How to Repair a Mechanical Heart (7 page)

“Oh Lord.”

“droidluv95 responds with a drabble, in which
Sim rips off Cadmus’s shirt and moans hotly in his ear, ‘Captain: rumors of my asexuality have been greatly exaggerated.’”

“Ha!”

“Our good buddy Miss Maxima adds,
Keep the faith, true believers. She may be lying on purpose! Odds are they’re planning the first Cadsim kiss for sweeps week.
God, they’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t they?”

I get an idea. I arrange my best heartbroken-cynic face, which is kind of like my Sim face but with broodier eyebrows.

“You know,” I say, “what Bree said is totally true.”

“Meaning‌…‌?”

“Asexual people
are
the lucky ones.” I shrug with careful nonchalance. If I deliver this just right, he might leave me alone for the rest of the trip. “Sim’s got the right idea, you know? It’s just easier if you never have to think about it. Plus I already lost the only romantic gay guy in Pennsylvania, so I’m screwed anyway.”

“Uh-huh. Nice pose.” He takes a swig of Hammerclaw. “Don’t hold it too long or you’ll freeze like that.”

“It’s not a
pose
.”

“Then that’s just sad.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“Right. ‘Cause everyone else is all meaningless random hookups in men’s rooms.”

“Maybe not everyone, but‌—‌”

“Ew.
Brandon
. Do you write NOM propaganda in your spare time?”

“Look at you, though.”

“What about me?”

“What’s your number? Like, fifteen? Twenty?”

He straightens and flutters his eyelashes. “Five, since you asked so
politely
, and I was safe every time, and three I actually dated. And FYI, asshole, I never once cheated.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t!”

“You’re a unicorn, then.” I shrug and
take a pull
of Hammerclaw, the way tough guys are always taking pulls at their beers in the detective novels Dad reads. I’m coming off like a jerk, but it’s too late to backtrack. “Just think I’m better off alone.”

“Don’t be a doof. Think of everything you’ll miss! Don’t you want someone to mock bad movies with? And like, skinny-dipping and diner eggs at midnight and snowball fights and come on: first kisses? How great are they, right?”

I peer in my bottle and wish I was a genie who could vaporize and hide inside.
Ryan Dervitz.
His moonface pale against the school’s dark brick. The shock of his soft lips brushing my skin. The little-kid crack in his voice when he yelled after me‌—‌
Hey! I’m sorry!‌—‌
and I just kept running and running.

“Can we not talk about that?”

Abel looks surprised. “Why?”

“It’s too‌…‌um.”

“What?”

“Sacred.”

“Effing Zander.” He shakes his head. “That guy. The sex must’ve been‌—‌”

“Spectacular.” My leg jitters. Can he tell I’m lying? I picture it with Sim, how it would be to lie with him under cool white sheets. “Like, intergalactic.”

“Did you kiss him first or did he kiss you?”

“I don’t‌—‌”

“I’ll tell you about my first time with Kade. We were at his parents’ pizza place at two a.m., and they have one of those kiddie rooms with the plastic balls, and‌—‌”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Whatever! Just tell me one place you did it.”

“In the silken softness of beach sand, under three alien moons.”

He squints. “Is that from a Cadsim fic?”

“Yep.”

“You asshat.”

He cracks up and kicks me under the table. Abel has perfect teeth, which is annoying, and now I can’t unsee the Olivier/cockatoo thing. He does kind of look like an old-timey movie actor. Broad rounded shoulders, strong straight nose, subtle chin divot, green-gray eyes that are probably capable of smoldering under the right circumstances. And the white hair does look feathery. I never looked at it for this long. I wonder what it feels like. If it’s soft and floaty or stiff with mysterious product. If I touched it‌—‌

“Oh my God.”

He’s staring at the bar. His jaw cranks open.

“Ohhhhhhh,
shit
.”

Hell Bells.

My skin prickles. I keep my eyes on my beer.

“What?” I whisper.

“This is it. It’s fate, Brandon.”

“What’s fate?”

“Don’t. Look.”

“Who is it?”

“That guy.”

“Who?”

“Him. Team Android Shirt! From the Q&A.”

“Ugh, you scared me.”

“You should be scared. He could be your destiny‌—‌
don’t look!”

“You said we’d forget that stuff tonight.”

“Yeah, but this is too perfect!‌…‌Omigod. Omigod, he sees you.”

“So?”

“You have to talk to him.”

