by J. C. Lillis
He giggles. “What’re you doing, freako?”
“Sorry, it’s driving me nuts.”
Be careful, says Father Mike.
Abel catches my hand and twirls me around. “Let’s get on.”
“What?”
“The Tilt-a-Whirl.”
“Nah.”
“Why?” He cocks his head at me. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No! No, I love rides,” I lie. “It’s just—I just ate, you know?”
“Oh, come on. Pretend it’s the Starsetter. We can write our very own horrible Cadsim fic.” He’s edging us close to the Tilt-a-Whirl line. “I’m a rogue captain on the run…I steal a starship and kidnap you, the hot navigation android programmed to do the right thing…or are you?” Couples step up on the creaky platform, settle into identical half-shell cars. “How should our fic start? We get stuck in an elevator—”
“No no. We meet in your bar,” I break in, ducking away from the line. “It’s an alternate-universe earthfic.”
“Bold choice,” Abel follows me, grinning. “Okay. You be Cadmus.”
“Noooo.”
“Why not? Stretch yourself.”
“No way.”
“Okay, fine.” Abel slips on his Cadmus shades and makes wiping motions above a picnic table. “Hey there, customer. What can I pour you this fine evening?”
“Oh, ah, I am unsure.” My ears get hot. Why did I start this? “I am an android, and as such I have no need to imbibe.”
“So how come you’re at my bar?”
“I cannot say. Perhaps a malfunction in my compass application.”
Abel narrows his eyes, like Cadmus does when he’s negotiating with Xaarg. “I smell a lie,” he says. “You came to get laid, didn’t you?”
Two nuns stroll by. My face burns. “Negative,” I murmur.
“Aw, why not? Makes you feel like a real boy.”
“I am uninterested.”
“Uninterested? You smooth like a Ken doll down there?”
“On the contrary. While I have had many, ah, high-quality partners, the simple fact is—”
Flirting can seem like harmless fun—Chapter 8, Put on the Brakes!—But that person you’re teasing is a vessel of the Holy Spirit. Should you really be treating them like a carnival ride?
“Ye-es?” Abel’s grinning. Waiting.
I clear my throat, scramble for Sim words.
They’re gone.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why not? You’re good.”
“No, it’s just—you know.”
“What?”
I gallop my fingers on the picnic bench. Think. Think. Lie. “Um, well, Zander and I used to joke around like this all the time, so—”
“Oh my God!” Abel slams his hand on the picnic table. An abandoned paper boat of French fries tips off the edge, splatters ketchup in the grass. “Will you shut it about Zander already!”
“But it’s true.”
“I don’t care!”
“It’s just part of who I am. I can’t change it.”
“Christ.” He shoves both hands in his hair. “You know what, Brandon? You know what? That is IT!”
His hot hand locks around my wrist and before I can open my mouth again he’s yanking me through the crowd, past the Tilt-a-Whirl and the candy-striped tents and a bunch of kids playing that balloon-dart game that rattled my nerves as a kid. Pop pop pop. My insides crackle. He could do anything with me now, take me anywhere.
We stop behind the funhouse.
He slams me up against it.
I turn my face fast, fix my eyes on the funhouse mural. Creepy clowns, sword-swallowers, Mardi Gras masks.
“Look at me,” he hisses.
“Why?”
He grabs my face and turns my head slowly. My eyes press shut.
“Look at me,” he says.
I hear my dad: Never ever stare directly at the sun.
“Fine, then. Don’t. Just listen. Listen to every single word, okay?” He grips my shoulders. “Zander. Is. Gone. G-O-N-E. No more!—I’m serious, Brandon!” He shakes me. “This is total insanity and I want you to repeat after me: I. Am. Damaged.” Screams from the funhouse. “Say it!”
I whisper, “I am damaged.”
“I am acting like a pathetic irrational loonytunes in direct opposition to my actual awesomeness.”
“I’m pathetic,” I admit.
“I need to be punched in the face repeatedly and then kissed until my lips hurt.”
I open my eyes. Across from the funhouse, a mini-freefall jerks a carful of kids off the ground. They shudder to the top, right under a clown’s gruesome red mouth. The car stops a second, just for torture, and then drops them down with a mechanical whoosh like when Cadmus stole Sim, the door of his charging dock sighing open in a white breath of steam.
“Go ahead!” Abel prods. “Say it.”
“I need to be…”
“Say it! You know it’s true.”
“Punched…”
“In the face.”
“In the face.”
“Repeatedly.”
“And then—”
He kisses me.
It’s not gentle, the way I picture it with Sim. It’s rough and hard but in a funny way, like in old movies when their faces desperately smash together and then they break apart and breathe their poetic devotion. Abel’s hands are firm and warm around my face. The rest of the fair dissolves; I’m on another planet that’s spinning so fast I can feel it. The three silver moons of Castaway Planet dazzle in the hot black sky and his lips are Sim-blue and he smells sweet and dangerous, like liquor and cotton candy.
Status: All systems suspended.
