CHAPTER 2

Cath's hanging out in her dorm room trying to write, which isn't so easy when Reagan and Levi are chilling on Reagan's bed.

Needless to say, Carry On, Simon isn't exactly flowing, so Cath grabs a protein bar and goes for a stroll down the hall to get some personal space.

The hall's full of people, though, which makes her feel like even more of an alien.

She goes into the bathroom and eats her protein bar, crying, in the stall.

After calming herself down, she goes back to her room, where Reagan and Levi are leaving.

Cath considers calling Abel, but he's leaving for Missouri Tech the next morning, and his family is having a party, so she works on Carry On, Simon instead.

The next day Cath meets Wren and Courtney in Selleck Hall for lunch, which is her first actual meal that isn't a protein bar since she got to school two weeks ago.

Wren's dismissive when Cath starts talking about Simon Snow, but Courtney's interested.

Wren, obviously embarrassed, changes the subject to all the parties she and Courtney have been to; tonight they're going to one at Triangle House, an engineering fraternity.

Three weeks into college, and Cath's eating a protein bar during her break between her biology and fiction-writing classes.

She's thinking about how she doesn't really miss her boyfriend, Abel, even though they've texted a few times; she texts him a picture of a squirrel who's trying to eat her protein bar.

Flashback to high school: Wren teased Cath a lot about how she'd hardly even kissed Abel, even though they dated for three years.

Wren, on the other hand, had a boyfriend named Jesse. It was hot and steamy, but he made Wren cry all the time.

As Cath feeds the protein bar to the squirrel, a dude named Nick from her fiction-writing class walks up to her and asks what Cath wrote about for their assignment.

He also wants to know how a freshman got into a junior-level writing class. Cath says she asked.

That night, Reagan asks Cath if she has an eating disorder, since she eats nothing but protein bars.

Cath admits she's afraid of the dining hall, and Reagan forces her to put her shoes on and go to dinner.

...In the cafeteria, Reagan asks Cath what's up with the Simon Snow heads on her desk, and when Cath uses the words the fandom, Reagan is horrified Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω

...

Progress: Cath's letting Levi into their room when Reagan's not home instead of making him sit in the hall.

She's also going to dinner in the dining hall with Reagan, where they snark on everyone who walks by their table.

We learn that Levi is (1) a Starbucks employee, and (2) eating Cath's protein bars behind her back.

The problem with developing a social life is that Cath's falling behind on posting chapters of Carry On, Simon to Fanfixx.net.

This is an issue when your pieces get 35,000 hits a day and your fans are clamoring for more.

Cath's busy trying to wrap up all Gemma T. Leslie's loose ends, one of which is staging the final battle between Simon and his nemesis, the Insidious Humdrum.

She posts a note of apology to her fans and goes to meet her classmate Nick in the library. Professor Piper has assigned them to write a collaborative story with another person, and Cath and Nick are working together.

Levi walks Cath to the library since it's late, and talks to her about range management—specifically, buffalo.

Cath and Nick hand the paper back and forth, taking turns writing, and Cath gets a little fangirlish about Nick. Go, Cath, go.

So of course she names the narrator after Nick, and then she makes him gay.

They work on their story until late at night, and Cath calls the sleeping Reagan to say she's coming back to the room.

Levi comes to walk her home, because he's the nicest roommate's-ex-boyfriend in the whole world.

And by the way, he tells Cath, he loves the library; it's where he sleeps.

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