She thought she might go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. She got up and took a shower (now she smelled like Levi), glad not to see anyone else in the hall. At least one of his roommates was home. She could hear music.
Cath climbed back to Levi’s room. It had been warm last night, and they’d fallen asleep with the windows open. But the weather had shifted—it was too cold in here now, especially for someone with wet hair. She grabbed her laptop and crawled under his quilt, doubling it up on top of her; she didn’t want to close the windows.
She pressed the Power button and waited for her computer to wake up. Then she opened a Word document and watched the cursor blink at her—she could see her face in the blank screen. Ten thousand words, and none of them had to be good; only one other person would ever read them. It didn’t even matter where Cath started, as long she finished. She started typing.…
I sat on the back steps.
No …
She sat on the back steps.
Every word felt heavy and hurt, like Cath was chipping them one by one out of her stomach.
A plane flew overhead, and that was wrong, all wrong, and her sister knew it, too, because she squeezed her hand like they’d both disappear if she didn’t.
This wasn’t good, but it was something. Cath could always change it later. That was the beauty in stacking up words—they got cheaper, the more you had of them. It would feel good to come back and cut this when she’d worked her way to something better.
The plane was flying so low, moving so sluggishly through the sky, you’d think it was just choosing the perfect rooftop to land on. They could hear the engine; it sounded closer than the voices shouting inside the house. Her sister reached up like she might touch it. Like she might grab on.
The girl squeezed her sister’s other hand, trying to anchor her to the steps. If you leave, she thought, I’m going with you.
*
Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.
Cath fell and fell, leaving a trail of messy words and bad similes behind her. Sometimes her chin was trembling. Sometimes she wiped her eyes on her sweater.
When she took a break, she was starving, and she had to pee so bad, she barely made it down to the third-floor bathroom. She found a protein bar in Levi’s backpack, climbed back into his bed, then kept writing until she heard him running up the stairs.
She closed the laptop before the door opened—and the sight of him smiling made her eyes burn right down to her throat.
*
“Stop bouncing,” Wren snapped. “You’re making us look like nerds.”
“Right,” Reagan said. “That’s what’s making us look like nerds. The bouncing.”
Levi smiled down at Cath. “Sorry. The atmosphere is getting to me.” He was wearing her red CARRY ON T-shirt over a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and for some reason, the sight of Baz and Simon facing off across his chest was disturbingly hot.
“S’okay,” she said. The atmosphere was getting to her, too. They’d been waiting in line for more than two hours. The bookstore was playing the Simon Snow movie soundtracks, and there were people everywhere. Cath recognized a few of them from past midnight releases; it was like they were all part of a club that met every couple years.
11:58.
The booksellers started setting out big boxes of books—special boxes, dark blue with gold stars. The manager of the store was wearing a cape and an all-wrong pointed witch’s hat. (Nobody at Watford wore pointy hats.) She stood on a chair and tapped one of the cash registers with a magic wand that looked like something Tinker Bell would carry. Cath rolled her eyes.
“Spare me the theater,” Reagan said. “I’ve got a final tomorrow.”
Levi was bouncing again.
The manager rang up the first person in line with great ceremony, and everyone in the store started applauding. The line jerked forward—and a few minutes later, Cath was there at the register, and the clerk was handing her a book that was at least three inches thick. The dust jacket felt like velvet.
Cath stepped away from the register, trying to get out of the way, clutching the book with both hands. There was an illustration of Simon on the front, holding up the Sword of Mages under a sky full of stars.
“Are you okay?” she heard someone—Levi?—ask. “Hey … are you crying?”
Cath ran her fingers along the cover, over the raised gold type.
Then someone else ran right into her, pushing the book into Cath’s chest. Pushing two books into her chest. Cath looked up just as Wren threw an arm around her.
“They’re both crying,” Cath heard Reagan say. “I can’t even watch.”
Cath freed an arm to wrap around her sister. “I can’t believe it’s really over,” she whispered.
Wren held her tight and shook her head. She really was crying, too. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Cath,” Wren laughed hoarsely. “It’s never over.… It’s Simon.”