“Yeah.” For a second, she thought about telling him the truth. About Simon and Baz. About a chapter a day and thirty-five thousand hits … “I write laps,” she said. “Every morning, just to stay loose. Have you started your scene?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. He was drawing swirls in the margin of the notebook. “Three times … I’m just not sure about this assignment.”
Professor Piper wanted them to write a scene with an untrustworthy narrator. Cath had written hers from Baz’s point of view. It was an idea she’d had for a while; she might turn it into a longer fic someday, someday when she was done with Carry On.
“This should be cake for you,” Cath said, elbowing Nick back, more gently. “All your narrators are unreliable.”
Nick had let her read some of his short stories and the first few chapters of a novel he’d started freshman year. All his stuff was dark—dirtier and grimier than anything Cath would ever write—but still funny. And bracing, somehow. Nick was good.
She liked to sit next to him and watch all that good come out of his hand. Watch the jokes spill out in real time. Watch the words click together.
“Exactly…,” he said, licking his top lip. He practically didn’t have a top lip, just a smear of red. “That’s why I feel like I need to do something special this time around.”
“Come on.” Cath pulled at the notebook. “My turn.”
It was always hard to get Nick to give up the notebook.
The first night they’d worked on their extracurricular story, Nick had shown up with three pages already written.
“That’s cheating,” Cath had said.
“It’s just the first push,” he said, “to get us rolling.”
She’d taken the notebook and written over and between his words, squeezing new dialogue into the margins and crossing out lines that went too far. (Sometimes Nick stretched his style too thin.) Then she’d added a few paragraphs of her own.
It had gotten easier to write on paper, though Cath still missed her keyboard.…
“I need to cut and paste,” she’d say to Nick.
“Next time,” he’d say, “bring scissors.”
They sat next to each other now when they worked—the better to read, and write, during the other’s turns. Cath had learned to sit on Nick’s right side, so their writing hands didn’t bump unintentionally.
It made Cath feel like part of a two-headed monster. A three-legged race.
It made her feel at home.
She wasn’t sure what Nick was feeling.…
They talked, a lot, before class and during class—Nick would crank around in his chair completely. Sometimes after they got out, Cath would pretend she had to walk past Bessey Hall, where Nick’s next class was, even though there was nothing past Bessey Hall but the football stadium. Thank God Nick never asked where she was going.
He never asked that when they left the library at night either. They always stopped for a minute on the steps while Nick put his backpack on and wound his blue paisley scarf around his neck. Then he’d say, “See you in class,” and be gone.
If Cath knew Levi was in her room, she’d call and wait for him to come get her. But most nights she pressed 911 on her phone, then ran back to the dorm with her finger over the Call button.
*
Wren was on some weird diet.
“It’s the Skinny Bitch diet,” Courtney said.
“It’s vegan,” Wren clarified.
It was Fajita Friday at Selleck. Wren had a plate full of grilled green peppers and onions, and two oranges. She’d been eating like this for a few weeks.
Cath looked her over carefully. Wren was wearing clothes that Cath had worn, too, so Cath knew how they usually fit. Wren’s sweater was still tight over her chest; her jeans still rode too low over her ass. She and Wren were both bottom heavy—Cath liked to wear shirts and sweaters that she could pull down over her hips; Wren liked to wear things she could pull in at the waist.
“You look the same,” Cath said. “You look like me, and look what I’m eating.” Cath was eating beef fajitas with sour cream and three kinds of cheese.
“Yeah, but you’re not drinking.”
“Is that part of the Skinny Bitch diet?”
“We’re skinny bitches on weekdays,” Courtney said, “and drunk bitches on the weekend.”
Cath tried to catch Wren’s eye. “I don’t think I’d want to aspire to be any kind of bitch.”
“Too late,” Wren said blandly, then changed the subject. “Did you hang out with Nick last night?”
“Yeah,” Cath said, then smiled. She tried to turn it into a smirk, but that just made her nose twitch like a rabbit’s.
“Oh! Cath!” Courtney said. “We were thinking we could just happen to come to the library some night, so we can see him. Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?”
“No. No way. No, no, no.” Cath looked at Wren. “No, okay? Say okay.”
“Okay.” Wren stabbed her fork full of onions. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Cath said. “But if you came, it would seem like a big deal. You would destroy my ‘Hey, whatever, you want to hang out? That’s cool’ strategy.”