How to Repair a Mechanical Heart (14 page)

Abel pushes his chair back. Ten seconds click by on the wall clock.

“Holy cow,” he says.

I can’t talk.

“I don’t even remember saying that Hell Bells line,” Abel says. “Did you know your sister had a blog?”

I shake my head.

“Go ahead,” I say. “Click the link.”

“Are you sure?”

My hands make a
whatever
gesture.

He hesitates, but he clicks the screencap link. This page pops up with a blog entry titled
“Okay, so my little bro FINALLY came out‌…‌”
I peek at it through my fingers. It’s Natalie, no question. Her username is Vashta and she makes halfhearted stabs at concealing identities‌—‌”B” for me, “Father X” for Father Mike‌—‌but the story’s all there. How my mom let the leftover meatloaf sit on the counter and spoil that night. How my dad kept saying
but how can you be sure
, as if it was a diagnosis that needed a second opinion. How I sat on Nat’s bed and cried about the sermon Father Mike had given two weeks earlier, the one where he held up a picture of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and gently explained the “true definition of family.”
Poor little nerdling,
Nat wrote.
I nagged him into this coming-out drama and maybe he wasn’t ready. He was a Father X fanboy as a kid and now he’s so terrified of his real self I just want to smack him. I think it’s his destiny to be fucked up his whole entire life unless he gets serious help.

I go lie down on the couch. I think of Sim on the Henchmen’s operating table, his chest pried open and his cold organs clicking and whirring out of sync. Abel takes another minute with Nat’s blog entry, and then he comes over and kneels down beside me.

He’s quiet for a minute. Then he reaches out and pats my hand.

I don’t know what about that sets me off. It’s kind of a neutral gesture, something Sim would do, and maybe that’s part of it. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so unlike Abel, or maybe my nerves are rubbed raw right now and any little touch would have done this, make my sore eyes fill up and spill over.

“It’s okay.” He squeezes my hand. “Seriously.”

I drape my arm over my eyes.

And I tell him everything.

I tell him about Father Mike. I tell him about
Put on the Brakes!,
my three awkward months trying to date Bec, my parents and the sad looks they shoot me when they think I won’t notice. I even tell him about the Ryan Dervitz kiss and the Dairy Queen freakout. When I lift my arm off my eyes I see him watching me like I’m some TV show about one-legged orphans with Olympic dreams, and it kind of makes me want to smack him but it feels so good to tell him that I keep going and going until the cut on his lip opens up again, and I remember what happened outside.

He grabs three tissues from the box on the desk. One for his lip, two for me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“Just forget it.”

“What I said‌—‌”

“Forget it, Brandon. All that shit in your head‌—‌”

“I’m used to it.”

“And I’m such an idiot, I kept shoving boys at you.”

“Only two.”

He glances over his shoulder, as if someone’s watching at the window.

“So‌…‌” He lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “Do they really tell you all that?”

“All what?”

“Like, you have a ‘special calling’ to be celibate?”

“Pretty much.”

“’Cause if you believe that you should totally talk to my dad’s friend Mitch, he’s this Unitarian minister or whatever and he’s on his third husband so maybe he can help you‌—‌”

“I don’t believe it. Not anymore.” I sigh and stick my hands in my hair. There’s no way I can explain this logically. “It’s just hard to turn it off.”

“Why?”

I pick at the hem of my shorts. “There’s still this little part of you that’s like ‘what if they’re right?’ What if there is a hell and you’re like gambling with eternity just because you want a boyfriend, so you get terrified and think it’s not worth it, I’ll suck it up and be alone forever, but then on the other hand what if it turns out there is no God or he’s up there shaking his head because people keep twisting the Bible around, and you wasted your life being alone and miserable for
nothing
, and then‌—‌” I’m babbling like a freak. “Stuff like that. You know.”

Abel lifts the tissue off his lip and runs his thumb over the splotch of blood. “That Father Mike guy never‌…‌like,
tried
anything with you, did he?”

“No! No. Never. He just has really specific ideas about God.”

“You believe in God?”

“I’m‌…‌confused.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I left my church.”

“So? You can believe in God without church. I do.”

I blink at him. I would not be more surprised if David Darras pulled up in a white limo with two dozen blue roses and begged me to elope with him. I’ve consistently shut up about religion around Abel; he talks so much crap about it I just assumed he was like Bec. “You do?”

