought it was plagiarism.” Cath forced herself to use that word, felt the tar wake up with a twist in her stomach.
    “But it was your story,” Levi said.
    “Yes.”
    “That’s not exactly plagiarism.…” He smiled at her. She needed to come up with more words for Levi’s smiles; he had too many of them. This one was