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  This is so obviously about me needing a mother figure, she thought, disgusted with herself. I wonder if I’m going to get swoony around middle-aged women until I am one.

  “It was really kind of you to offer me a second chance,” Cath said, following the professor’s gesture to sit down. This is when she was supposed to say, But I’m going to have to say no.

  Instead she said, “I guess I’d be an idiot not to take it.”

  Professor Piper beamed at her. She leaned forward with an elbow on the desktop, resting her cheek against her fist like she was posing for a senior picture. “So,” she said, “do you have an idea in mind for your story?”

  “No.” Cath squeezed her fists shut and rubbed them into her thighs. “Every time I’ve tried to come up with something, I just feel … empty.”

  Professor Piper nodded. “You said something last time that I’ve been thinking about—you said that you didn’t want to build your own world.”

  Cath looked up. “Yes. Exactly. I don’t have brave new worlds inside of me begging to get out. I don’t want to start from nothing like that.”

  “But Cath—most writers don’t. Most of us aren’t Gemma T. Leslie.” She waved a hand around the office. “We write about the worlds we already know. I’ve written four books, and they all take place within a hundred and twenty miles of my hometown. Most of them are about things that happened in my real life.”

  “But you write historical novels—”

  The professor nodded. “I take something that happened to me in 1983, and I make it happen to somebody else in 1943. I pick my life apart that way, try to understand it better by writing straight through it.”

  “So everything in your books is true?”

  The professor tilted her head and hummed. “Mmmm … yes. And no. Everything starts with a little truth, then I spin my webs around it—sometimes I spin completely away from it. But the point is, I don’t start with nothing.”

  “I’ve never written anything that isn’t magical,” Cath said.

  “You still can, if that’s what you want. But you don’t have to start at the molecular level, with some sort of Big Bang in your head.”

  Cath pressed her nails into her palms.

  “Maybe for this story,” Professor Piper said delicately, “you could start with something real. With one day from your life. Something that confused or intrigued you, something you want to explore. Start there and see what happens. You can keep it true, or you can let it turn into something else—you can add magic—but give yourself a starting point.”

  Cath nodded, more because she was ready to leave than because she’d processed everything the professor was saying.

  “I want to meet again,” Professor Piper said. “In a few weeks. Let’s get back together and talk about where you are.”

  Cath agreed and hurried toward the door, hoping she wouldn’t seem rude. A few weeks. Sure. Like a few weeks will fix the hole in my head. She pushed her way through a mob of gaudy English majors, then escaped out into the snow.

  * * *

  Levi wouldn’t put her laundry hamper down.

  “I can carry it,” Cath said. Her head was still in Professor Piper’s office, and she wasn’t in the mood for … well, for Levi. For the constant good-natured game of him. If Levi were a dog, he’d be a golden retriever. If he were a game, he’d be Ping-Pong, incessant and bouncing and light. Cath didn’t feel like playing.

  “I’ve got this,” he said. “You get the door.”

  “No, seriously,” she said. “I can carry it.”

  Levi was all smiles and fond glances. “Sweetheart, get the door. I’ve got this.”

  Cath pressed her fingertips into her temples. “Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?”

  He grinned. “It just came out. It felt good.”

  “Sweetheart?”

  “Would you prefer ‘honey’? That reminds me of my mom.… What about ‘baby’? No. ‘Loveboat’? ‘Kitten’? ‘Rubber duck’?” He paused. “You know what? I’m sticking with ‘sweetheart.’”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Cath said.

  “Start with the door.”

  “Levi. I can carry my own gross, dirty laundry.”

  “Cath. I’m not going to let you.”

  “There’s no letting. It’s my laundry.”

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

  “I don’t need you to carry things for me. I have two functioning arms.”

  “That’s not the point,” he said. “What kind of creep would I be if I let my girl carry something heavy while I walked along, swinging my arms?”

  Your girl? “The kind that respects my wishes,” she said. “And my strength, and my … arms.”

  Levi grinned some more. Because he wasn’t taking her seriously. “I have a lot of respect for your arms. I like how they’re attached to the rest of you.”

  “You’re making me feel fragile and limp. Give me the laundry.” She reached for it.

  He stepped back. “Cather. I know you’re capable of carrying this. But I’m not capable of letting you. I literally couldn’t walk next to you empty-handed. It’s nothing personal; I’d do this for anyone with two X chromosomes.”

  “Even worse.”

  “Why? Why is that worse? That I’m respectful to women.”

  “It’s not respectful, it’s undermining. Respect our strength.”

  “I do.” His hair fell in his eyes, and he tried to blow it away. “Being chivalrous is respectful. Women have been oppressed and persecuted since the beginning of time. If I can make their lives easier with my superior upper-body strength, I’m going to. At every opportunity.”

  “Superior.”

  “Yes. Superior. Do you want to arm wrestle?”

  “I don’t need superior upper-body strength to carry my own dirty laundry.” She put her fingers on the handles, trying to push his aside.

  “You’re deliberately missing the point,” he said.

  “No, that’s you.”