“I believe in
something
, yeah. I just think the world’s too complicated and amazing not to.” He’s folding the tissue into a lopsided rose. “I mean, I don’t believe in a big bearded badass on a cloud throne, but I can buy a loving creative higher power that wants everyone to be happy. Something that roots for us. Like, the anti-Xaarg.”

I shake my head. “I have no idea how to think that way.”

“Why not?” He lobs the tissue rose at me. “I mean, if no one knows for sure what God’s like, then why don’t you just believe the people who think he’s all rainbows and sunshine and loves you no matter what?”

“Because it’s too easy.”

His eyebrows steeple.

“Suffering’s supposed to be valuable.” Abel opens his mouth but I cut him off. “I’m just saying. That’s what they teach you. They tell you when you suffer you share in the passion of Jesus and so God doesn’t save us from suffering because‌…‌” I glance up at him and let out a long sigh. “Forget it.”

Abel leans forward, elbows on knees. Probably trying to gauge the depth of my mental disturbance, so he’ll know how far to sit from me.

“I totally want to hug you,” he says.

“You do?”

“We wouldn’t piss off Worst-Case-Scenario-Angry-God if we hugged, right?”

“Nope.” I gulp. “Probably‌—‌”

His arms are around me before I can finish. He still smells like popcorn and cotton candy and he feels so warm it’s like diving under an electric blanket after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I try to melt into the hug, the way Cadmus and Sim are always melting into hugs in Cadsim fics, but my nose is running and leaving horrifying wet spots on his army-green t-shirt and I’m positive I smell like sweat‌—‌not the clean I’ve-been-working-out kind but the toxic nervous kind I specialize in. It figures. My first lingering hug from a cute guy, and I’m too screwed up to enjoy it.

“God‌…‌” I murmur.

“I know. I’m a great hugger.”

I pull back, hold him by the shoulders. “Abel.”

“Brandon.”

I take a deep breath. “I am so
fucking
ready to be normal.”

“Fun normal or boring normal?”

“Fun normal.”

“Congratulations. How can I help?”

I just look at him. My lips vibrate from spitting out the f-word. He freezes in the Empathy Position, head cocked and one hand resting on my knee, like an action figure of a perfect boyfriend. I know exactly what I want. To be able to hug him over and over again, to sling my arm around his waist in public, to feel his warm reassuring hand around mine on a regular basis, without any real sex stuff ever getting in the way. I know that’s about as realistic as Cadsim fic.

And then a second later, I know how to make it happen.

I sit back down at the desk, in front of the laptop screen with its orderly selection of Brandon/Abel makeout fantasies. Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus lie flat on their backs in a scatter of cinnamon jellybeans, like they’ve both been struck dead from secondhand embarrassment. I stand them back up. Scroll through the fic titles. “Whispers of All Our Tomorrows.” “Anatomy of a Saturday.” “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart.”

“Uh, Brandon‌…‌?”

“Hm.”

“What are you thinking?”

I tap the wedding cake manip. I blurt it before I lose nerve.

“You want to have some fun,” I say, “with the Church of Abandon?”

A complicated smile flits across his face. I get a nervous thrill, like when Cadmus got Sim to jump into the Red River with him to escape the Henchmen.
C’mon, Tin Man,
he’d shouted above the wind, the two of them clutching arms on the cliff like a romance-novel cover.
You haven’t lived till you’ve done something really stupid!

Not the best philosophy, bud,
says Father Mike.

Shut up,
I tell him simply, and turn back to Abel.

“What’d you have in mind?” he says.

CastieCon #3
San Antonio, Texas

Chapter Thirteen

Abel and I sit side by side on the concrete edge of our campground pool, dipping our feet in. He is shirtless. Leaning back on both arms, he holds his pale soft stomach taut, trying to forge a six-pack. He grins at the fake hickey on my neck, courtesy of some blue and purple eyeshadow we bought on the road in an Alabama dollar store. I held still while Abel brushed it on, his breath tickling my cheek and smelling of cinnamon. It was safe, and incredibly fun.

