Cath laughed.
“I’m serious,” Wren said. “They’ve been through so much together—not just in your story, but in canon and in all the hundreds of fics we’ve read about them.… Think of your readers. Think about how good it’ll feel to leave us with a little hope.”
“But I don’t want it to be cheesy.”
“Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.”
Cath studied Wren’s face. It was like looking at a lightly warped mirror. Through a glass, darkly. “Are you in love?”
Wren blushed and looked down at the laptop. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Baz and Simon.”
“I’m making it about you,” Cath said. “Are you in love?”
Wren pulled the computer fully onto her lap and started scrolling back up to the top of Cath’s outline. “Yes,” she said coolly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I didn’t say there was.” Cath grinned. “You’re in love.”
“Oh shut up, so are you.”
Cath started to argue.
“Give it up,” Wren said, pointing at Cath’s face. “I’ve seen you look at Levi. What’s that thing you wrote about Simon once, that his eyes followed Baz ‘like he was the brightest thing in the room, like he cast everything else into shadow’? That’s you. You can’t look away from him.”
“I…” Cath was pretty sure that Levi actually was the brightest thing in the room, in any room. Bright and warm and crackling—he was a human campfire. “I really like him.”
“Have you slept with him?”
“No.” Cath knew what Wren meant, knew she didn’t want to hear about Levi’s grandmother’s quilt and the way they’d slept curled up in each other, like stackable chairs. “Have you? With Jandro?”
Wren laughed. “Duh. So … are you going to?”
Cath rubbed her right wrist. Her typing wrist. “Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
Wren grabbed Cath’s arm, then shoved her away. “Oh. My. God. Will you tell me about it when you do?”
“Duh.” Cath pushed her back. “Anyway, I don’t feel like it has to happen now, like immediately, but he makes me want to. And he makes me think … that it’ll be okay. That I don’t have to worry about screwing it up.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to screw it up.”
“Well, I’m not going to nail it either, am I? Remember how long it took me to learn how to drive? And I still can’t backwards skate—”
“Think of how many beautiful first times you’ve written for Simon and Baz.”
“That’s totally different,” Cath said dismissively. “They don’t even have the same parts.”
Wren started giggling and then couldn’t stop. She hugged the laptop to her chest. “You’re more comfortable with their parts than—” She couldn’t stop giggling.”—your own and … and you’ve never even seen their parts.…”
“I try to write around it.” Cath was giggling, too.
“I know,” Wren said, “and you do a really good job.”
When they were done laughing, Wren punched Cath’s arm. “You’ll be fine. The first few times you do it, you only get graded on attendance.”
“Great,” Cath scoffed. “That makes me feel better.” She shook her head. “This whole conversation is premature.”
Wren smiled, but she looked serious, like she wanted something. “Hey, Cath—”
“What now?”
“Don’t kill Baz. I’ll even beta for you, if you want. Just … don’t kill him. Baz deserves a happy ending more than anybody.”
“Shhh.”
“I just—”
“Hush.”
“I worry—”
“Don’t.”
“But—”
“Simon.”
“Baz?”
“Here.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted September 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
THIRTY-THREE
“Have you started?” Professor Piper asked.
“Yes,” Cath lied.
She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t say no—Professor Piper was liable to abort this whole endeavor. Cath still hadn’t shown her any progress …
Because Cath hadn’t made any progress.
There was just too much else going on. Wren. Levi. Baz. Simon. Her dad … Actually, Cath wasn’t as worried about her dad as she used to be. That was one nice thing about Wren going home every weekend. On the weekends that Wren was stuck at home, she was so bored, she practically live-blogged the whole thing for Cath, sending constant texts and emails. “dad is making me watch a lewis & clark documentary. it’s like he’s DRIVING me to drink.” Wren didn’t even know about Cath’s Fiction-Writing assignment.
Cath had considered telling Professor Piper—again—that she wasn’t cut out for fiction-writing, that she was practically fiction-phobic. But once Cath was here, looking up at Professor Piper’s hopeful, confident face …