  “Your face is flushed, did you know that?”

  “Well,” she said. “I’m frustrated.”

  “Don’t make me angry-kiss you.”

  “Give me the laundry.”

  “Tempers rising, faces flushed … This is how it happens.”

  That made Cath laugh. And that was irritating, too. She used most of her inferior upper-body strength to shove the hamper into his chest.

  Levi pushed it back gently, but didn’t let go. “Let’s fight about this the next time I try to do something nice for you, okay?”

  She looked up at his eyes. The way he looked back at her made her feel wide open, like every thought must be closed-captioned on her face. She let go of the hamper and picked up her laptop bag, opening the door.

  “Finally,” he said. “My triceps are killing me.”

  * * *

  This was the coldest, snowiest winter Cath could remember. It was the middle of March already, technically spring, but it still felt like January. Cath put on her snow boots every morning without thinking about it.

  She’d had gotten so used to the snow, to being a pedestrian in the snow, that she hadn’t even thought to check the weather today—she hadn’t thought about road conditions and visibility or the fact that maybe this wasn’t the best afternoon for Levi to drive her home.

  She was thinking about it now.

  It felt like they were the only car on the interstate. They couldn’t see the sun; they couldn’t see the road. Every ten minutes or so, red taillights would emerge out of the static ahead of them, and Levi would ease onto the brakes.

  He’d stopped talking almost an hour ago. His mouth was straight, and he was squinting at the windshield like he needed glasses.

  “We should go back,” Cath whispered.

  “Yeah…,” he said, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, then clenching a fist around the gearshift. “But I think it might be easier now to keep going. It’s worse behind us. I thought we’d beat
it to Omaha.”

  There was a metallic ringing as a car passed them on the left.

  “What’s that noise?” she asked.

  “Tire chains.” Levi didn’t sound scared. But he was being so awfully quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about the weather.”

  “My fault,” he said, sparing a second to smile at her. “I didn’t want to let you down. Think I’ll feel worse if I actually kill you.…”

  “That would not be chivalrous.”

  Levi smiled again. She reached out to the gearshift and touched his hand, running her fingers along his, then pulling them away.

  They were quiet again for a few minutes—maybe not that long. It was hard to judge time with everything so tense and gray.

  “What are you thinking about?” Levi asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Not nothing. You’ve seemed thinky and weird ever since I got to your room. Is this about me meeting your dad?”

  “No,” Cath said quickly. “I kind of forgot about that.”

  More quiet.

  “What then?”

  “Just … something that happened with a professor. I can tell you when we’re not in mortal peril.”

  Levi felt on the seat for her hand, so she gave it to him. He clutched it. “You’re not in mortal peril.” He moved his hand back to the gearshift. “Maybe … stranded-in-a-ditch-for-a-few-hours peril. Tell me. I can’t really talk right now, but I can listen. I’d like to listen.”

  Cath turned away from the window and faced him. It was nice to look at Levi when he couldn’t look back. She liked his profile. It was very … flat. A straight line from his long forehead into his longish nose—his nose veered out a bit at the tip, but not much—and another straight line from his nose to his chin. His chin went soft sometimes when he smiled or when he was feigning surprise, but it never quite mushed away. She was going to kiss him there someday, right at the edge of his jaw where his chin was most vulnerable.

  “What happened in class?” he asked.

  “After class, I went … Well, okay, so you know how last semester, I was taking Fiction-Writing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I didn’t turn in my final project. I was supposed to write a short story, and I didn’t.”

  “What?” His chin tucked back in surprise. “Why?”

  “I … lots of reasons.” This was more complicated than Cath thought. She didn’t want to tell Levi how unhappy she’d been last semester—how she hadn’t wanted to come back to school, how she hadn’t wanted to see him. She didn’t want him to think he had that much power over her.

  “I didn’t want to write it,” she said. “I mean, there’s more to it than that, but … mostly I didn’t want to. I had writer’s block. And my dad, you know, I didn’t come back to school, finals week, after he had his breakdown.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well. It’s true. So I decided not to finish my final project. But my Fiction-Writing professor didn’t turn in my grade. She wants to give me a second chance—she said I could write the story this semester. And I sort of said that I would.”

  “Wow. That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah…”

  “It’s not awesome?”

  “No. It is. Just … it was nice to have it behind me. To feel like I was through with that whole idea. Fiction-Writing.”

  “You write fiction all the time.”

  “I write fanfiction.”

  “Don’t be tricky with me right now. I’m driving through a blizzard.” A car materialized ahead of them, and Levi’s face tensed.

  Cath waited until he relaxed again. “I don’t want to make up my own characters, my own world—I don’t have that inside of me.”

  Neither of them spoke. They were moving so slowly.… Something caught Cath’s eye through Levi’s window; a semi truck had jackknifed in the median. She took a stuttering breath, and Levi found her hand again.

  “Only fifteen miles,” he said.

  “Does he need help?”

  “There was a State Patrol car.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “I’m so sorry about this,” Levi said.

  “Stop,” she said. “You didn’t make it snow.”

