Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,94
join him on the sand—I can spell myself dry later. I sit a bit behind him, on slightly higher ground.
He glances back at me. “Oh, hey,” he says like he’s just remembered something. He leans back to reach in his pocket, and takes out a wad of blue silk.
“That’s my mother’s scarf!” I reach for it.
He opens his hand. The scarf threads through his fingers as I pull it away. “Sorry,” he says. “I forgot it was in my pocket.”
“I thought I left it in the hotel room.”
“You did.”
I fold the scarf, gently. Snow watches for a moment, then looks away.
“Well,” I say. “Now you can say you drove across America.”
“Not really.” He folds his arms over his knees. “We started in the middle, and I was in a coma from Nevada to California.”
“You didn’t miss anything.”
He hunches forward, hanging his head. “I wanted to see those ancient trees, the sequoias.”
“They’ll still be here when you come back.”
He shakes his head. “Not coming back. You can send me a postcard.”
“Me? I don’t think I’m ever leaving Camberwell after this. Possibly to visit my parents at Christmas. I’ll decide in December.”
He looks back at me. The way he’s sitting, his face tilted, he looks like a child. He looks like the Humdrum. “You don’t have to leave with us, you know.”
“What?”
He turns back to the sea. “I saw you … with Lamb. I heard you.”
“Snow…”
“He’d let you stay there.”
“In a glam-rock hotel in Las Vegas? No, thank you.” It’s the wrong thing to say. But everything Simon’s saying is already the wrong thing. This is a wrong conversation.
He raises his hands, frustrated. “Baz, I was there! You—you fit in.”
“I was trying to fit in.”
“You’re like them! And he could show you how to be more like them; you wouldn’t have to go looking for answers in books. Baz, we’ve read all the books. All mages know about vampires is how to kill them!”
“Knowledge I have very recently put into service.”
Simon growls and turns towards me, one leg dropping into the sand. “Baz, you wouldn’t have to hide anymore!”
“I’ll always have to hide! So will you!”
“Why can’t you just admit that you’d be happier here?”
I raise my voice: “Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”
He sits back, like I’ve slapped him.
“Simon…” I whisper.
I wait for him to get it. To finally give in to it.
Or maybe to say I’ve passed the test.
Instead he shakes his head. “Baz…” His voice is barely there.
“Baz!” someone shouts.
Penelope’s running towards us. She’s out of breath. We both stand when we see the look on her face. I catch her by the shoulders. “What? What is it?”
Her brown eyes are lit with horror. “Baz, there’s trouble at Watford. We have to go home—now!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote this book after a hard time and during a hard time. So these acknowledgments come from a more tremulous place than usual.
Thank you first to Thomas Smith, Josh Friedman, Michelle McCaslin, and Mark Goodman, four people who treated me with absolute respect and compassion, and never stopped listening or trying to understand.
Thank you to my editor, Sara Goodman, who could have said, “Another Simon and Baz book?” But instead said, “Another Simon and Baz book!” Sara has never asked me to be anyone but myself, and I treasure her for it.
I’ve been very lucky at Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Press, where my books are treated with so much care and enthusiasm. I’m especially grateful for designer Olga Grlic, who is my favorite combination of fearless and committed to great work; and for publicist Jessica Preeg, who has been my rock.
Writing a sequel is surprisingly tricky.…
Sincere thanks to Bethany and Troy Gronberg, Margaret Willison, and Joy DeLyria, for helping me detangle multiple knots. To Ashley Christy, Mitali Dave, Tulika Mehrotra, and Christina Tucker, for their keen insight and attention to detail. To Melinda Salisbury, Keris Stainton, and Melissa Cox, for their endless patience and good cheer. And to Elena Yip, whose instincts are second to none.
Thank you to my agent, Christopher Schelling. (You know that your agent has your back when they’re there for you, day after day, even when you’re not writing at all.)
And thank you to Kai, who tells me it will be okay and means it.
Finally, I know this is sappy, but I want to thank everyone who really got what I was doing with Carry On. (It was a weird idea; I know it was a weird idea.) Thank you to everyone who read that book and shared it, who made fan art and fanfiction and sour cherry scones on Simon’s birthday. And thank you for getting excited about this sequel, even though four years was obviously too long to wait.
Simon and Baz walked directly out of my heart, and I’m so glad I get to keep writing their story.