SEVEN
When Cath saw Abel’s name pop up on her phone, she thought at first that it was a text, even though the phone was obviously ringing.
Abel never called her.
They e-mailed. They texted—they’d texted just last night. But they never actually talked unless it was in person.
“Hello?” she answered. She was waiting in her spot outside Andrews Hall, the English building. It was really too cold to be standing outside, but sometimes Nick would show up here before class, and they’d look over each other’s assignments or talk about the story they were writing together. (It was turning into another love story; Nick was the one turning it that way.) “Cath?” Abel’s voice was gravelly and familiar.
“Hey,” she said, feeling warm suddenly. Surprisingly. Maybe she had missed Abel. She was still avoiding Wren—Cath hadn’t even eaten lunch at Selleck since Wren drunked at her. Maybe Cath just missed home. “Hey.
How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just told you last night that I was fine.”
“Well. Yeah. I know. But it’s different on the phone.”
He sounded startled. “That’s exactly what Katie said.”
“Who’s Katie?”
“Katie is the reason I’m calling you. She’s, like, every reason I’m calling
you.”
Cath cocked her head. “What?”
“Cath, I’ve met someone,” he said. Just like that. Like he was in some telenovela.
“Katie?”
“Yeah. And it’s, um, she made me realize that … well, that what you and I
have isn’t real.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean our relationship, Cath—it isn’t real.” Why did he keep saying her name like that?
“Of course it’s real. Abel. We’ve been together for three years.”
“Well, sort of.”
“Not sort of,” Cath said.
“Well … at any rate”—his voice sounded firm—“I met somebody else.”
Cath turned to face the building and rested the top of her head against the bricks. “Katie.”
“And it’s more real,” he said. “We’re just … right together, you know? We can talk about everything—she’s a coder, too. And she got a thirty-four on
the ACT.”
Cath got a thirty-two.
“You’re breaking up with me because I’m not smart enough?”
“This isn’t a breakup. It’s not like we’re really together.”
“Is that what you told Katie?”
“I told her we’d drifted apart.”
“Yes,” Cath spat out. “Because the only time you ever call is to break up with me.” She kicked the bricks, then instantly regretted it.
“Right. Like you call me all the time.”
“I would if you wanted me to,” she said.
“Would you?”
Cath kicked the wall again. “Maybe.”
Abel sighed. He sounded more exasperated than anything else—more than sad or sorry. “We haven’t really been together since junior year.”
Cath wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t think of anything convincing. But you took me to the military ball, she thought. But you taught me how to drive. “But your grandma always makes tres leches cake for my
birthday.”
“She makes it anyway for the bakery.”
“Fine.” Cath turned and leaned back against the wall. She wished she could cry—just so that he’d have to deal with it. “So noted. Everything is noted. We’re not broken up, but we’re over.”
“We’re not over,” Abel said. “We can still be friends. I’ll still read your fic —Katie reads it, too. I mean, she always has. Isn’t that a coincidence?”
Cath shook her head, speechless.
Then Nick rounded the corner of the building and acknowledged her the way he always did, looking her in the eye and quickly jerking up his head.
Cath lifted her chin in answer.
“Yeah,” she said into the phone. “Coincidence.”
Nick had set his backpack on a stone planter, and he was digging through his books and notebooks. His jacket was unbuttoned, and when he leaned over like that, she could kind of see down his shirt. Sort of. A few inches of
pale skin and sparse black hair.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Oh,” Abel said. “Okay. Do you still want to hang out over Thanksgiving?”
“I’ve got to go,” she said, and pressed End.
Cath took a slow breath. She felt lightheaded and strained, like something too big was hatching inside her ribs. She pushed her shoulders back into the bricks and looked down at the top of Nick’s head.
He looked up at her and smiled crookedly, holding out a few sheets of paper. “Will you read this? I think maybe it sucks. Or maybe it’s awesome.
It’s probably awesome. Tell me it’s awesome, okay? Unless it sucks.”
* * *
Cath texted Wren just before Fiction-Writing started, hiding her phone
behind Nick’s broad shoulders.
“abel broke up with me.”
“oh god. sorry. want me to come over?”
“yeah. at 5?”
“yeah. you OK?”
“think so. end tables end.”
* * *
“Have you cried yet?”
They were sitting on Cath’s bed, eating the last of the protein bars.
“No,” Cath said, “I don’t think I’m going to.”
Wren bit her lip. Literally.
“Say it,” Cath said.
“I don’t feel like I have to. I never thought that not saying it would be this
satisfying.”
“Say it.”
“He wasn’t a real boyfriend! You never liked him like that!” Wren pushed Cath so hard, she fell over.
Cath laughed and sat back up, drawing her legs up into her arms. “I really thought I did, though.”
“How could you think that?” Wren was laughing, too.
Cath shrugged.
It was Thursday night, and Wren was already dressed to go out. She was wearing pale green eyeshadow that made her eyes look more green than blue, and her lips were a shiny red. Her short hair was parted on one side and swept glamorously across her forehead.
“Seriously,” Wren said, “you know what love feels like. I’ve read you describe it a thousand different ways.”
Cath pulled a face. “That’s different. That’s fantasy. That’s … ‘Simon reached out for Baz, and his name felt like a magic word on his lips.’”