The San Antonio sun breathes biblical heat on us. My
Castaway Planet
shirt roasts on my back and the cool clear water sparkles temptation as I swirl my toes through it. I want to jump in, all the way in, but there’s something we need to do first.

“You sure about this?” Abel murmurs.

I nod. “Totally.”

“You don’t want to take your shirt off? They’d flip.”

I cringe. “I’m really pale‌…‌”

“That’s fine. Yeah. You’re a man of mystery. I might put my hand on your knee, is that cool?”

“My leg is your leg.”

Bec clears her throat. “Can we get this over with?” She’s bobbing chest-deep in the water with her camera, shivering a little.

“Sorry,” says Abel. “Rebecca, what do you think? Is my hand on his knee too much?”

“Don’t pull me into this. I’m just the cameraperson.”

Abel nods. “We’ll play it by ear. See what happens.”

“Fantastic.” She rolls her eyes and hits record.

“
Salut,
dear Casties!” Abel says. “My partner and I are coming at you poolside from the, ah,
Longhorn
Campground in San Antonio, where we have been staying in all our carefree, half-nude glory for three days.”

“Three lonnnng,
hot
days.”

“They have been especially
hot
, haven’t they, Bran?”

“Scorching.”

“Miss Rebecca, by the way, is looking stunning today in her bangin’ new halter bikini.”

“It’s just a two-piece.”

“Whatever. Dave, if you’re watching, it was between this one and some striped tankini disaster. You’ll thank me when you see her in Long Beach.”

I break in, as scripted. “Ahem.”

Abel’s like, “Ye-es?”

“You have yet to comment on my new swim trunks.”

“I think that’s best reserved for a‌…‌” He leans in, stage-whispers. “
Private
moment, don’t you?”

I giggle; I can’t help it. “If you say so.”

“Aaanyway, guys: Two o’clock today, Q&A with Augie Manners, who for the past four seasons has infused the character of Dutch Jones with a complex blend of angst, dopey hotness, and nine other exotic spices.”

“Hmf.”

“Yes, dear? What is it?”

I feign a pout. “If you love him so much, why don’t you marry him?”

“Mm-mm. Not my type.”

“No? Who is your type?”

“I think you know, Brandon.” He rests a hand on my knee. A tiny spark dances up my thigh. “I think. You. Know.”

***

The second Bec snaps the camera shut, Abel grabs my elbow and hauls us both underwater. The blue shock of cold hits me hard‌—‌
I’m not ready
‌—‌but then I open my eyes and he’s making this face that makes me forget, crossing his eyes and puffing out his cheeks. His white hair billows around his face like the manes on Bec’s old Rainbow Ponies when we’d take them in her mom’s pool. For a long time we stay like that, in a safe underworld where our bodies stay light and dreamy. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

We come up laughing.

“
’Best reserved for a private moment’
?” I splash him.

“Did I go too far?”

“No! It was brilliant.”

“Um, so‌…‌”

“What?”

Abel bats his eyes.
“Why don’t you marry him?”

“Ugh! I’m a horrible flirter.”

“No, no, no. You’ve gotten loads better since Saturday.”

“Really?”

“When you said
scorching?
” He taps his heart, smirking. “I felt it right here.”

Bec bobs by on a clear inflatable raft. She looks all patriotic: navy blue bikini, white belly, sunburn on her round freckled shoulders. She peers at us over cat’s-eye shades.

“You guys,” she tsks, “are mean.”

Abel’s eyes go wide and innocent. “How are we mean? It’s what they want!”

“But it’s not real.”

“So? They love fiction. Right, Brandon?”

“They do seem to enjoy it.”

He swims close to me, his chin skimming the water. “What’s your favorite fic?”

I peel my wet shirt away from my chest and pretend to think. I have a real answer to that question, but I can’t get into that with Abel. As far as he knows, the Abandon fic we’ve been reading for the past five days has been 100% pure comedy, something to giggle over in greasy diners and campgrounds while Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus perch on opposite corners of the laptop, watching us blush and bump elbows.

“I like doomerang’s stuff. And sadparadise. The
Castaway Planet
crossovers,” I lie.

“Yeah? Not a fan, actually.”

“How come?”

“They’re like, good writers.” He makes a
blech
face. “Well-written fanfic is
no
fun whatsoever. I loooove thanks4caring’s high-school-angst.”