He stops, too. “Yeah, butwhyare you being serious? Is this important? Is this, like, oursecond-biggest problem? Me not knowing what colour flag to hold at the Pride Parade?”
“I didn’t think itwasa problem,” I say. “But you’re being a real twat about it. So maybe it is.”
Simon sighs and rubs his forehead. I’m glad I spelled his hands clean. “I just . . . don’t know. All right? I know I’m not straight. And obviously I was whatever I am now back when I was going to all your football matches and hiding outside your violin lessons.”
“I thought you were trying to figure out whether I was a vampire,” I say. I really did.
He’s exasperated: “I already knew you were a vampire!”
I want to put my hands on my hips, but I’m still holding four dead rats. “Are you saying youlikedme? In fifth year?”
“Baz, I was obsessed with you.”
“I knew that. But youlikedme?”
Simon sighs again. Really put out now. “I didn’tlikeyou. I still don’t really like you . . .” That’s a lie, and he knows it.
“But you wanted to kiss me?”
“I wanted to jump on you. I didn’t really think past that.”
“Plus ça change. . .”
“Fuuuck you,” he says, extravagantly. “I know that’s French for something smug.”
I laugh. Snow makes me laugh. He makes me lose track of why I’m irritated with him. I see a rat scuttling past us in my peripheral vision and crouch, catching its neck in my fist. It’s small enough to kill with one hand. “I likedyou,” I say.
“You hated me,” Snow says, above me.
I stand. “That, too.”
I’m nearly done hunting. I should probably grab one more, so that I don’t have to do this again later. Snow walks beside me. I clear my throat. “But you liked Agatha then, right? In fifth year?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
I get ahead of him a bit. “You wereattractedto Agatha,” I say over my shoulder, like it’s nothing to me, “right?”
“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?”