Then it starts again. The thing that happened after Ryan Dervitz, in the Dairy Queen bathroom with my head between my knees. A rush of memories—Mom’s eyes welling up when I told her, Dad alone in the backyard staring up at my old treehouse, his hands stuffed in his pockets. And then Father Mike calmly crashing through my consciousness, like some movie hero busting down the door to a burning house. His face fills up the whole screen in my head. It isn’t an angry face. He never needs to be angry, not really, because he’s so sure he’s right.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
I shove Abel away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—just—”
I have to walk. Which way is the hotel parking lot? I don’t even know. I just start moving my feet. I dart across the street on a green light; a red car swerves and honks. My eyes flick over a sea of cars and lock onto the Sunseeker’s roof in the near distance. I pick up the pace. Abel’s big boots clap the blacktop behind me.
“What, you’re mad again?”
“No.”
“You are!”
“Stop talking, okay?”
“Brandon, look.” He swings in front of me. “I just—I was trying to help. I thought I could snap you out of it. Hey!”
He grabs my arm. The Sunseeker’s three rows away. His breath warms the side of my face.
“It’s not a big deal,” he whispers. “Okay?”
It’s not such a great exchange, is it? A few moments of pleasure, in exchange for—
“So is this how you act?” I shove his hands away. “Like, the day someone dumps you?”
“What?”
“You know.” I have no clue what I’m doing, but it’s too late now. “It’s kind of gross, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your ‘relationship.’”
“I’m not in one.”
“You were this morning.”
“I don’t live in the past.”
“I’ll say. You trying to get back at him?”
“No! No. That’s not what—”
“I think that’s exactly what it is.”
“Brandon, I swear—”
“You think you
’re so much better than he is? I think you just got lucky.”
“Lucky?”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. “That he cheated first.”
“Well, fuck you very much.”
“No thanks.” I start for the RV again.
“Right. Riiiiiight. Because anyone who touches precious little you has to be completely pure, oblivious to all others, a paragon of—”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Oh, fine. It’s fine. I mean, if we did it and you liked it, then you couldn’t feel sorry for yourself anymore, and then where would you be?”
He ducks in front of me again, sticks his hands on his hips.
“Get out of my way,” I mutter.
“I’m not good enough for you anyway, right? Like, who knows what I’ll make of myself? You want a med student with perfect hair and a wine cellar. ‘Ooh, look at us! We’re pre-engaged! He gave me his promise ring and someday we’ll get married and adopt an orphan from Zimbabwe and name him Aiden!’”
“Are you done?”
“Plus what would the rest of the Thumper family think?”
“My parents are not Bible thumpers!”
“They sure had it in for me.”
“Right.”
“I saw them. The way they looked at me when I met them? Tell me they weren’t judging me.”
“Maybe you deserve to be judged a little.”
He flinches like I’ve punched him. I want to take it all back, tell him there’s a monster snarling in my throat right now and he’ll say anything, anything to keep Abel away from me.
He steps close. I feel his breath feather my forehead. He touches his finger to the tip of my chin and tilts my face to his.
“I get it,” he says. “I’m a sinner. Is that right?”
“No—”
“You’re just like them. Just like your parents. You hate yourself, don’t you?” His fingers brush the side of my face, skate the curve of my jawline. “Or do you just hate me?”
“I didn’t mean it. I was just—”
“See, I knew something was off. Right? When you said you used to be an altar boy, I was like ‘how does he not have issues?’” He claps my shoulders. “Stellar job pretending, young man. Very convincing pantomime of sanity. I was fooled.”
“Abel.”
“Like, I can’t even be mad. You know? I just feel sorry for you.”
I wriggle away, speed-walk for the Sunseeker.
“Hey!” he calls. “Brandon!”
I walk faster.
“There’s no Zander, is there?”
He knows. He knows. I confirm it when I stop too short in front of the Sunseeker steps, as if the labyrinth monster from Episode 3-8 just reared up in front of me and peeled its black lips back from eight dripping fangs.
“Oh my God,” he says. “It’s true.”
Sweat prickles my neck. My stomach rethinks the lattes.
“I thought all those stories you told me sounded like bullshit but you know, I was like, ehh, his first love, you always remember it in such glowing terms and all. God, everything makes sense now!”
“Shut up.”
“That’s why you never had me over. Your stupid graduation party—that wasn’t family-only, right? You were just too chickenshit to invite me.”
“Abel—”
“What a coward. Unbelievable. You’re a virgin, right?”
My fists curl up.
“What is it? Do you like, see Jesus weeping on the cross when some guy tries to kiss you?”
“Stop talking.”
“What about when you fap? You’re not supposed to do that either, right? Do you have to flagellate yourself? Wear a hairshirt to bed? I bet you confess your—”
My hands crash into his chest and he staggers two steps backwards. This weird strangled sound punches out of him and he tugs down his t-shirt, gasping in a breath.
“What’re you doing?”
Crazy. He’s staring like I’m crazy. My palms smack his shoulders this time.
“Oh God, you’re ridiculous!” He catches both my wrists. “You’re seriously going to fight me?”
I yank free, answer him with another shove.
