Fangirl

Usually we’re there for him.”
    Levi held his sandwich by one corner and took a bite from the other. “Are you too worried about your dad to talk about why you’re mad at me?” His mouth was full.
    “It’s not important,” she muttered.
    “It is to me.” He swallowed. “You leave the room every time I walk in.” Cath didn’t say anything, so he kept talking.… “Is it because of what happened?”
    She didn’t know how to answer that question. She didn’t want to. She looked up at the wall across from her, up where there’d be a TV if this place wasn’t such a prison.
    She felt Levi lean toward her. “Because I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
    Cath pinched the top of her nose, wishing she knew where her tear ducts were, so she could hold them closed. “You’re sorry?”
    “I’m sorry I upset you,” he said. “I think maybe I was reading you wrong, and I’m sorry about that.”
    Her brain tried to come up with something mean to say about Levi and reading. “You didn’t read me wrong,” she said, shaking her head. Just for a second, she felt more angry than pathetic. “I went to your party.”
    “What party?”
    She turned her head to face him—even though she’d started to cry, and her glasses were fogging up, and she hadn’t officially brushed her hair since yesterday morning. “The party,” she said. “At your house. That Thursday night. I came with Reagan.”
    “Why didn’t I see you?”
    “You were in the kitchen … preoccupied.”
    Levi’s smile faded, and he sat back slowly. Cath set her sandwich down on the chair next to her and clenched her hands in her lap.
    “Oh, Cath…,” Levi said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t apologize. You both seemed pretty happy about it.”
    “You didn’t say you were coming.”
    She looked over. “So if you’d known I was coming, you wouldn’t have been making out with somebody else in the kitchen?”
    For once Levi didn’t have anything to say. He set his sandwich down, too, and pushed both hands through his wispy blond hair. His hair was made of finer stuff than Cath’s. Silk. Down. Blown-out dandelion seeds.
    “Cath…,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
    She wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for. He looked up at her, from the top of his eyes, looking genuinely sorry—and sorry for her. “It was just a kiss,” he said, pleating his forehead.
    “Which one?” she asked.
    Levi pushed his hands to the back of his head, and his bangs fell loose. “ Both of them.”
    Cath took a deep, shaky breath and let it break out through her nose. “Right,” she said. “That is, um … good information to have.”
    “I didn’t think—”
    “Levi.” She cut him off and looked him straight in the eye, trying to look stern despite her tears. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing me here. But I couldn’t mean this more: I’d like it if you left now. I don’t just kiss people. Kisses aren’t … just with me. That’s why I’ve been avoiding you. That’s why I’d like to avoid you now. Okay?”
    “Cath—”
    The door buzzed, and a nurse stepped through it, wearing flowered scrubs. She smiled at Levi. “You guys want to come back now?”
    Cath stood up and grabbed her bag. She looked at Levi. “Please.” And then she followed the nurse.
    *   *   *
    Levi was gone when Cath came back to the lobby.
    She took a cab to her dad’s office to get his car. It was full of fast-food wrappers and crumpled-up ideas. When she got home, she did the dishes and texted Wren.
    Cath didn’t feel like calling. She didn’t feel like saying, Hey, you were right. He’s all drugged up and probably won’t come out of it for a few days, and there’s no real reason for you to come home—unless you just can’t stand the idea of him going through this alone. But he won’t be alone, because I’ll be here.
    Her dad hadn’t done laundry for a while. The steps to the basement were covered with dirty clothes, like he’d just been throwing stuff down there for a few weeks.
    She started a load of laundry.
    She threw out pizza boxes with desiccated slices of pizza.
    There was a poem painted on the bathroom mirror with toothpaste—maybe it was a poem, maybe it was just words. It was lovely, so Cath took a photo with her phone before she wiped it clean.
    Any one of these things would have tipped them off if they’d been at home.
    They looked out for him.
    They’d find