“I don’t, actually.”

“Yes.
Yes.
After the Bill Debacle? Prove you can do this.”

“My knee hurts.”

“What are you, eighty? Here, drink the rest of this. It’ll help your personality.”

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Don’t do that! He doesn’t want to think about you peeing.”

“I don’t care what he thinks!”

“He’s getting his drink‌…‌Oh, Brandon, a Kamikaze? He’s a total Cadmus.” He drains the beer, slams the bottle down. “Trust me, Tin Man. You need this.”

Abel gets up and cracks his knuckles. I say
no
, I feel like I say it a hundred times but he isn’t hearing. He’s loping to the bar with that casual Cadmus swagger and lighting up a smile and the guy in the black Team Android t-shirt‌—‌cute, with wavy blond hair and multi-pierced ear‌—‌smiles back right away. I watch them talk, my heel hammering the floor. It’s so stupidly easy for him. He could do this any day of the week. Maybe he’ll change his mind, keep this one for himself.

The guy looks over. He nods and gives me a little wave. I wave back. I’ll kill Abel. Absolutely murder him.

Team Android starts over to the table.
Status: All systems destabilized. Meltdown approaching.

Bree LaRue cries,
Sim is completely asexual!
Father Mike opens to Chapter 3 of
Put on the Brakes!:
When you feel “temptation devils” dancing on your shoulder, just imagine a life alienated from God, full of cheap, temporary pleasures that leave you more and more hopeless and empty. Is that what you really want?

“Are you Brandon?”

I open my eyes.

Say something. Be calm.
Be Sim.

“I am. Yes.”

“I’m Ian. Saw you at the Q&A.”

He holds out his hand and gives me a big friendly smile. A real flesh-and-blood boy with kind eyes and a Celtic cross necklace and really, really nice forearms. His presence thrums through me. If I wanted to, I bet we could be kissing in an alley before the next jukebox song is done.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Yeah‌…‌”

I feel my back against a brick wall, my shorts unsnapping.

“Yeah you mind, or yeah you don’t?”

“Um‌…‌”

Ian blinks twice, waiting. His eyes are gray, almost Sim-silver. The back of my throat goes sour.

“You okay?” says Ian.

“Yeah. Sure. I just‌—‌” I feel myself blushing again, which makes me blush more. His weirdo-detector starts pinging, you can tell.

“What’s wrong?” he says.

At the bar, Abel raises a bottle and an eyebrow. I want to explode his head, burn his $600 fake python boots and his cheap Cadmus shades. I hate Cadmus.
Hate.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” I blurt. “My boyfriend’s twisted.”

“Your‌—‌him? That Abel guy?”

“Yeah.” I aim a glare at the bar.

“He said you weren’t together.”

“Well, we are, but I don’t know why.” What am I doing? “He’s pretty rotten. He loves seeing other guys flirt with me, and he knows I get embarrassed, but he does it anyway. It like, turns him on.”

“Ew.”

“I know.”

“So he set me up?”

“He set us both up. It’s one of his sick little power games.”

“Wow. Uh‌…‌okay. Sorry.” He shoots a dark glance in Abel’s direction. Abel gives him a goofy thumbs-up. “’Scuse me.”

I’m not proud of myself while Ian’s bitching out Abel. I thought it would be more satisfying, but instead it just feels like that time in the sacristy when I blamed Pete Mertz for knocking over the Communion wine. The more Abel protests, all cartoony
wasn’t-me
flailing, the more pissed off Ian gets. He finally leaves the bar, slamming the door behind him.

Abel clomps to our table. Tank Top Guy smirks.

I get a whack on the head with the heel of his hand.

“That was mean, Brandon!”

“Ow.”

“Listen, toolbox: I don’t know what head games you and Zander used to play, but I don’t do that shit.
C’est compris
?”

“Yeah‌…‌” Cartoon stars, little birdies of pain. I deserve them.

“What kind of person are you? Seriously?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, what‌—‌you get your heart smashed one time by one loser and you think you get to be Mayor of Doucheville the rest of your life? Because let me tell you something, absolutely no one’s going to‌—‌oh,
shut up!”

He yanks his buzzing phone from his pocket. Beer sizzles in my stomach; I’m not used to making people mad.
Get out of this place. Say three Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.

“Oh.” Abel’s mouth drops open a little. “Oh my.”

“What?”

He taps the phone screen. “Nothing.”

