I raise an eyebrow at him. “This is you trying, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” There’s a lightness in his expression that I haven’t seen for so long. I want more of it. Even if I can’t trust it.
“If we do this”—my chin hits his palm with every syllable—“I want the full Simon Snow treatment.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want the locked jaw. The squinty eyes. The shoulders.”
He wrinkles his forehead. “The shoulders?”
“I want you to slay a dragon before you give up on me, do you understand?”
“I thought you didn’t like it when I slew dragons…”
I press my hands into Snow’s chest and clutch them in his jumper. “I want you to try everything before you give up on us again.”
He rubs his thumb below my lip. “I won’t give up, Baz. Unless you tell me to. Unless you’re, like, really clear that you want me to. And even then, I won’t give up. I’ll just persist from a distance.”
“You can’t put me through this again, Simon. I don’t want to spend my whole life, losing you. Watching you slip away. I never want to come home to another note.”
“You won’t.” He shakes his head. “I promise. I won’t.”
I wish I could believe him—what would it take for me to believe him?
And what do I need in the meantime, what am I willing to withstand? （How would someone with pride answer these questions…） I close my eyes. My voice is low. “I’m not saying you have to stay with me forever. But you can’t just give up without a fight.”
“I’m so sorry, Baz.”
I push and pull on his jumper. His forehead thunks against mine. I nod.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?” he whispers back.
“Okay, Snow. We’ll try. We’ll try this with you trying.”
“Yeah?”
I nod against him. “Yeah.”
“Okay. ” He exhales roughly against my lips, then takes another shuddering breath. “Christ, I’m so scared.”
“Already? Don’t we get a day of clinging to each other before things fall apart again?”
Simon laughs over my mouth. He’s been drinking orange juice. He needs a shower. He smells like a locker room and a back alley and something bleachy.
“I don’t—” he says, looking down. “I—”
His hair is in my eyes. I brush my nose against his.
He starts again: “I don’t know how not to be afraid that you’ll leave me.”
I scoff. “I won’t leave you. When have I ever left?”
“You can’t know how it will be,” he says, head hanging. “Over time. You might not want me once you don’t have to worry about me leaving.”
Who even knew Simon was capable of such mental gymnastics? “You have a real genius for catastrophizing, Snow.”
“Is that the same as having a genius for catastrophes? Because, obviously.
How many times has Penny’s mum said so?”
I pull back so he can see me. “I’m not going to get tired of you.”
“You can’t know that,” he says, bumping my nose with his forehead.
“I can. Look at me.” I catch his chin. I wait for his blue eyes to settle on mine. “This thing between us didn’t start with us dating. It didn’t even start when you kissed me. You’re in me so deep, I wouldn’t know how to dig you out. I may get fed up with you … But, Simon, I’ll never get tired of you.”
His hand is still on my face. He traces his thumb under my eye. “Penelope always says that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.”
“Penelope didn’t say that. Everyone says that.”
“I literally destroy literally everything I touch.”
“That’s an overstatement.”
“I fuck it up, Baz, with everyone. Look what I did to Agatha. And the Mage. Merlin, who knows what happened with my own parents…”
“There is so much to unpack in that sentence.”
He laughs, but he looks miserable again.
I tug at his jumper. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Snow. You’re not allowed to feel sorry for yourself as long as you get to have me.”
I mean it. I’m thinking about kissing him, to drive the point home, but I’m gun-shy and unsure of my permissions. Maybe we have to build back up to kissing. Maybe Snow needs a high-speed chase to get him in the mood.