He shakes his head.
2
SIMON
Maya Angelou said that when someone shows you who they are, you should believe them.
I heard that on an inspirational television show. It came on afterLaw & Order,and I didn’t change the channel.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
That’s what I’m going to say when I break up with Baz.
I’m doing it so that he doesn’t have to.
I can tell he wants to end this. I can see it in the way he looks at me. Or in the way hedoesn’tlook at me—because if he did, he’d have to face what a tosser he’s saddled himself with. What an absolute loser.
Baz is at uni now. Thriving.
And he’s as handsome as ever. (Morehandsome than ever. Taller, bolder, with a beard now anytime he wants one. Like adolescence isn’t quite done dealing him aces.)
Everything that happened last year…
Everything that happened with the Mage and the Humdrum just made Baz more of who he was meant to be. He avenged his mother. He solved the mystery that’s hung over him since he was 5. He proved himself as a man and a magician.
He proved himselfright:The Mage really was evil! And I really was a fraud—“the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen,” just like Baz used to say. He was right about me all along.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
When someone fucks up absolutely everything—that person is an absolute fuckup.
I don’t know how to make it any more clear to him. I lie here on the sofa. And I don’t have any plans. And I don’t have any promise. And this is what Iam.
Baz fell in love with what Iwas—power and potential unchecked. Nuclear bombs are nothing but potential.
Now I’m what comes after.
Now I’m the three-headed frog. The radioactive fallout.
I think Baz would have broken up with me by now if he didn’t feel so sorry for me. (And if he hadn’t promised to love me. Magicians get hung up on honour.)
So I’ll be the one to do it. I can do it. One time, an orc-upine shot a needle into my shoulder, and I tore it out with my own teeth—I can handle pain.
I just…
I wanted a few more nights of this. Of him being here in the room with me, mine on the surface at least.
I’ll never have someone like Baz again. Thereisno one like Baz; it’s like dating someone out of a legend. He’s a heroic vampire, a gifted magician. He’s dead handsome. (I used to be someone out of a legend. I was Foretold, you know? I used to be part of the oral tradition.)
I wanted a few more nights of this.…
But I hate watching Baz suffer. I hate being the reason he suffers.
“Baz,” I say. I sit up and set down my can of cider. (Baz hates cider, even the smell of it.)
He’s standing at the front door. “Yes?”
I swallow. “When someone shows you who they are—”
