Simon is crying, too, but he doesn’t wipe his tears. Just licks away the ones that hit his lips.
“I didn’t try,” he says, “because I thought it would be worse if I tried. I told myself to enjoy it— you—while I could. But that didn’t work. It felt like eighth year again, waiting for the Humdrum to attack. The waiting … I’m not good at waiting.”
I rub my nose against my sleeve. I nod. I know.
“I just wanted to, like, make it happen, ” he says. “To like, charge into it and get it over with. Whenever we were together, I just wanted to get it all over with.”
I laugh again. The hits keep coming.
Simon shoves his hand up into the front of his hair and pulls. “Stop, ” he says. “I know how that sounds. That’s not how I mean it!”
“No.” I shake my head. “I know. I know how you mean it. It still hurts.”
He looks in my eyes. He’s hardly looked away. “Baz”—his voice is small —“do you think it would have been different if I’d tried?”
SIMON
He doesn’t answer me. I shouldn’t have come here. Nothing I’ve said changes anything, I was a berk to think it would— But I haven’t been able to get it out of my head, what he said. That he was the first thing I ever gave up on. He’s right. I didn’t give up on Agatha—I waited until she gave up on me. I fought whatever the Humdrum threw at me.
I did whatever the Mage asked of me. I gave myself wings because I couldn’t stop fighting.
Why haven’t I ever fought for Baz?
What would happen if I did?
Baz takes a step back, into the living room. His hand is on the door. And he’s looking at me the way he did in my flat last night, like I’ve got a knife in his heart, and I’m holding it there.
Then his head falls forward a bit, and he tilts it away from me. “Come on,” he says softly. “Come in.”
BAZ
Snow doesn’t move.
I back out of his way. “Come on. We don’t have to do this in the hall.”
He steps over the threshold and seems to wait for me to change my mind. I close the door behind him, so he has to come all the way in. （I still might change my mind, I don’t know.） Then I sit at one end of the sofa and wave my hand at the other end.
He hesitates some more, still standing with his feet apart and his shoulders back. Battle mode.
When I clear my throat, he finally moves—taking the spot on the far end of the sofa and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. （He’s moving stiffly. I wonder if he’s sore. I wonder if Dr. Wellbelove took his tail as well.） He scrubs at the caramel-coloured curls at the top of his head. They already look thoroughly scrubbed.
“I could make tea,” I say.
“No,” he says. “Just”—he makes a fist in his hair—“say it.”
“Say what?”
“That it wouldn’t have mattered. That it doesn’t matter.”
I turn more fully towards him. My voice is getting haughty again, I can’t help it. “The question on the table is whether it would have mattered, to our relationship, if you had tried?”
He looks over at me, infernal chin raised. “Yeah.”
“Of fucking course it would have mattered!” I say. “What kind of question is that?”
He’s nodding, too quickly, looking at my aunt’s rug. “Right. Right. Of course.” He scrapes his fingers up the back of his hair to the top of his head.
“Right.”
I want to grab his wrists. I want to shake him. （I want to cast spells over his shoulders and make every pain in his body go away.） “I was trying,” I say. “Every minute.”
Simon nods. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“All right. Sorry. I mean. Just—”
Use your words, Snow.
He turns on the sofa, pulling one leg up, to face me. His fists have dropped to his thighs. “How?”
“How what?”
He looks in my eyes. He looks like a dog trapped in a snare. Like he’s begging me to set him free from something. “How would it have been different if I’d tried?”
I huff out a breath. “I can’t answer that. How would I know that?”
“Baz…”
“What do you want from me, Snow?”
He’s breathing through his teeth. “I just—”
“You just.”
“I mean—”
“You mean.” I wonder if I sound cruel. I wonder if I mean to be.