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Falling in love with Baz was as easy as admitting a life-altering mistake. When I look back on our history, the childhood we shared, it was fueled by hatred and fear. We both knew from a young age that we were destined to kill the other. He’d known from birth, but this knowledge had been thrown at me like tearing a blindfold from my eyes. I am, or was, the Chosen One. He was supposed to stand in my way.
And yet we shared a bedroom for nine months every year, beds parallel to one another.
I remember my first year with Baz. We were children; barely twelve, cast together by forces I will never understand. I thought we could be friends, but he pushed me down that staircase and with me fell any hope of friendship.
I remember the first time I saw him. Really, actually saw him. His sharp cheekbones, his almost emaciated figure. His deep-set eyes, swirling with unknowable truths and unspeakable lies. Maybe he had bitten me and injected me with Vampire venom in my sleep, seducing fifteen-year-old me. Maybe not. I will never know, but it is the first time I looked at him and saw something other than generational hatred.
Falling in love with Baz was as easy as fighting the Humdrum. Well, I guess, my Humdrum. It’s been two years and we still don’t know if it’s a humanoid version of my own trauma.
I wasn’t supposed to be alive. I was forced into this world unlike any other child. I have magic boiling through my blood, begging to be released. They tried to take it from me. They tried to beat it out of me, and you, Baz, you showed me that it wasn’t something to be ashamed of.
We both learnt, in our final year of school, that I could give other people my magic. I pushed it at him while he was using poetry to fight a dragon, and he won.
We were too afraid to share my magic again. And I lost it when I fought the Humdrum. I never told you, but the Humdrum had my face. It held my red bouncy-ball and it held my smile.
Fighting the Humdrum was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve shared a bedroom with a vampire, I’ve fought a dragon, I’ve fought goblins and wraiths and things we’ll never understand. But the scariest thing was the Humdrum. I was forced to pour my magic into it as my father figure screamed at me to stop. I poured my magic into it as my mother figure bled to death beside him. I poured my magic into it until there was nothing left to give. And now there is nothing left to lose.
Falling in love with Baz was as easy as opening doors. I’ve been opening doors for people my whole life, and they would walk right through them. They walk through and then slam it in my face.
Baz slammed so many doors into my face that I started leaving windows open for him. After he was saved from that coffin, healed from the diet of blood and tears, all my windows were open. And he crawled through them.
Baz began leaving things for me. A scone here, a packet of crisps there. I don’t know if he ever found out that I’d been hoarding food, but if he did I don’t think that he cared. He comes from money; I know that for sure. His father is part of the Old Families, his mother was once the headmaster of our school. He began inviting me to his home.
He began holding my hand.
I squeeze it so tight that I’m always afraid that he’d turn purple.
Now, we sit shoulder to shoulder in a red convertible. It’s been five more years and the only thing ahead of us is an endless road. The sky is beautiful and nothing like our England home. America is so… Bright. It never rains here.
When I think about what will happen next, I am filled with a void so empty that I don’t know how to claw myself out. When we board that plane will Baz sit next to me? Or will we be separated? Will he fall asleep on my shoulder, or will he stare unblinkingly at the seat-back television? When we get back to our flat will he begin looking for a new place to stay?
Everyone in my life has left me. It makes sense that Baz will be the next.
We were supposed to kill each other. I’ve imagined it hundreds of times, and he would graphically describe how he’d tear my heart from my chest during our shouting matches. He probably should have, because now there is nothing left for me to give. There is nothing left for him to take.
I watch through wary eyes as his hair ripples in the breeze. I’ve never had the chance to learn to drive, but I’m sure that he’s going far too fast. His eyes are locked on the never-ending road ahead of us, a grin stretched across dark skin. I’ve never seen him look like this.
He’s almost… Free?
I feel my cheeks ache with happiness. He glances over at me, raking his silver eyes over me. We’re complete opposites, I know. He’s tall and gangly, posh and sarcastic. I’m stocky and short, poverty-stricken and full.
After a long second he grins wider. I scrunch my nose at him, and he laughs, his voice cutting through the wind.
“Simon Snow, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I don’t know how to respond so I just laugh.
He’s about to say something more when I feel the car drift to the side. I yell in surprise, and the moment is broken. He grips the steering wheel with both hands and pulls the car back into the center of the road.
Falling in love with Baz was like rewriting an old, well-known prophecy. I’ve been drawn to him my whole life, and I thought it was because we were destined to be the other’s demise. I think it was pretty much impossible for him not to kill me. But maybe, just maybe, when we are on the plane back to London we’ll sit shoulder to shoulder. He’ll rest his head on my shoulder, and when we return we’ll go back to a house full of gargoyles and wraiths that we know can never hurt us.
But for now we’ll continue driving along this endless road in a red convertible.