“Tell me!”

“We got a text. From Bec.” He sighs. “Don’t freak, okay?”

He turns the screen around.

NEW HELL BELLS POST @CADSIM COMM

OMG FREAKY

HURRY B4 THEY DELETE IT

Chapter Seven

“I got a screencap. Don’t worry.”

By the time we get to the Cadsim fanjournal on Abel’s phone, the Post of Doom’s been blipped into oblivion. Bec’s prepared, though. When the cab drops us off near our SavMart campsite, she’s waiting for us in the doorway of the Sunseeker with her glasses on and her hair in a she-means-business bun.

“It was so dramatic, you guys.” She yanks us inside and locks the door. “They all attacked like, the second she posted. It was like a steak in a shark tank.”

She points to the laptop. Onscreen is another post by hey_mamacita, featuring a brand-new photo of me and Abel. New as in taken this afternoon, at the Q&A,
without our knowledge.
It’s a shot of our backs. We’re standing in front of the pull-down screen, watching the fanvids. There’s a very, very creepy graphic overlay on the photo: a big circle with a cross inside it.

Like we’re peering at ourselves through a gunsight.

HELL BELLS ARE RINGING
THANK YOU CLEVELAND SPY
WE ARE WATCHING YOU BOYS!!
(BFC = coming very VERY soon.)

Under that:

cavegrrl94: 
 MAXIE THIS IS IT. BAN HER NOW.

willabelle: 
 uugggghhhhh this whole thing is SO vile and hideous. I’m actually concerned, you guys. I thought it was all a joke but now I think they’re FOR REAL.

mrs.j.cadmus: 
 whatever. i used to hate the hell bells thing but now I’m like screw it, have at ‘em

willabelle: 
 Still, guys. I know we’re all extra angry after today, but Brandon and Abel are people too.

illumina: 
 THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE THEY ARE HEARTLESS GOONS AND DESERVE ETERNAL FIERY TORMENT.

Another sign. Are you listening yet?
says Father Mike.

“They took our picture,” says Abel. “Three feet away.”

What else will they do?

“This is hardcore. We have organized haters.” Abel clasps his hands. “You guys?”

“What.”

He sighs dreamily. “I’m so
proud!”

I stand without knowing where I’m going. Dishes. Perfect. They stack up so fast. I go to the sink and fill it halfway with water, hot as I can stand it, and three pumps of Mom’s lemon dish soap. Then I grab a clean sponge and start scrubbing. Hard.

Abel stage-whispers, “What’s with him?”

“I don’t know,” Bec says softly.

“Brandon?”

I don’t answer. I plunge a plate in the little basin and Abel’s disgusting chili remnants dissolve in the white cloud of suds. He’s saying something to Bec. Something I don’t want to hear, about time alone with me or whatever. I try to clearly communicate my wishes to her with the side of my head, but our telepathy isn’t what it used to be, because she gets up from the table and slips out the door.

Abel comes over. I feel him watching me for a minute, leaning up against the counter.

“You’re really freaked out,” he says.

Eternal fiery torment.

“Just tired.” I start filling the basin again. Hot rinse.

“I’m sure it’s just a big joke.”

“I’m sure it is.”

He reaches over and shuts my water off. He lets his hand brush mine as he pulls it back and I get this stupid lightning-flash impulse to grab it and tell him the whole truth. Pull the plug from the drain. Tell him all about Father Mike. Fake Zander.

“I shouldn’t have done that before,” he says. “Sent Ian over.”

“It’s fine.” I don’t look at him. “I was a jerk too.”

“No, you want to know why I did it? Why I care or whatever?”

I stare into the sink, at the suds escaping down the drain. Abel picks up the silver
Castaway Planet
superball he bought from one of the vendors. He starts bouncing and catching in a slow clockwork rhythm:
shthunk, twack, shthunk, twack.

“Jonathan,” he says.

“Who?”

Shthunk, twack.

“My Zander.”

I’m not sure I want to hear more, but that never stops Abel, and before I can make up some excuse he’s pulled me into his tenth-grade trauma and I’m there with him at this holy roller wedding, exchanging sultry looks with the pretty blond boy at the groom’s table. “I knew I was getting in trouble,” he says. “Everyone at the wedding had like fourteen kids with the same haircut and a Jesus fish on their car, and they all made this huge creepy deal about how the bride and groom hadn’t even kissed yet, like not even one single time. I mean, freako.”