I CAN CHOOSE NOBODYYYYYY

So I'm gonna explain how I see it!

First off, as background, Augustus blames Mike for like all of Lucy's worst moments. Augustus had each of these bits presented to him from either a view that revolved around her, or a view that was directly from her perspective.

Confrontation -- Augustus heard about the dumb drunk guy that led his own friends into a trap, leading to a guy AUGUSTUS is afraid of to focus obsessively on how much he hates "the white one" (Lucy). December --Augustus sees Lucy literally bleeding out in the snow because of things Mike said to her directly, and knows it is directly because of Mike that she is there based on things she has shared with him. Eternal Flame -- Augustus is pushed for a kiss he doesn't want in his own bedroom, something super out of character for her & super bad, then heard about how she wanted to die because of Mike. It's implied that Lucy later elaborated about what Mike did.

So Augustus has a pretty skewed view of Mike! And to be fair, he started out being angry but civil in "Burnt Bridges." And that interaction went well -- Mike was contrite, bursting into tears and apologizing repeatedly instead of fighting back. Gus even mentions how he expected it to go differently and was glad about the outcome.

And Mike makes a point to say "Don't worry about protecting her from me," and a few pages later says "I'll never bother her again."

So Augustus finishes this interaction thinking "Okay, he's fucked up, but at least he's trying to fix it in the only way that he can."

And then Lucy starts having nightmares again. And they have this interaction:

Lucy is obviously not fine here. She doesn't want to talk about it, she doesn't want to read into the nightmares, but we can see that they are having a negative impact on her daily life. She wakes up tired, she snaps at Paulo when he's trying to get Lucy's opinion on Daisy acting weird, she visibly pulls away when she's at Burgertron with Paulo and Daisy, she's all-around just having a bad time. And the nightmares have increased in frequency at this point, indicated by our views into the dream sequences and by Augustus saying "You've been having nightmares again, haven't you."

Just presenting this all as a way to indicate -- Lucy says everything is fine, but she is NOT reliable here.

And immediately after this, Mike shows up outside. And Augustus asks if Lucy is okay, and she insists repeatedly that she is. And one could read this sequence as yes, she is fine, she's just irritated that he's asking over and over again. But we JUST got an indication that she is saying she's fine when she's obviously not. Pairing that with the fact that Augustus probably knows her best out of any of the cast (besides maybe Mike) at this point, and it all seems to imply she is very much not okay with it. She also lashes out at Augustus, saying "I missed when you were a creep," trying really hard to get the focus off of her.

So after this, Augustus tries again -- and again is very civil (albeit blunt). He approaches Mike and asks him to specifically not go outside during lunch. And he's reasonable about it:

He's not asking Mike to leave the school, he's just saying "hey, can you give us this one space to not be around you, because she's having a bad time."

And that is the only place at school where Lucy can guarantee that she won't have to see Mike. They share classes, they have the exact same walk home, it's unavoidable to run into each other everywhere else. Doesn't she deserve the basic decency of having one place to get a brief respite?

And yes, she COULD leave the school -- giving up time with her closest friend, giving up her routine, leaving her family to return to living with her aunt, giving up the home she has grown up in. Fucking up her life even more than she already has for this one idiot.

She could, also, theoretically go back inside. But:

She left that space FOR Mike. And with this pattern, of Mike just following others around to different spaces based on who has a crush on him at the moment, who can say if he'll actually stay outside? And then, what, Lucy has to spend the brief time she can get away from him trying to figure out which place he wants to hang out in? Bouncing back and forth repeatedly from spot to spot, seeing him constantly even as she tries to avoid him?

That sucks dude! And it isn't really a big ask for Mike to just leave her this one space. He has a million other friends he can hang out with, so it's not like Augustus is trying to isolate him. It's just basic human decency for Mike to see that his going outside is having a negative impact on a person he's hurt repeatedly, and to have him go "oh okay I will stop doing that then."

But instead, his response is "I can't," by which he really means: