“But you want him to.”
She shrugs.
“What’s wrong with you, Agatha?” I’m trying to control my temper now. “He’s a monster. An actual monster.”
“We’re all monsters,” she says.
She means thatIam.
I try to tamp down the anger coiling up my legs. “Did you cheat on me? With Baz? Are you withhimnow?”
“No.”
“Do you want to be?”
She sighs, and leans forward on the rough stones. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to say anything else to me? Like, ‘I’m sorry’? Don’t you want to fix this?”
She looks back at me, over her shoulder. “Fix what, Simon—our relationship?” She turns to face me again. “What is our relationship? Is it just me being there when you need a date to the ball? And crying for joy every time you come back from the dead? Because I’ll still do that for you. I can still do all that. Even if we’re not together.”
Her perfect pink chin is thrust forward and quivering. Her arms are still crossed.
“You’re my girl, Agatha,” I say.
“No. Penelope’s your girl.”
“You’re my—”
Her arms fall. “What Simon, what am I?”
I knot my hands in my hair and gnash my teeth. “You’re my future!”
Agatha’s face is contorted and wet with tears. Still lovely, though. “Am I supposed to want that?” she asks.
“Iwant it.”
“You just want a happy ending.”
“Merlin, Agatha, don’t you?”
“No! I don’t! I want to be someone’sright now,Simon, not their happily ever after. I don’t want to be the prize at the end. The thing you get if you beat all the bosses.”
“You’re twisting everything. You’re making it ugly.”
She shrugs again. “Maybe.”
“Agatha…” I hold my hand out to her. The one that isn’t holding Baz’s handkerchief. “We can fix this.”
“Probably,” she says. “But I don’t want to.”
I can’t think of what more to say.
Agatha can’t leave me. She can’t leave mefor him.Oh, he’d love that—he’d love to have that over me. Damn it all, he isn’t even here to have that over me.
“I love you, Agatha,” I say, believing that might work. Those words are practically magic in themselves. I say them again: “Iloveyou.”
Agatha closes her eyes against the sight of me. She turns her face away. “I love you, too, Simon. I think that’s why I went along with this for so long.”
