Fangirl

Cath and Levi wake up when Reagan enters the room the next morning. Levi realizes he is two hours late for work and rushes out, saying they fell asleep reading. Beginning to cry, Cath apologizes to Reagan, but Reagan says Levi has not been her boyfriend since high school. She’s just shocked and used to being Levi’s favorite person. Reagan knew Levi liked Cath because of how often he was at their dormitory but is surprised Cath likes him back.

At breakfast, Reagan asks her what’s next for her and Levi. Cath does not know what dating Levi would look like, due to their differences. Reagan assures her that Levi likes her and is one of the best guys she has ever met.

Levi invites Cath to a party at his house on Thursday, but she is too nervous to text him back. Reagan asks her if she wants to go to the party, and Cath declines; though she likes Levi, she does not like parties. Alone that evening, she thinks about Levi. By 10:00 pm, when Reagan gets home, Cath has decided to go to Levi’s party after all. When they find Levi, he is kissing another girl. Cath and Reagan leave immediately.

To avoid seeing Levi, Cath starts hanging out in the library stacks. She runs into him once in her room. He tries to talk to her about his good score on The Outsiders quiz and whether the book has any fanfiction. Cath leaves to write with Nick and lies by saying that Nick will walk her home.

When they write together, Nick arrives with pages of their story already in his notebook. Today, he arrives with five more pages. Nick calls it an “anti-love story,” but Cath, who writes many love stories, thinks Nick’s story “read[s] like somebody’s very first fanfic—Mary Sue to the tenth power” (198), with a main character who is obviously supposed to be Nick. She fixes his most cliched details and dialogue. 

Nick tells her it is nice writing with her, and Cath thinks he might be flirting. While she corrects and adds to his scenes, there is no time to add her own. She tentatively asks if Nick wants to walk past her dorm on the way to his car, but he declines.

With a week to go until finals, the library is busier than usual. She is wearing a shirt one of her fanfiction fans sells on Etsy about her fic, Carry On. A girl compliments the shirt and says that “Magicath” is her favorite author. Cath talks with her as if she is a fan of Carry On, not the author.

Cath plays phone tag with her father. He responds to her calls at all hours of the night, which worries her.

Nick tells Cath he is considering turning in “his” story for the final project. Cath protests that it is their story. Nick claims that it was his idea and that he is the one who works on it outside of the library, while Cath is “a genius editor” with “tons of potential” (209). Nick is demeaning when he asks her if she really thought it was her story. She leaves quickly.

As Cath tries to work on her own story, she realizes Nick was tricking her. She falls asleep and wakes up in the dark to her phone ringing. Kelly, her father’s creative director, tells her that her father is spending two days in a psychiatric hospital “to get his balance back” after “a rough couple of months” (213-14). Cath calls Wren to tell her she is going to see their father in the hospital. Wren thinks they should finish their finals first.

She tries to call Reagan for a ride to Omaha, but she does not answer. She calls Levi, who leaves his work shift early to help her.

Cath does not give Levi details except that her father is in the hospital. When they arrive at St. Richard’s Center for Mental and Behavioral Health, Levi insists on walking her in. The front desk tells her that her father is not cleared for visitors. Cath decides to wait, and Levi says he will wait with her. 

Levi apologizes for making her uncomfortable by kissing her. She tells him she is upset because she saw him kissing someone else at his party. He apologizes and says it was just a kiss. Cath gets called into the hospital; before leaving, she tells Levi kisses aren’t “just” anything with her and that she would like him to go home.

She drives her father’s car to their family home. There are pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, dirty clothes, and unwashed dishes everywhere, and a poem is written in toothpaste on the bathroom mirror. If they had been home, Wren and Cath would have recognized the signs and tried to get him help, but he always ended up quitting the medicines he was prescribed because he thought they made him less creative.

The next day, Wren texts Cath to ask if she will be back on campus for their psychology final the next day. Cath says she is skipping the final. Their father was admitted to St. Richard’s three times before, most recently when they had been in high school. Cath had started to worry that her anxiety meant she was “crazy like him” (226).

A section from a Simon Snow novel describes Simon finally coming face-to-face with the Insidious Humdrum, which he recognizes as a childhood version of himself.

Wren and their father both come home on Saturday. When their high school friends invite them out, Cath usually stays home to watch their father. Wren does not always come back from those hangouts; she says she does not want Cath to see her drunk because it makes her uncomfortable.

Their father goes back to work after a week and wakes up early to jog. Cath recognizes this as a sign that he has stopped taking his medicine. Wren tells her she is spending Christmas Eve at their mother’s house. She says their mother feels terrible about the way she left them. Cath blames her anxiety on her mother’s abandonment and says her father and Wren’s behavior stems from the same cause. Wren thinks Cath and her father “choose” to fall apart and that they have power over their actions.

Since their father forgot to get a Christmas tree, he puts their presents next to a photo of them near their Christmas tree six years ago. After they unwrap their presents, there is one more present for Cath under the tree. It is an emerald pendant. When she notices Wren wearing the same one, she realizes it is from their mother and leaves the room.

Three days before spring semester, Cath tells her father she is not going back to school. She wants to move back home and go to a local college. He says he contacted their grandmother and is establishing a routine where they check in multiple times a week to make sure he is okay. Cath wants to look after her father, but she also thinks she “followed” Wren to a school where no one likes her. Her father says it sounds like she is giving up rather than making her own decisions.

They continue their conversation the next day. Cath’s father says he will not be able to live with himself if she quits school and loses her scholarship. Later, Reagan calls her. She apologizes for what they saw at Levi’s party and says she will see Cath the next day.