How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

Chapter Fifteen


SAN ANTONIO.

SHIRTLESS. HAND. HOLDING.

*OMG DEAD.*

(photos inside!!)





amity crashful: ABANDON IS REAL OMG OMG I’M STROKING OUT



doomerang: *ovaries exploding*



whispering!sage: baking celebratory snickerdoodles!



sorcha doo: retro robot how are u still alive



retro robot: haha I don’t know! I saw them run right in front of me holding hands and I was like OMG I just wrote porn about you an hour ago‌…‌sooo surreal



a_rose_knows: Can we call it official yet??!?!?! obvs something going on



sadparadise: idk idk it seemed like just a joke. or a dare maybe. brandon’s way too neurotic to do that on his own.



doomerang: Still, you guys. SHIRTLESS. HAND. HOLDING.



retro robot: They are legit doing it. That is all.



lone detective: They may be getting closer but I don’t think it’s a done deal yet. And I hate to be Debbie Downer but Disturbing Thought: ***could*** it be fanservice?



thanks4caring: omg. what if Miss queen bitch Maxima spilled about us???



whispering!sage: nope. no way. she’d never ever mention us to them. she’s uber creeped out by real-person shipping.



sorcha doo: if they get together global warming will stop and wars will end and kevin will love me again.



amity crashful: hey_mamacita are you here?? we neeeeeeeed you.



hey_mamacita: OMG SOBBING AND SHAKING AND VOMITING RAINBOWS. LIKE WHAT IS THIS LIFE EVEN.



amity crashful: your last fic made me cry like a bb



hey_mamacita: LISTEN: it’s not fic anymore. okay? It is PROPHECY. i mean SHIT ON A SHINGLE, SON it is SO CLOSE to happening and I don’t give a porcupine’s bumhole what maxie & her minions at Cadsim think. anyone can see how far they’ve come. look at brandon’s body language in Photo 1: looser, more open. examine abel’s eyes in Photo 4: they have that silvery sparkle now when brandon looks at him. THINGS. HAVE. EVOLVED.



amity crashful: omg I worship you. Never stop saying words.



hey_mamacita: I won’t!! EVER. not until they’re together for 10000000% sure. SWEET FANCY MOSES IN A HULA SKIRT, BOYS, just freaking do it already! We are‌…‌




“‌…‌Dying over here!” Abel rakes his hands across his chest and slowly teasingly trails them downward, his second Spaceman Straw dangling from his lips. I cough out smoke and we laugh laugh laugh and our laughing sounds huge as if there are a hundred of us in the Sunseeker, communing with the Abandon shippers and huffing in some serious wisdom.

“How are u still alive?” I ask Abel and he giggles.

“IDK, IDK.” He flops down on the pinecone rug. “I saw you shirtless and OMG, dead! Vomiting rainbows!”

“Ooh, turn over, turn over.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah‌…‌”

“Why?”

I shake my head and whistle. “DAT ASS.”

We explode again and it hurts this time, like the laughing is turning me inside out. Bec is perched up in the loft with her ankles crossed and my Phillies shirt on and she watches us like a wise old owl in a children’s story who hoots about danger to kids who won’t listen. She stopped after a couple puffs. I probably should’ve too but oh well.

“Father Mike would be so disappointed,” she tsks. “Your bodies are temples, guys‌…‌”

She says his name and my memory strains; he’s a book I read once in first grade and can only remember part of a picture, a snippet of a sentence. Snippet. Is that a real word? I lean my head back and swivel in the desk chair and feel like I’m falling but gently, like a million dandelion seeds after someone puffs them free.

“Oh babe‌—‌look look!” Abel pokes my ankle with the head of Plastic Sim. I’m in his red SEX BOMB shirt and it smells like his soap and sweat. “They’re already making macros from your shirtless picture.”

“Beautiful.”

“Abandon shippers are so much more awesome than Cadsim shippers.”

“We have very smart fans.” The ceiling is the most amazing shade of white.

“They love us, so they must be smart. OH! Oh, we should tell them how smart and awesome they are!”

“Shhhhhhh!” I sit up fast. The room whirs. “No no no no‌…‌”

“They wouldn’t know it was us. Bec joined with a sockpuppet‌—‌hey Rebecca? What’s our username, doll?”

Bec sighs. “brandonrox.”

