How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

Chapter Seventeen


As soon as the four of us hit the lobby, we hear the Castaway Ball: thudding electro-pop, the din of half-drunk fans. I swallow hard, adjust my Cadmus shades. It’s like in the movies when someone’s about to be hanged in the square, and he hears the drums and the bloodthirsty crowd in the distance.

Forward march.

Abel jabs me with an elbow. “Ready for muchas smooches?” he snarks.

“Don’t sound so excited.”

“We’re going to make it a quick kiss, right? Leave the fans wanting more?”

“Sure.” I nod fast. “Right.” What does that mean?

“How many Abandon spies here tonight?”

“Um, three. At least.” A couple girls in Henchman robes giggle past us. “whispering!sage, amity crashful‌…‌hey_mamacita.”

“Aw. Your favorite.”

She could be in there already. She could be right on the other side of the ballroom door. I try to message her telepathically. Please please send me good vibes. Help tonight not be a total spacewreck.

My phone goes off. HOME CALLING. Not now. I wait till it stops and then I text back: ALLS WELL WILL CALL 2MORROW LOVE U.

Abel slips our silver tickets to a girl in a red-and-black striped suit and red Henchman contacts. She geeks out over our costumes, winds on our glow-in-the-dark wristbands, and passes us the question paddle Abel prepaid for and our VIP goodie bags.

Then the double doors swing open.

I’m like‌…‌swept away. It sounds like fluttery fanfic but there’s no other way to describe it. Entering the ball is like crashing on a planet where no one cares how you dress or how you dance or who you love. Everywhere you look there’s a beautiful weirdo: the guy gyrating on stilts in a homemade Xaarg cape, the chubby tattooed girl twirling in a skirt made of glow-sticks, the pale androgynous couple in matching Lagarde black leather. Beyond a cluster of small tables with glowing centerpieces shaped like Xaarg’s hat, there are even two girls dressed like Cadmus and Sim, holding hands on the edge of the dance floor.

Bec and Dave run off together, disappear into the churn of dancers. I just stand there in the doorway with Abel and grin like an idiot, the disco ball scattering stars on my face and the music pounding me a new heartbeat. I scan the crowd for hey_mamacita, for the sunflower she said she’d pin in her dreadlocks.

“The night that changed everything‌…‌” Abel says.

I look over at him, hopefully, but then I see he’s ripped his goodie bag open and is holding an oversized trading card, reading the caption under a picture of the smashed-up Starsetter.

“What’s in your bag?” he says.

I tear it open, not caring, still glancing around for dreads and a sunflower. A sheet of Castaway Planet logo stickers, a few jumbo trading cards, a silver favor bag of cinnamon jellybeans, and a reminder to purchase our pre-autographed Darras/Ransome photos from the booth to our immediate left.

“Thirty bucks? What a rook.” He’s already fishing in his wallet. “One David Darras,” he yells to the booth guy.

“Really?” I poke him.

“It’s for you, dimwit.”

“You don’t have to‌—‌”

He waves me off, grabs his change and the rolled-up photo. “Here, babe. Your hero.”

“What about your hero?”

“Eh. Got him in my head.”

I slide off the rubber band and unroll the photo. Darras is in his Sim costume, perfect as always, but the smile is stiff and cheesy and the signature’s so sloppy I can only read the Ds. It’s weird; a few weeks ago I would’ve held the photo up to the light to trace the whorls of his fingerprints, would’ve nearly passed out just knowing that David Darras was backstage and I was going to lay eyes on him in person within five minutes.

I blink at the photo. I don’t feel too much, just a little twinge. It’s only special now because Abel bought it for me.

“Thanks,” I tell him.

He looks away. “S’okay.”

Brandon gathered all his courage like dry tinder sticks and, with a sharp hopeful intake of breath, boldly lit the match.

“You‌…‌want to dance?”

“Umm.” He fiddles with the collar on his Sim shirt. “Maybe we should wait.”

I droop inside. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe‌—‌”

“THE MOMENT HAS ARRIVED.”

The music cuts off. The blue and purple lights stop pulsing. On the ballroom stage, a single spotlight pops on, and a slick-haired announcer in a tux jacket and logo t-shirt steps into place. Everyone flips into cutthroat mode, squeezing and elbowing toward the stage for prime Q&A real estate.

“Wanna get close?” Abel nudges me.

Yes. Yes.

I shrug carefully. “Let’s stay here.”

“Really?”

“We’ve got a question paddle. They’ll see us.”

“Don’t you want to see them?”

I’d rather see you. God, I need a better line. hey_mamacita, where are you?

“And NOW, Castie boys and girls,” the announcer’s saying, “it’s my honor and pleasure to introduce the men of the hour‌—‌the best of friends and the oddest of couples‌—‌” He winks, and then waits for the shipper squees to die down. “Let’s give a huuuuuuuuge Castie welcome to the Captain and the Android, ED Ransome and DA-vid DAR-rasssssss!”

Ransome and Darras trot out from behind the black curtain. Matching tuxes. Holding hands. When they hear how loud everyone’s cheering they play it up, raise their clasped hands high like a wishbone and stand there smiling while the whistles and hoots wash over them.

Abel tilts his head. “Ed Ransome’s shorter than I thought.”