“It’s not all fantasy…,” Wren said.
Cath thought of Levi’s eyes when Reagan teased him.
She thought of Nick tapping his short, even teeth with the tip of his tongue.
“I can’t believe Abel told me this girl’s ACT score,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with that? Offer her a scholarship?”
“Are you sad at all?” Wren reached under the bed and shook an empty protein bar box.
“Yeah … I’m embarrassed that I held on for so long. That I really thought we could go on like we were. And I’m sad because it feels like now high
school is finally over. Like Abel was this piece of a really happy time that I thought I could take with me.”
“Do you remember when he bought you a laptop power cord for your birthday?”
“That was a good gift,” Cath said, pointing at her sister.
Wren grabbed her finger and pulled it down. “Did you think of him every time you booted up?”
“I needed a new power cord.” Cath leaned back against the wall again, facing Wren. “He kissed me that day, on our seventeenth birthday, for the
first time. Or maybe I kissed him.”
“Was it charged with passion?”
Cath giggled. “No. But I remember thinking … that he made me feel safe.”
She rubbed her head back against the painted cinder blocks. “I remember thinking that me and Abel would never be like Dad and Mom, that if Abel ever got tired of me, I’d survive it.”
Wren was still holding on to Cath’s hand. She squeezed it. Then she laid her head against the wall, mirroring Cath. Cath was crying now.
“Well, you did,” Wren said. “Survive it.”
Cath laughed and pushed her fingers up behind her glasses to wipe her eyes. Wren took hold of that hand, too. “You know my stand on this,” she said.
“Fire and rain,” Cath whispered. She felt Wren’s fingers circle her wrists.
“We’re unbreakable.”
Cath looked at Wren’s smooth brown hair and the glint of steel, the crown of gray, that circled the green in her eyes.
You are, she thought.
“Does this mean no more tres leches cake on our birthday?” Wren asked.
“There’s something else I want to tell you,” Cath said before she could think it through. “There’s, I mean, I think there’s … this guy.”
Wren raised her eyebrows. But before Cath could say anything more, they heard voices and a key in the door. Wren let go of Cath’s wrists, and the door swung open. Reagan barreled in and dropped her duffel bag on the floor. She rushed out again before Levi even made it into the room.
“Hey, Cath,” he said, already smiling, “are you—?” He looked at the bed and stopped.
“Levi,” Cath said, “this is my sister, Wren.”
Wren held out her hand.
Levi’s eyes were as wide as Cath’d ever seen them. He grinned at Wren and took her hand, shaking it. “Wren,” he said. “Such fascinating names in your family.”
“Our mom didn’t know she was having twins,” Wren said. “And she didn’t feel like coming up with another name.”
“Cather, Wren…” Levi looked like he’d just now discovered sliced bread.
“Catherine.”
Cath rolled her eyes. Wren just smiled. “Clever, right?”
“Cath,” Levi said, and tried to sit next to Wren on the bed, even though there wasn’t enough room. Wren laughed and scooted toward Cath. Cath scooted, too. Reluctantly. If you give Levi an inch … “I didn’t know you had a mother,” he said. “Or a sister. What else are you hiding?”
“Five cousins,” Wren said. “And a string of ill-fated hamsters, all named
Simon.”
Levi opened his smile up completely.
“Oh, put that away,” Cath said with distaste. “I don’t want you to get charm all over my sister—what if we can’t get it out?”
Reagan walked back through the open door and glanced over at Cath. She noticed Wren and shuddered. “Is this your twin?”
“You knew about the twin?” Levi asked.
“Wren, Reagan,” Cath said.
“Hello,” Reagan said, frowning.
“Don’t take any of this personally,” Cath said to Wren. “They’re both like this with everyone.”
“I have to go anyway.” Wren slid cheerfully off the bed. She was wearing a pink dress and brown tights, and brown ankle boots with heels and little green buttons up the side. They were Cath’s boots, but Cath was never brave enough to wear them.
“Nice meeting you, everybody,” Wren said, smiling at Reagan and Levi.
“See you at lunch tomorrow,” she said to Cath.
Reagan ignored her. Levi waved.
As soon as the door closed, Levi popped his eyes again. Bluely. “That’s your twin sister?”
“Identical,” Reagan said, like she had a mouth full of hair.
Cath nodded and sat down at her desk.
“Wow.” Levi scooted down the bed so he was sitting across from her.
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” Cath said, “but I think it’s offensive.”
“How can the fact that your identical twin sister is super hot be offensive to you?”
“Because,” Cath said, still too encouraged by Wren and, weirdly, by Abel, and maybe even by Nick to let this get to her right now. “It makes me feel like the Ugly One.”
“You’re not the ugly one.” Levi grinned. “You’re just the Clark Kent.”
Cath started checking her e-mail.
“Hey, Cath,” Levi said, kicking her chair. She could hear the teasing in his voice. “Will you warn me when you take off your glasses?”
Agatha Wellbelove was the loveliest witch at Watford. Everyone knew it—every boy, every girl, all the teachers … The bats in the belfry, the snakes in the cellars … Agatha herself knew it. Which you might think would detract from her charm and her beauty. But Agatha, at fourteen, never used this knowledge to harm or hold over others.
She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer.
—from chapter 15, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 Gemma T. Leslie