“Perfecto.” Abel takes another drag and grins around a channel of smoke. He cracks his knuckles and starts typing and he’s so so fast, like I bet he’s the world’s very fastest hunt and pecker, and he reads out loud while he types.

“Dear Abandon shippers: you are the greatest! I’m friends with Bec and have met Brandon many times and you’re totally right, he is a neurotic mess‌…‌”

“Hey!”

“But hopefully soon he will see the error of his ways and let Abel get in his pants‌…‌Is that right? Is that even English?”

“So to speak.” I get down on the floor and crawl over to him.

“Are these words supposed to be moving?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ugh. No more Spacemen.”

Bec turns over in the loft and switches my book light on and it glows like the pale third moon of Castaway Planet. Abel stabs out the Spaceman Straw and replaces it with a red lollipop from the bag of junk food we got at the 7-11. I unwrap my second cupcake and take a huge messy bite and oh God, I’ve never tasted anything so good. We bought so much incredible food. In the lobby at CastieCon we sold the signed action figure and the sweaty Augie Manners shirt to some trembling superfan who kissed us both on the lips and gave us a trading card of Cadmus and Sim on the mountaintop, so at this moment we are also five hundred dollars richer in addition to being high as the sun.

Abel refreshes the page.


amity crashful: OMG do you still talk to them??



lone detective: Are you for real?



retro robot: *HEART. ATTACK. IMMINENT.* Do they know about us?



sorcha doo: if they don’t are u going to tell them? pleeeeaaaasssssse don’t!!



hey_mamacita: SHHHHH BACK OFF. LET THE MAN OR LADY SPEAK.




“Our fans. Are so. Amazing.” Abel flexes his fingers over the keyboard.

“Don’t be mean to them.”

“Are you kidding? They’ll love this.”

They don’t know. And I won’t tell. I’m sort of a shipper myself, to be honest.


sorcha doo: lol what do u know about Brandon. can u give us more details



whispering!sage: yes please. insider details. we will venerate you forever and bake you snickerdoodles. from scratch.



lone detective: IF you’re legit. Ha.




Oh, I’m legit. Let’s see‌…‌

Abel looks me up and down.

Brandon’s eyes, close up, are the deep and mysterious blue of an ocean at midnight. His hair smells intoxicating, like freshly mown grass and dryer sheets. He is a man of exquisite intelligence and sensitivity, as evidenced by his music collection which is crammed with Dylan and Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith and a buttload of other dead or half-dead singer-songwriter types. He irons his shorts, he reads vintage Ray Bradbury, and he likes plates with compartments because he can’t stand when food touches other food, which could be annoying but is actually kind of adorable.

Plus‌…‌he secretly thinks Cadmus is H-O-T-T.

He taps post comment and cringes. “Don’t kill me!”

I don’t care about the Cadmus thing though, the room is spinning and why why why did he type adorable, like, you wouldn’t type that about someone unless you thought it on some level, right?

“Does my hair really smell like grass?”

“And Bounce. I wouldn’t lie about something so important.”

He aims a sparkly shivery grin at me. I lean over him and refresh the page.


hey_mamacita: I choose to believe you, mysterious stranger.



sorcha doo: me too me too me toooo omg 5 million goosebumps rte now



lone detective: Sounds a little too breathless for me, tbh.



thanks4caring: what about Abel? Do you know him too?? DETAILS.




I drag the laptop up on my knee.

“What’re you doing?”

“Shh.” I’m already typing.

His shoulders bunch and he fakes a shudder. “Should I be scared?”

I narrow my eyes. “Terrified.”

I don’t know Abel as much as I know Brandon. However, I can tell you that he smells like cinnamon soap, he has beautiful greenish eyes like old bottles you find on the beach, and when he makes Mac-in-a-Minit it comes out extra cheesy. He gets excited about everything remotely cool or interesting, even a dumb belt buckle with a rooster on it, and he makes you excited about it too. He’s a great hugger and a compulsive matchmaker and he loves karaoke even though he can’t sing and he’s sweet and patient with his friends, even when they’re hopelessly screwed up. And reportedly Brandon thinks he looks amazing in his new snakeskin bomber jacket, even though he kind of made fun of it at first.

ALSO, here’s a scoop for those of you attending the Castaway Ball in Long Beach. THEY’RE GOING. Together. I heard Abel bought the tix before the trip even started.

