Any Way the Wind Blows

Кто хороший, кто плохой ― все зависит от того, на чьей стороне ты сражаешься. И кого при этом пытаешься защитить.

I look down at the ring. “I think my father hoped I might give it to a girl someday…”
Fiona snatches it from my palm. “Simon Snow is not getting my mother’s sapphire.”
I laugh. “Homophobic.”
“It isn’t because he’s a boy,” she says. “It’s because he’s a pain in my arse.”

Is this his midlife crisis? Joining a cult? Other people our age are coming out as bisexual or getting into Normal-style bread-making. (I would prefer either—or both.)

Smith-Richards seems to draw more women than men, which isn’t surprising, given his glossy appearance. His look is very—The Greatest Mage, a new fragrance from Ralph Lauren. He looks like Simon, frankly. But more Simony than Simon. He looks like the guy who would get cast to play Simon in the Netflix series.

“Maybe we should leave before your mom comes down,” Shepard says. “I don’t want to be here while she’s still putting people in towers.”
“I’d break you out,” Penny says dismissively.
“Almost nothing you say is reassuring,” he says, somehow still smiling at her.
“Being reassuring isn’t one of my core competencies,” she tells him. “Breaking people out of towers is.”

It’s mortifying to think about now, the way I felt torn between Baz and Simon …
I was just standing between them. And not even in a romantic, dramatic way. I was like a dead badger lying in the middle of the road, something they had to drive around to get to where they were eventually going.

I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. (Never a good sign. His brain is an engine that only overheats.)

Is Simon okay?
I mean, obviously, no, never. The real question is—what kind of not-okay is he at the moment? And what do I need to do to deal with it?

“If there was a way for you to heal yourself, I would support you, even if the means were unorthodox.”
(Genuinely not sure whether she means the vampire thing or the gay thing.)

“All I really know is that nothing I’ve experienced so far compares to you. Maybe that makes me gay.” He swallows. “Or maybe that just makes me yours.”