“You’ve seen Agatha,” he says. “Inanimate objects are attracted to her.
Trees bend her way.”
“Yes, but did you—” I ask. I try to ask. “I mean, you’ve—”
Simon double-steps to catch up with me. “I’ve what?”
“You and Agatha. You, um…”
“Dated? Yes. Though she never took me midnight rat hunting. She wouldn’t even go to the cinema with me. She said—”
I interrupt him. “You had sex, right?”
Simon stops. “Jesus, Baz, what a question.”
He’s right. I can’t believe I asked it. “It’s a normal question,” I say.
“Is it?” He sounds genuinely surprised.
“Yes. People talk about previous partners.”
“You’ve never mentioned any.”
I lash out: “I don’t have any, you halfwit! Don’t you think you’d have uncovered them when you stalked me for three years?”
“I don’t know how you spent your summers!”
“Reading!” I say. “Violin! Playing Mario Kart with my sister!”
We’ve both stopped walking. Simon wrinkles his nose. “Were you never actually plotting against me?”
“I plotted a bit. I was over it by sixth year.” I sound flustered. Because I am. And it’s all my own fault. Give me a little bit of honest communication, and I open the floodgates. Next I’ll be asking him if he wants children.
“Look, I’m just going to drink these now.”
Simon seems confused. “Right,” he says. “What do you need me to do?”
“Turn away.”
He does.
I would like to pinch the bridge of my nose and sulk. Instead I get out my knife.
“Do you actually put your fangs in them?” Simon asks, facing a brick wall.
His wings are bunched up under his jumper.
“Not if can help it. I slit their throats.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“You’re a pervert.”
“I just appreciate a job well done.”
I untangle one of the rats. “Does Wellbelove?”
“Hey—” Simon turns around. He looks angry. Finally.
I decide to be angry, too. “I knew you couldn’t keep your word!”
“What?”
“You promised you wouldn’t watch.”
“I—” Simon’s face is red. He whips around, facing the wall again.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” I say tightly. “I’m sorry. I won’t mention Agatha again.”
“It’s all right,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, unexpectedly subdued.
“Don’t turn around,” I say. “I really am going to do this. I can’t let them get cold.”
I slit the first rat’s throat and hold it to my mouth. This truly is disgusting.
What sort of diseases would I have if I were a person?
I drop the empty rat on the street and open the next one.
Simon kicks the wall. “We had sex,” he says. “We dated a really long time.”
I startle, splashing blood on my white shirt. I throw the rat to the ground.
“That’s good,” I say, strained.
Simon sounds frustrated. “Is it?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“It was fine, it was sex. Are you done?”
“No. I have three more.”
“Right,” he says, kicking the wall again.
I start drinking another rat.
“I don’t know if I was attracted to her…” Simon says.
“You had sex, ” I gurgle.
“Yeah, but what does that mean?”
I make a disbelieving noise in my throat. I’m trying to swallow.
“It was just going through the motions,” he says.
I drop the rat; it isn’t even half empty. “But surely that means you were attracted to her.”
“I thought I was!” He’s got a hand fisted in the hair at his crown. “I thought I was going to marry her. But everything with Agatha was just going through the motions, wasn’t it? I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to sort out my feelings—or what did my therapist used to call it, ‘process.’” He kicks the wall hard. “There was no processing with Agatha. That’s what I liked about her! She felt like the opposite of dealing with my shit. I never looked at Agatha and thought, How will I ever be big enough to hold my feelings for this person? I felt plenty big enough! My feelings felt extremely manageable.