“Wowww.”

Abel’s chin is on my shoulder and his finger is tracing my words in the comment box and the room is seriously tilting, his warm breath prickling my neck and setting off tiny electric shocks all through my arms and legs. My knee is touching the wreckage of a WordWhap game from earlier; the tiles are all jumbled now except for Abel’s winning word: R-A-P-T-U-R-E.

I tap post comment.

The community goes ballistic.


amity crashful: I am smiling so hard I literally cannot feel my face now



sorcha doo: i squeed so loud my mom came running she thought i was dying lol



hey_mamacita: HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL EVERYONE PAINT YOURSELF A TECHNICOLOR PICTURE OF THE GLORIOSITY THAT AWAITS AT THE CASTAWAY BALL. IT IS JUST EXACTLY WHAT I PLANNED FOR THEM. i’m not even kidding you guys. chapter 18 of “how to repair a mechanical heart,” verbatim from my outline: Brandon and Abel attend the ball together at the Long Beach con. By now Brandon has fully connected with his inner Cadmus and Abel has embraced his inner Sim, so they show up dressed as each other’s ultimate fantasy. Hot Abandon action on the dance floor ensues.



retro robot: OMG mamacita that is eerie. I love you so much.



sorcha doo:   mamacitaaa u give me life.



hey_mamacita: THIS HAS TO HAPPEN. WE WILL WRITE IT INTO BEING.




We can’t stop giggling. I shove the laptop off me and Abel takes its place, he twists around and drops his head in my lap and laughs through his fingers and wow his head is heavy and beautiful, like some sort of ancient stone that glows inside and holds all the secrets of the universe. He clasps Plastic Sim to his chest. I pluck Plastic Cadmus from my neckband. I walk him down my arm, hop him lightly over Abel’s smooth forehead, nose, chin, throat. I tap his clavicle with Cadmus’ tiny boot.

“Hey. Tin Man.”

Abel closes his eyes and grins. “Yes, Captain.” He gets the Sim voice just right: smooth and clipped, like a sexy GPS.

“Got a proposition for ya.”

“I shall look forward to receiving it.”

I draw a slow circle around Plastic Sim with the head of Plastic Cadmus, skimming the center of Abel’s chest. I pretend it’s my finger there, tracing and retracing a ring around his heart.

“We should do it,” I murmur.

Abel’s eyes fly open wide and I see Bec sit up in the loft.

“No. No no, not that.” I pat his hair. It’s so soft, like fresh cotton candy. “I mean we should give the fans what they really want. At the nerd prom.”

“I should deflower you under the disco ball?”

“Nooo‌…‌But what about a kiss?”

He lifts his head off my lap.

“For serious?”

“Why not? We’re the creators.”

“Like, full-on‌—‌”

“Full-on fanfic fantasy. We’ll dress like Sim and Cadmus. Plan the whole thing out this week. Their heads will explode.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I mean‌…‌” He picks at the pinecone rug, biting back a smile. “Can you handle that?”

I quote hey_mamacita’s new chapter. “I’m ready for anything.”

“Brandon?” Bec’s shimmying down from the loft. “Can I see you a second?”

“What’s up?”

“Outside. It’s about Dave.”

“Sure‌…‌”

She hurries me outside to the kiddie playground two RVs over and it’s so so beautiful, it’s like a snapshot of every summer we RVed together as kids, the same creaky swings and dented slide and monkey bars curved in a rainbow arch. You can almost taste the juice boxes and smooshed PBJs. She sits me down on the rusted merry-go-round and claps her hands on my shoulders.

“Remember that time‌—‌”

“‌—‌we exploded marshmallows in your mom’s microwave? Yes.”

She sighs. “Remember two years ago, when Nick Fazzolari wanted to take me to Burning Man and when I told you about it you just did this with your eyebrows and then the next day I backed out?”

“Yeahhh‌…‌”

She gives me the eyebrows.

“Aw, what?”

“I’m ready for anything?”

I tamp down a laugh. “So?”

“This is quite the turnaround.”

“Yeah, well, it happens.” I stretch out on the merry-go-round platform. “Sudden conversion. Road to Damascus. Bam!”

“Uh-huh.” She climbs up next to me. “Tell me you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s all fake. Relax.”

“Fake.”

