“You got special permission to be in my class. You must have wanted to write. And your work was delightful—didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Nothing I wrote compared to Simon.”
“Good gracious, Cath, are you really comparing yourself to the most successful author of the modern age?”
“Yes,” Cath said. “Because, when I’m writing Gemma T. Leslie’s characters, sometimes, in some ways, I am better than her. I know how crazy that sounds—but I also know that it’s true. I’m not a god. I could never create the World of Mages; but I’m really, really good at manipulating that world. I can do more with her characters than I could ever do with my own. My characters are just … sketches compared to hers.”
“But you can’t do anything with fanfiction. It’s stillborn.”
“I can let people read it. Lots of people do read it.”
“You can’t make a living that way. You can’t make a career.”
“How many people make a career out of writing anyway?” Cath snapped. She felt like everything inside her was snapping. Her nerves. Her temper. Her esophagus. “I’ll write because I love it, the way other people knit or … or scrapbook. And I’ll find some other way to make money.”
Professor Piper leaned back again and folded her arms. “I’m not going to talk to you any more about the fanfiction.”
“Good.”
“But I’m not done talking to you.”
Cath took another deep breath.
“I’m afraid,” Professor Piper said, “afraid that you’re never going to discover what you’re truly capable of. That you won’t get to see—that I won’t get to see—any of the wonder that’s inside of you. You’re right, nothing you turned in last semester compared to Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir. But there was so much potential. Your characters quiver, Cath, like they’re trying to evolve right off the page.”
Cath rolled her eyes and wiped her nose on her shoulder.
“Can I ask you something?” the professor asked.
“I’m pretty sure you will anyway.”
The older woman smiled. “Did you help Nick Manter on his final project?”
Cath looked up at the corner of the ceiling and quickly licked her bottom lip. She felt a new wave of tears rushing through her head. Damn. She’d had a solid month now of no crying.
She nodded.
“I thought so,” the professor said gently. “I could hear you. In some of the best parts.”
Cath held every muscle still.
“Nick’s my teaching assistant, he was just here, actually, and he’s in my Advanced Fiction-Writing class. His style has … shifted quite a bit.”
Cath looked at the door.
“Cath,” the professor pressed.
“Yes?” Cath still couldn’t look at her.
“What if I made you a deal?”
Cath waited.
“I haven’t turned in your grade yet; I was hoping you’d come see me. And I don’t have to turn it in—I could give you the rest of this semester to finish your short story. You were headed toward a solid A in my class, maybe even an A-plus.”
Cath thought about her grade point average. And her scholarship. And the fact that she was going to have to get perfect grades this semester if she wanted to keep it. She didn’t have any room for error. “You could do that?”
“I can do whatever I want with my students’ grades. I’m the god of this small thing.”
Cath felt her fingernails in her palms. “Can I think about it?”
“Sure.” Professor Piper’s tone was air-light. “If you decide to do this, I’d like you to meet with me regularly, throughout the semester, just to talk about your progress. It will be like independent study.”
“Okay. I’ll think about it. I’ll, um—thank you.”
Cath picked up her bag and stood up. She was immediately standing too close to the professor, so she looked down and moved quickly toward the door. She didn’t look up again until she was back in her dormitory, stepping out of the elevator.
* * *
“This is Art.”
“That’s how you answer the phone?”
“Hey, Cath.”
“No hello?”
“I don’t like hello. It makes me sound like I have dementia, like I’ve never heard a phone ring before and I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. Hello?”
“How are you feeling, Dad?”
“Good.”
“How good?”
“I’m leaving work every day at five. I’m eating dinner with Grandma. Just this morning, Kelly told me that I seemed ‘impressively grounded.’”
“That is impressive.”
“He’d just told me that we couldn’t use Frankenstein in our Frankenbeans pitch, because nobody cares about Frankenstein anymore. Kids want zombies.”
“But they’re not called Zombiebeans.”
“They will be if fucking Kelly has his way. We’re pitching ‘Zombeanie Weenies.’”
“Wow, how did you stay grounded through all that?”
“I was fantasizing about eating his brain.”
“I’m still impressed, Dad. Hey—I think I’m gonna come home next weekend.”
“If you want … I don’t want you to worry about me, Cath. I do better when I know you’re happy.”
“Well, I’m happy when I’m not worried about you. We have a symbiotic relationship.”
“Speaking of … how’s your sister?”
* * *
Her dad was wrong about worrying. Cath liked to worry. It made her feel proactive, even when she was totally helpless.
Like with Levi.
Cath couldn’t control whether she saw Levi on campus. But she could worry about it, and as long as she was worrying about it, it probably wasn’t going to happen. Like some sort of anxiety vaccine. Like watching a pot to make sure it never boiled.
She wore comforting grooves in her head, worrying about seeing Levi, then telling herself all the reasons it wasn’t going to happen:
First, because Reagan had promised to keep him away.
And second, because Levi didn’t have any business on City Campus. Cath told herself that Levi spent all his time either studying buffalo on East Campus, or working at Starbucks, or making out in his kitchen with pretty girls. There was no reason for their paths ever to cross.
Still … she froze every time she saw blond hair and a green Carhartt jacket—or every time she wished she did.
She froze now.
Because there he was, right where he wasn’t supposed to be, sitting outside her door. Proof positive that she hadn’t been worrying enough.
Levi saw Cath, too, and sprang to his feet. He wasn’t smiling. (Thank God. She wasn’t up for any of his smiles.)
Cath stepped warily forward. “Reagan’s in class,” she said when she was still a few doors away.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Cath shook her head. It could have meant “no” or it could have meant “I don’t understand”—both were true. She stopped walking. Her stomach hurt so bad, she wanted to bend over.
“I just need to tell you something,” Levi said quickly.
“I really don’t want you to come in,” she said.
“That’s fine. I can tell you out here.”
Cath crossed her arms over her stomach and nodded.
Levi nodded back. He pushed his hands into his coat pockets.
“I was wrong,” he said.
She nodded. Because duh. And because she didn’t know what he wanted from her.
He pushed his hands deeper into his coat. “Cath,” he said earnestly, “it wasn’t just a kiss.”
“Okay.” Cath looked past him to her door. She took a step closer then, toward the door, holding her key up like they were done here.
Levi stepped out of her way. Confused, but still polite.
Cath put her key in the door, then held on to the handle, hanging her head forward. She could hear him breathing and fidgeting behind her. Levi.
“Which one?” she asked.
“What?”
“Which kiss?” Her voice was weak and thin. Wet paper.
“The first one,” Levi said after a few seconds.