“Cows good,” he said. “Bison better.” Then he gave her a lazy, lopsided grin. “This is all really important, you know—that’s why I’m telling you.”
“Vital,” she said. “Ecosystems. Water tables. Shrews going extinct.”
“Call me when you’re done, Little Red.”
No, Cath thought, I don’t even know your number.
Levi was already walking away. “I’ll be in your room,” he said over his shoulder. “Call me there.”
*
The library had six levels aboveground and two levels below.
The sublevels, where the stacks were, were shaped strangely and accessible only from certain staircases; it almost felt like the stacks were tucked under other buildings around campus.
Nick worked in the north stacks in a long white room—it was practically a missile silo with bookshelves. There was a constant hum no matter where you were standing, and even though Cath couldn’t see any vents, parts of the room had their own wind. At the table where they were sitting, Nick had to set a pen on his open notebook to keep the pages from riffling.
Nick wrote in longhand.
Cath was trying to convince him that they’d be better off taking turns on her laptop.
“But then we won’t see ourselves switching,” he said. “We won’t see the two different hands at work.”
“I can’t think on paper,” she said.
“Perfect,” Nick said. “This exercise is about stepping outside of yourself.”
“Okay,” she sighed. There was no use arguing anymore—he’d already pushed her computer away.
“Okay.” Nick picked up his pen and pulled the cap off with his teeth. “I’ll start.”
“Wait,” Cath said. “Let’s talk about what kind of story we’re writing.”
“You’ll see.”
“That’s not fair.” She leaned forward, looking at the blank sheet of paper. “I don’t want to write about, like, dead bodies or … naked bodies.”
“So what I’m hearing is, no bodies.”
Nick wrote in a scrawling half cursive. He was left-handed, so he smeared blue ink across the paper as he went. You need a felt tip, Cath thought, trying to read his handwriting upside down from across the table. When he handed her the notebook, she could hardly read it, even right side up.
“What’s this word?” she asked, pointing.
“Retinas.”
She’s standing in a parking lot. And she’s standing under a streetlight. And her hair’s so blond, it’s flashing at you. It’s burning out your retinas one fucking cone at a time. She leans forward and grabs your T-shirt. And she’s standing on tiptoe now. She’s reaching for you. She smells like black tea and American Spirits—and when her mouth hits your ear, you wonder if she remembers your name.
“So…,” Cath said, “we’re doing this in present tense?”
“Second person,” Nick confirmed.
Cath frowned at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You don’t like love stories?”
Cath could feel herself blushing and tried to stop. Stay cool, Little Red. She hunched over her bag to look for a pen.
It was hard for her to write without typing—and hard to write with Nick watching her like he’d just handed her a hot potato.
“Please don’t tell Mom,” she giggles.
“Which part should I leave out?” you ask her. “The hair? Or the stupid hipster cigarettes?”
She pulls meanly at your T-shirt, and you shove her back like she’s twelve. And she practically is—she’s so young. And you’re so tired. And what is Dave going to think if you walk out on your first date to take care of your stupid, stupidly blond, little sister.
“You suck, Nick,” she says. And she’s reeling. She’s swaying again under the streetlight.
Cath turned the notebook around and pushed it back at Nick.
He poked his tongue in his cheek and smiled.
“So our narrator is gay…,” he said. “And he’s named after me.…”
“I love love stories,” Cath said.
Nick nodded his head a few more times.
And then they both started laughing.
*
It was almost like writing with Wren—back when she and Wren would sit in front of the computer, pulling the keyboard back and forth and reading out loud as the other person typed.
Cath always wrote most of the dialogue. Wren was better at plot and mood. Sometimes Cath would write all the conversations, and Wren would write behind her, deciding where Baz and Simon were and where they were going. Once Cath had written what she thought was a love scene, and Wren had turned it into a sword fight.
Even after they’d stopped writing together, Cath would still follow Wren around the house, begging for help, whenever she couldn’t get Simon and Baz to do anything but talk.
Nick wasn’t Wren.
He was bossier and more of a showboat. And also, obviously, a boy. Up close, his eyes were bluer, and his eyebrows were practically sentient. He licked his lips when he wrote, tapping his tongue on his front teeth.