“Yes.”

“A hundred percent fake.”

“Yes.” I think about Abel’s head in my lap. “‌…‌Eighty-five percent.”

“Brandon!”

“What?”

“Just‌—‌proceed with caution.”

“It’s Abel.”

“Hence my concern.”

“He’s awesome.”

“Yeah, but‌—‌”

“I thought you wanted me to find someone. You were like, ‘you can’t stay f*cked up forever’‌—‌”

“I know! I do. I want you to. Just‌…‌”

She sighs and leans her head back on the metal bar, like she used to during our late-night campground games of Truth or Dare.

“Just be careful,” she says. “Don’t lose yourself in this too fast.”

“Whatever. Old Brandon was nothing but‌…‌tin and bones.” I crack up at my own stupid joke. “Who cares about him?”

“I do,” she says softly.

I feel a distant twinge because I’ve made her sad for some reason I can’t grasp but really I just want her to worship the stars with me which are bigger and brighter than I’ve ever seen, I guess because we’re deep in the heart of Texas like that song from freshman chorus said. I lift my finger to the sky and play connect the dots. “Becky,” I say, because I haven’t called her Becky in forever, and I love her and her hair is so pretty in the lavender light of the bug zappers.

“Yes, Brandon.”

“Father Mike was right.”

She lifts her head. “Huh?”

“God works in very, very mysterious ways.”

“Oh boy.”

“Every world, even this one, has its unexpected mercies.”

“Easter sermon?”

“Episode 1-16.”

“Okay, weirdo.” She kisses me on the forehead. “Clearly you’re hopeless tonight.”

She swings herself off the merry-go-round and gives it a shove before she scuffs away. I always forget how strong she is. The platform spins and rattles and the stars whirl into streaks and if hey_mamacita were writing this she’d say it was like the crash of the starship in the Castaway Planet pilot, the last thing they saw before they all clasped hands and said their brave goodbyes, and then woke up bloody and alive on a whole new planet.

I picture hey_mamacita crosslegged on the platform beside me, the red heart on her ragged t-shirt flickering like a hundred tiny votives. Her dreadlocks are streaked with gray and she smells like clean dirt and salt water and her knife halo glints, ready to defend me. She rests her rough hands on mine like a different kind of mother, the kind who roller-derbies and lives in an electric blue cottage and writes campy redemptive porn about you, and she leans close and whispers in my ear: Don’t worry, she says. Even God ships Abandon.

I wait for Father Mike, for a random earthquake to hit or an airplane part to fall from the sky and crush me but nothing happens, nothing nothing nothing and I feel pure liquid freedom shoot through all my veins at once.

It’s set.

Six days. First kiss. A fake kiss, but whatever. It’s a start.

SWEET BABY MOSES ON A MOTORBIKE, says hey_mamacita.

And I’m like, What have I done?





hey_mamacita: THE CASTAWAY BALL CREED. a communal prayer by the church of abandon.



sorcha doo: omg lol



hey_mamacita: O MY FELLOW DISCIPLES

i call on you now, as our blessed boys

tango straight to the edge of their incandescent fate

FOR THE LOVE OF ST. IGNATIUS LET US GIVE DESTINY A RUTHLESS FREAKING TURBOCHARGE



sorcha doo: let us hold nightly abandon prayer circles lol



a_rose_knows: Let us create a new Abandon playlist: 1. “Strange Powers” ~ Magnetic Fields 2. “Heartbeat Song” ~ Futureheads ‌…‌



retro robot: Let us assail the universe all week long with the hottest dancefic our giant intellects can produce.



whispering!sage: we shall make them make out on the dance floor like whoa



amity crashful: omg to “such great heights.” that song is everything they choose to be.



hey_mamacita: YEA, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, they shall dress up like sim and cadmus and give each other overpowering hotpants as they do each other’s makeup and sensuously button each other’s buttons.



sorcha doo: **dead**



retro robot: May our words take wing and lead them ever closer to each other as their wheels roll closer and closer to Long Beach. May they lock eyes over Ramen noodles in the RV and waltz in a Laundromat as their clothes entangle in the dryer.



hey_mamacita: we ask this in the name of the Captain, the Android, and the Holy Spirit of One True Love.



amity crashful: amen!!!



retro robot: Amen.



hey_mamacita: AMEN.