  “Your dad’s going to hate me.”

  She raised his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. His forehead wrinkled, almost like it hurt.

  Cath listened to the windshield wipers and watched the front window for whatever was coming next.

  “Are you sure?” Levi asked after a few miles. “About the fiction-writing? Are you sure you don’t have that inside you? You’re fathomless when it comes to Simon and Baz—”

  “They’re different. They already exist. I just move them around.”

  He nodded. “Maybe you’re like Frank Sinatra. He didn’t write his own songs—but he was a genius interpreter.”

  “I hate Frank Sinatra.”

  “Come on, nobody hates Frank Sinatra.”

  “He treated women like things.”

  “Okay—” Levi adjusted himself in the seat, shaking his neck out. “—not Frank Sinatra, then … Aretha Franklin.”

  “Blech. Diva.”

  “Roy Acuff?”

  “Who?”

  Levi smiled, and it made Cath kiss his fingers again. He gave her a quick, questioning look.

  “The point is…,” he said softly. Something about the storm made them both talk softly. “There are different kinds of talent. Maybe your talent is in interpretation. Maybe you’re a stylist.”

  “And you think that counts?”

  “Tim Burton didn’t come up with Batman. Peter Jackson didn’t write Lord of the Rings.”

  “In the right light, you are such a nerd.”

  His smile opened up. The truck hit a slick spot, and he pulled his hand away, but the smile lingered. A coffeepot-shaped water tower slowly moved past his window. They were on the edge of town now; there were more cars here, on the road and in the ditches.

  “You still have to write that story,” Levi said.

  “Why?”

  “To bring your grade up. Don’t you need to keep your GPA up for your scholarship?”

  She’d only just told him about the scholarship a few nights ago. (“I’m dating a genius,” he’d said, “and a scholar.”)

  Of course she wanted to keep her GPA up. “Yeah—”

  “So, write the story. It doesn’t have to be great. You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. You’re lucky you’re getting a second chance.”

  Cath sighed. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know where you live,” he said. “You’re going to have to give me instructions.”

  “Just be careful,” Cath said, leaning in quickly to kiss his smooth cheek.

  “You can’t shave your head. You’ll look mental.”

  “I look worse than mental with this hair. I look evil.”

  “There’s no such thing as evil hair,” Simon giggled. They were lying on the floor of the library between two rows of shelves. Baz on his back. Simon propped up on one shoulder.

  “Look at me,” Baz said, pushing his chin-length hair back from his forehead. “Every famous vampire has a widow’s peak like this. I’m a cliché. It’s like I went to the barber and asked for ‘a Dracula.’”

  Simon was laughing so hard, he nearly fell forward onto Baz. Baz shoved him up with his free hand.

  “I mean, honestly,” Baz said, still holding back his hair, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s like an arrow on my face. This way to the vampire.”

  Simon swatted Baz’s hand away and kissed the point of his hairline as gently as he could. “I like your hair,” Simon said against Baz’s forehead. “Really, really.”

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

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When they pulled crunchily into Cath’s driveway, Cath exhaled, completely, for the first time in two hours.

  L
evi leaned back and let his head fall against the seat. He opened and closed his hands, stretching his fingers. “Let’s never do that again,” he said.

  Cath unbuckled her seat belt and slid toward him, pushing her arms around his shoulders. Levi smiled so wide, she wished it hadn’t taken an adrenaline rush for her to feel like she could hug him like this. His arms moved around her waist, and she held him tightly, her face in his coat.

  Levi’s mouth was close to her ear. “You shouldn’t reward me for endangering your life, you know. Think of the precedent you’re setting.”

  Cath held him even tighter. He was good. He was good, and she didn’t want to lose him. Not that she felt like she was going to lose him on the interstate. Just, in general. In general, she didn’t want to lose him.

  “I wouldn’t have thought twice of driving through this back home,” he said quietly, “by myself. But I shouldn’t have done this with you. I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head.

  The street was silent, and the cab of the truck was dark gray and white-bright, and after a few minutes, Levi’s hand trailed up her back and down again.

  “Cather,” he whispered, “I really like you.…”

  * * *

  When they got out of the truck, the windshield was covered with snow. Levi carried her laundry. Cath let him. He was nervous about meeting her dad, and she was nervous about her dad, period. She’d talked to him every day since Christmas break, and she’d been home to visit—he seemed like he was doing fine, but you never knew with him.…

  When Cath opened the door, he was right there in the living room. There were papers everywhere, onionskin taped to the curtains and walls, all his ideas sorted into buckets. And her dad was sitting on the coffee table, chewing on the end of a Sharpie.

  “Cath,” he said, smiling. “Hey … is it Cath time already?” He looked at the windows, then down at his wrist; he wasn’t wearing a watch. Then he saw Levi and stopped. He took his glasses off his head and put them on, standing.

  “Dad, this is Levi. He gave me a ride.” That hadn’t come out right. Cath tried again: “He’s, um … Levi.”

  Levi held out his hand. “Mr. Avery, nice to meet you.” He was drawling. Maybe his accent was a nervous tic.