“I don’t know how you spent your summers!”
“Reading!” I say. “Violin! PlayingMario Kartwith my sister!”
We’ve both stopped walking. Simon wrinkles his nose. “Were youneveractually plotting against me?”
“I plotteda 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. “Isit?”
“Wasn’tit?”
“It was fine, it was sex. Are you done?”
“No. I have three more.”
“Right,” he says, kicking the wall again.
