Page 99 of Better in Black
“As if I’m an ice queen and you’re a toad guy?”
Simon winced. “You heard that?”
“Yeah, Simon, I did. I heard you pouring your heart out to a demon. Telling him all these things you’ve never thought to tellme.Agreeing with everything he said about how if we broke up, I’d be just fine.”
“You’re angry because you overheard me talking about how awesome you are?”
“No, Simon,” Izzy said, slowly, like she was explaining things to a small child, and none too happy about it. “I’m angry because you seem to think you’re the only one who cares about this relationship. If you love me so much more than I love you, how come you’re the one leaving for a year?”
“I asked you to come with me!” Simon protested.
“And I told you I can’t!” Isabelle’s voice rose.
“Then you should have told me not to leave!”
“Well, excuse me for trying to be supportive!” she yelled. Then she paused, and took a long breath. When she spoke again, the anger was gone from her voice. But it had been replaced by something worse: sorrow. “It’s not supposed to be this way with us, Simon. We’re supposed to trust each other enough to say how we feel. If we can’t do that when it’s about stuff like job offers, what are we going to do when it’s even bigger stuff? Look at my parents—they stopped talking honestly to each other a long time ago. So when Max died, they were both just…alone with it. Now look where they are. I don’t want us to end up like that.”
Simon caught her free hand in his. “I don’t, either.”
“This job is an amazing opportunity for you, Simon, and I don’twant to be the person to stand in the way of what you want. And if you want to be at the Scholomance, I might not get it, but I can still support it. But obviouslyIdon’t want you to go.”
“So why didn’t you just say that?” Simon said.
“Why didn’t you already know?” Izzy said. “Why are you always so scared I’ve got one foot out the door?”
Simon looked away. He wanted to be honest with Izzy, he really did. But it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to admit. “It scares me sometimes how much I love you,” Simon said.
Izzy laughed—just as he was always afraid she would. But then she touched his face, softly. “What makes you assume you’re the only one?”
“I guess it’s just…look, we both know you’re the Han Solo and I’m the Princess Leia.” It was always easier to explain his heart in terms of pop culture.
“Somehow I can’t quite picture you in a metal bikini, so—”
“I’m serious,” Simon said. “When Leia tells Han she loves him, and all he says isI know? People act like that’s romantic, but I always thought it was depressing. She’s swearing her love and all she gets back is, what, a shrug?”
“It would be easier to take you seriously if you weren’t talking about imaginary people,” Izzy said.
“You said you wanted me to talk. This is me talking. And all the stories are true, right?”
“Okay, you want to talkStar Wars? Let’s talk about how you’re totally misreading that scene. It’s romantic because Leia is someone who guards her emotions. She has to be strong, she has to keep going no matter what. So it’s like this huge deal for her to admit how she actually feels about Han. And when he says I know, he’s telling her he didn’t even need her to say it out loud. He alreadyknew how she felt. He’s just been waiting for her to be ready to say it out loud. He loves her enough to give her the time she needs, and she loves him enough to finally let her guard down.That’swhat’s romantic.”
Simon was stunned. “You always act like you barely even know what those movies are about.”
“They’re important to you, so.” She looked sad. “So they’re important to me.”
“Izzy—”
He didn’t know how to persuade her that theycouldbe Han and Leia, they could be better, they could be epic, they could, most of all, be honest with each other and trust in each other and all the things they needed to be to stay together, to be each other’s partner and best friend, to be equals, to have a relationship where no one was the ice queen and no one was the toad guy—but before he could figure it out, Krog came rushing up to them.
Simon had almost forgotten he was on a mission to save New York City from hellstorm and heartbreak.
“Less talking, more killing,” Krog told them. “Something terrible is happening. Iago is getting way too close to Ajatara. I think I saw her touch his carapace! You can go kill them both now, that’s your job, right?”
“Wow, Iago turned out to be untrustworthy,” said Isabelle, with grim sarcasm. “I did not see that coming.” She glanced over at Simon. “We could kill Iago,” she said. “Not Ajatara, though. That’ll just make everything worse.”
Simon remembered readingOthelloin high school. He’d hated it, as he did many Shakespeare plays. So much blood, so much killing, and all of it easily avoided if people had just asked one or two follow-up questions. Like, in the case ofOthello,it would havebeen so easy for Othello to justaskhis wife whether what Iago said about her was true, and then the play could have had a much more boring and less bloody ending. He’d pointed this out to Clary, who said he was missing the point. The point, she said, was that Othello was too insecure to believe his wife really loved him. That’s what ruined him. Not Iago’s lies, not a lack of follow-up questions. Once you think you know something, you’ll believe anyone who tells you you’re right.
Sometimes, Simon thought, you had toshowpeople they were wrong.