“Great.” He’s laughing. He shoves me back a little. “Do it! Get it all out, baby. Maybe then you’ll—”
I don’t hear the rest. I run right at him, ramming him with my whole upper body until his legs give out and we’re falling together and when his back hits the pavement it sends a rude jolt through my body: oh God I’m on top of him what do I do? How do I fight? I’ve only seen it on TV. I don’t want to punch him, Dad says one punch can kill someone if you know the right spot and I don’t but what if I hit it by accident? Abel lets out this nasty snicker then, like I’m some pathetic little kid, and my whole body lights up with rage and I feel my hand shoot out and Abel grabs his face, twisting away from me.
“Owww!” He shouts at the pavement. “Son of a bitch!”
My hand tingles. Blood trickles between his fingers.
“You slapped my nose, dipwad!”
“I—”
I made someone bleed.
“Son of a bitch!”
He kicks my leg with his heavy boot, hard. I kick him back. He lunges at me and we roll over and over, scratching and pulling, a cartoon cloud of elbows and hands and knees. He won’t give in and neither will I so we scuffle like that on the pavement until we hear the Sunseeker door swing open somewhere behind us, and Bec yells: “Guys. GUYS.”
I roll off him. He shoves me once more. I spit out gravel.
“What’re you doing?” Bec says.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Nothing,” I say.
We glare at each other.
Bec studies us, shaking her head. She’s changed: cutoffs and a red soccer shirt. She sits down on the bottom step and crosses her legs sloooowly, like she’s teaching a preschool class how it’s done.
“In case you’re interested,” she says, “I know what that Hell Bells thing is.”
The fight blips out of my head. We scramble over, attack her with what and how.
“Dave and I did some research after dinner. He was really sweet and concerned, Brandon, so I think you can cross him off the America’s Most Wanted list.” She takes out her phone, starts navigating. “Membership’s closed right now. I had to write to this hey_mamacita woman to join. I convinced her I had inside information on you. My icon’s your senior picture, Brandon; do you think that’s too on the nose?”
“Bec,” I say.
“Yes, Brandon.”
“Tell us.”
Her eyes flick across the little screen. “What would you like to know?”
“Are they just hating?” says Abel. “Or are they like, actively plotting?”
“Neither, you idiots.”
She holds the phone out to face us. I see the Gothic header first—THE CHURCH OF ABANDON—and then a tagline that says “Because love is like the Hell Bells: it comes when you least expect it.” Between the header and tagline is a doctored screencap from one of our first vlog posts. Abel’s hand is on my shoulder and we’re gazing at each other, halos bursting saintlike from our heads and a blue heart blinking between us.
“They’re shipping you.”
Chapter Twelve
Bec pours us some tea and leaves us alone. We sit at the Sunseeker table with Abel’s laptop, twin plumes of steam curling from our Grand Canyon mugs.
There are seventeen members. Sixty-five fics. Dissections of every single one of our vlog posts, starting with the very first one when I joked about the sandstorm CGI in Episode 4-05 and Abel “lovingly” punched my shoulder.
The most recent post is by a_rose_knows. She has a photo of herself as her icon. We recognize her right away from the coffee shop. The tinfoil Xaarg hat, the pink-rimmed glasses.
“A freaking spy,” Abel breathes. “Good. Lord.”
The post says:
; *Ahem.* Fellow Abandon Shippers:
HELL BELLS IN ATLANTA.
SPOTTED ~AND~ DOCUMENTED IN COFFEEHOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ear-flicking. Whispering. Sharing of snickerdoodles.
FULL-ON LIP-TO-EAR CONTACT.
[clicky here for photographic evidence!!]
“I might actually die,” says Abel.
“Click it,” I tell him.
The photos under the cut aren’t the posed ones Annie took. They must’ve snapped these from across the room with some kind of evil zoom lens that incriminates the innocent. In photo #1 Abel’s talking to me with his arm draped across the sofa back, leaning closer than I remember. In #2 he’s passing me the snickerdoodle half, and our fingers are brushing each other slightly. Then there’s #3, where—what?—I’m making a weird cupping gesture with both my hands. The last one contains the most damning piece of evidence: Abel’s leaning in and murmuring to me, probably about Kade or the stupid cave scene, and the angle makes it look like his lips are on my ear. Like, nibbling it or something. To underscore the significance of this imaginary gesture, a_rose_knows has blown up that part of the picture and circled my pixelated ear in red. This has made all the other usernames dementedly happy.
doomerang: omg you guys. I CAN’T EVEN.
amity crashful: rosey you are a heroic stalker, please have my babies
retro robot: They are flawless. That is all.
sadparadise: MY BRAIN JUST LEGIT EXPLODED
whispering!sage: snickerdoodles. the official cookie of us.
thanks4caring: lol @ brandon’s “cupping hands.” like, “abel baby, back yo ass up into these”
sadparadise: can you blame him? DAT ASS.
lone detective: Question: Is Brandon, in fact, wearing Abel’s shirt?
a_rose_knows: Yes, it looks that way, but I can’t confirm 100%. all I can say is, the convo they were having? INTENSE. You could tell.
doomerang: Rosey what were they doing when they left??
