Simon might speak up for mundies in class, but it mattered more that George and Marisol and Sunil spoke up too. Simon didn’t want to change things by being the special one, the exceptional mundane, the former Daylighter and former hero. They had all chosen to come try to be heroes. His fellow dregs could win without him.
There was one more motive Catarina might have had that she had not announced, Simon thought.
She had heard this story from her dead friend Ragnor Fell.
Catarina had listened to her friend’s stories, the way James Herondale had listened to his father’s stories. Being able to tell the stories over again, having someone to listen and learn, meant her friend was not lost.
Maybe he could write to Clary, Simon thought, as well as Isabelle. Maybe he could trust her to love him despite how often he might fail her. Maybe he was ready to be told stories about himself and about her. He didn’t want to lose his friend.
Simon was writing his letter to Clary when George came in, toweling his hair. He had taken his life in his hands and risked the showers in one of the dregs’ bathroom.
“Hey,” Simon said.
“Hey, where were you while the game was happening?” George asked. “I thought you were never coming back and I’d have to be pals with Jon Cartwright. Then I thought about being pals with Jon, was overwhelmed with despair, and decided to find one of the frogs I know are living in here, give it little frog glasses, and call it Simon 2.0.”
Simon shrugged, not sure how much he was supposed to tell. “Catarina kept me after class.”
“Careful, or someone might start rumors about you two,” said George. “Not that I would judge. She’s obviously . . . ceruleanly charming.”
“She was telling me a long story about Shadowhunters being jerks and about parabatai. What do you think about the whole parabatai thing, anyway? The parabatai rune is like a friendship bracelet you can never take back.”
“I think it sounds nice,” said George. “I’d like that, to have someone who would always watch my back. Someone who I could count on at the times when this scary world gets the scariest.”
“Makes it sound like there’s someone you’d ask.”
“I’d ask you, Si,” said George, with an awkward little smile. “But I know you wouldn’t ask me. I know who you would ask. And that’s okay. I’ve still got Frog Simon,” he added thoughtfully. “Though I’m not sure he’s exactly Shadowhunter material.”
Simon laughed at the joke, as George had meant him to, smoothing over the awkward moment.
“How were the showers?”
“I have one word for you, Si,” said George. “A sad, sad word. Gritty. I had to shower, though. I was gross. Our victory was amazing but hard-won. Why are Shadowhunters so bendy, Simon? Why?”
George kept complaining about Jon Cartwright’s enthusiastic if unskilled attempts at playing baseball, but Simon was not listening.
I know who you would ask.
A flash of memory came to Simon, as it did sometimes, cutting like a knife. I love you, he’d told Clary. He’d said it believing he was going to die. He’d wanted those to be his last words before he died, the truest words he could speak.
He’d been thinking all this time about his two possible lives, but he didn’t have two possible lives. He had a real life, with real memories and a real best friend. He had his childhood as it had actually been, holding hands with Clary as they crossed the street, and the last year as it had actually been, with Jace saving his life and with him saving Isabelle’s and with Clary there, Clary, always Clary.
The other life, the so-called normal life without his best friend, was a fake. It was like a giant woven tapestry portraying his life, scenes shown in threads that were all the colors of the rainbow, except it had one color—one of the brightest colors—ripped out.
Simon liked George, he liked all his friends at the Academy, but he was not James Herondale. He had already had friends before he came here.
Friends to live and die for, to have entangled with every memory. The other Shadowhunters, especially Clary, were a part of him. She was the color that had been ripped out, the bright thread woven through his first memories to his last. Something was missing from the pattern of Simon’s life, without Clary, and it would never be right again, unless she was restored.
My best friend, Simon thought. Another thing worth living in this world for, worth being a Shadowhunter for. Maybe she wouldn’t want to be his parabatai. God knew Simon was no prize. But if he got through this school, if he managed to become a Shadowhunter, he would have all the memories of his best friend back.
He could try for the bond between Jace and Alec, between James Herondale and Matthew Fairchild. He could ask if she would perform the ritual and speak the words that told the world what was between you, and that it was unbreakable.
He could at least ask Clary.
The Evil We Love
By Cassandra Clare and Robin Wasserman
It seemed suddenly very important to have space between him and Michael. As much space as possible.
“You’re what?”
He hadn’t meant to shout.
—The Evil We Love
There were, Simon Lewis thought, so many ways to destroy a letter. You could shred it into confetti. You could light it on fire. You could feed it to a dog—or a Hydra demon. You could, with the help of your friendly neighborhood warlock, Portal it to Hawaii and drop it into the mouth of a volcano. And given all the letter-destroying options available, Simon thought, maybe the fact that Isabelle Lightwood had returned his letter intact was of significance. Maybe it was actually a good sign.
Or at least a not-entirely-terrible sign.
That, at least, was what Simon had been telling himself for the last few months.
But even he had to admit that when the letter in question was a sort-of-maybe love letter, a letter that included heartfelt, humiliating phrases like “you’re amazing” and “I know I am that guy you loved”—and when said letter was returned unopened, “RETURN TO SENDER” scrawled across it in red lipstick—“not-entirely-terrible” might be overly optimistic.
At least she had referred to him as “sender.” Simon was pretty sure that Isabelle had devised some other choice names for him, none quite so friendly. A demon had sucked out all of his memories, but his observational faculties were intact—and he’d observed that Isabelle Lightwood wasn’t the kind of girl who liked to be rejected. Simon, in defiance of all laws of nature and common sense, had rejected her twice.
He’d tried to explain himself in the letter, apologize for pushing her away. He’d confessed how much he wanted to fight his way back to the person he once was. Her Simon. Or at least, a Simon worthy of her.
Izzy—I don’t know why you would wait for me, but if you do, I promise to make myself worth that wait, he’d written. Or I’ll try. I can promise I am going to try.
One month to the day after he sent it, the letter came back unread.