Fangirl

Volvos.”
    “It’s a character detail.”
    “It’s a cliché. I swear to God, every surviving Volvo produced between 1970 and 1985 is being driven by quirky fictional girls.”
    Nick pouted down at the paper. “You’re crossing out everything.”
    “I’m not crossing out everything.”
    “What are you leaving?” He leaned over more and watched her write.
    “The rhythm,” Cath said. “The rhythm is good.”
    “Yeah?” He smiled.
    “Yeah. It reads like a waltz.”
    “Make you jealous?” He smiled some more. His eyeteeth were crooked, but not bad enough to get braces.
    “Definitely,” Cath said. “I could never write a waltz.”
    Sometimes, when they talked like this, she was sure they were flirting. But when the notebook closed, the light always went off in Nick’s eyes. At midnight, he’d rush off to wherever he always rushed off to, probably to wrap a beer around a blond girl’s waist. To kiss her with his twisted eyeteeth showing.
    Cath kept working on the scene; a whole new conversation took shape in the margin. When she looked up, Nick was still smiling at her.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he said, laughing.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Just … It’s crazy that this works. Between you and me. That we can actually write together. It’s like … thinking together.”
    “It’s nice,” Cath said, meaning it. “Writing is lonely.”
    “You wouldn’t think we’d be on the same wavelength, you know? We’re so different.”
    “We’re not that different.”
    “Totally different,” he said. “Look at us.”
    “We’re both English majors,” Cath said. “We’re both white. We live in Nebraska. We listen to the same music, we watch the same TV shows, we even have the same pair of Chuck Taylors—”
    “Yeah. But it’s like John Lennon writing with … Taylor Swift instead of Paul McCartney.”
    “Get over yourself,” Cath said. “You’re not half as pretty as Taylor Swift.”
    “You know what I mean.” Nick poked her in the arm with the end of his pen.
    “It’s nice,” she said, looking up at him, still not sure if they were flirting—pretty sure she didn’t want them to be. “Writing is lonely.”
    There wasn’t time for Cath to write a page of her own in the notebook. She and Nick spent the rest of their night in the stacks, revamping his section. The Volvo became a rusty Neon, and the dandelion detail blew away completely.
    At eleven forty-five, they packed up. When they got to the library’s front steps, Nick was already checking his phone. “Hey,” Cath said, “do you feel like walking past Pound Hall on your way to your car? We could walk together.”
    He didn’t look up from his phone. “Better not. I need to get home. See you in class, though.”
    “Yeah,” Cath said, “see ya.” She got out her phone and started dialing 911 before he’d disappeared into the shadows.
    *   *   *
    “Dad? It’s Cath. I was just calling to say hi. I was thinking about coming home this weekend. Give me a call.”
    ___
    “Dad, I’m calling you at work now. It’s Thursday. I think I’m gonna come home tomorrow. Call me back, okay? Or e-mail me? Love you.”
    ___
    “Hey, honey, it’s your dad. Don’t come home this weekend. I’m going to be gone all weekend at the Gravioli shoot. In Tulsa. I mean, come home if you want to. Throw a big party. Like Tom Cruise in … God, what is that movie? Not Top Gun—Risky Business ! Have a big party. Invite a bunch of people over to watch Risky Business. I don’t have any booze, but there’s still some green bean casserole left. I love you, Cath. Are you still fighting with your sister? Don’t.”
    *   *   *
    Love Library was busier than normal that weekend; it was the week before finals, and everybody seemed to be digging in. Cath had to roam deeper and deeper into the library to find an empty study carrel. She thought of Levi and his theory that the library invented new rooms the more that you visited. Tonight she walked by a half-sized door in a stairwell. The sign said SOUTH STACKS, and Cath would swear she’d never seen it before.
    She opened the door, and there was an immediate step down into a normal-sized hallway. Cath ended up in another siloish room, the mirror image of Nick’s; the wind was even blowing in the opposite direction.
    She found an empty cubicle and set down her bag, taking off her coat. A girl sitting on the other side of the gray partition was watching her.
    The girl sat up