I nod. And Darras is an alien without his pale Sim makeup. Tanned and blond and floppy-haired, with a soap-star smile and a loose, preening walk.

Maybe too loose.

“Your boy’s had a few,” whispers Abel.

“Okay, ohhhhhhh-kay, settle down,” Darras grins, waving his arms like a Muppet. “We know. We’re awesome.”

“Well, you’re awesome,” Ransome pouts. “I only aspire to awesomeness.”

“He sells himself short, guys. All the time. Kinda tragic, don’t you think?”

They pingpong some more. I am in the presence of David Darras, I remind myself, but it doesn’t take. I bump my hand against Abel’s a couple times, accidentally-on-purpose, hoping he’ll get all lust-crazed from gazing at Ed Ransome’s rugged face and spiky hair and slide his warm fingers through mine. He just stares straight ahead at the stage, this weird unreadable look on his face.

“‌…‌soooo we know you guys have your questions ready,” says Darras. “But how’s about we start with the big question that’s been on evvvveryone’s mind since the finale.”

Ed Ransome nods. “Right. ‘Is Cadmus dead?’”

“No no no, dear. Did we do it in the cave?”

Shrieks and catcalls from the Cadsim shippers peppering the crowd. A few boos sneak in, but barely; everyone’s too drunk and giddy for ship wars.

“Ohhh, trust me, superfans and slashers,” Darras says, eyeing up Ransome head to foot. “Ed and I discuss this nonstop.”

“It’s true. We do,” Ransome deadpans.

“He calls me at three in the morning, people, and asks if I want to ‘practice some kissing scenes’‌…‌you know, just in case.”

“He can’t get enough of me.”

“For realsies.”

“David.”

“Yes, Ed?”

“Don’t say for realsies.”

Darras shrugs. “So, anyway. Regarding Sim and Cadmus. Here’s what I think: there was plenty of buildup this season, their friendship’s been unfolding in a distinctly ambiguous direction since Day 1, and when two actors bring such undeniable personal chemistry to the table, it’d be a crime against nature to waste it.”

My head throbs. Yes. Yes. Say more.

“Sooo, as a hopeless romantic and the former treasurer of my high school GSA, I’m gonna say yes! Cave love: it totally happened!”

Two Cadsim girls in front of us lose their minds. Darras and Ransome lean closer and mouth some smiley mystery words to each other. Ransome puts a hand up, waits for the crowd to quiet.

“Welllllll, I happen to be a realist,” says Ransome, twisting the gold band on his thick tanned hand. “So since there’s no hard canon evidence yet, I’m going to poop everyone’s party and say no‌—‌”

Booing. Darras waves them quiet.

“HOWEVER, however,” Darras says. “Let’s clarify. You would not have been able to resist me, my dear.”

Ransome claps a hand to his chest. “Oh, well, that’s a given. Who could?”

A girl in the audience shouts something out. Darras cups his ear.

“What’s that? Yeah, you. Girl in the lovely dress with‌—‌ohh. Ed, is that an iron-on of us?”

“I believe it is.”

I crane my neck to see where he’s pointing. A stick-figure redhead twirls, shows off a blue t-shirt dress with a Cadsim-kiss manip on it.

“That is‌…‌oh, that is really quite special,” Darras says.

Abel mutters, “Miss Maxima minion.”

“Sweetie, you had a question?”

“Yes! Yes.” The girl scootches over to one of the mikes in the audience. “So would you guys‌—‌maybe show us what the kiss would’ve looked like? If it actually happened?”

A low expectant oooooooohhh travels the room. Abel freezes. He goes vacant, like Sim does when he’s plugged into his charging dock.

Darras puts on this innocent look and starts pacing the stage, swerving a little. “That’s‌…‌something you guys would be interested in, huh? I don’t know‌…‌”

Someone whips out the kind of whistle you use to hail a cab three lanes over. That sets the other girls off. More whistles, rowdy YEAHHHs. Darras and Ransome side-eye each other.

“Hmm.” Darras strokes his chin. “A real live Cadsim kiss‌—‌that’s what you guys call it, right? Cadsim?”

The girls in front of us are getting frantic now. I feel it. What they want is so close they’re afraid to trust it, afraid it’s a tease or a joke. Abel’s pale Sim face is three shades paler.

“Okay, but we want to know you realllllllly want it, right, Ed?”

“Nah, they don’t look like they want it.”

“They really don’t.”

“Maybe they should show us.”

I don’t know who starts the chant. But it picks up fast:

“Cad-sim, Cad-sim‌…‌”

“Eh, I don’t know, Ed. What do you think?”

“They’re pretty quiet, actually.”

They layer on claps and stomps, rattle the fake-wood squares of the dance floor. There can’t be this many Cadsim shippers here; it’s drunk girls up for anything, fans who want a good story to tell, people who think it’s just fun to shout: “CAD-sim! CAD-sim!”

“Uh-oh,” says Darras. “They’re getting hot and bothered.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Better break out your Chap-Stick, buddy.”

“CAD-SIM! CAD-SIM! CADDD-SIMMM!”

Darras scans the room, taking it all in: the women in costumes and shimmery prom gowns, ignoring their dates to plead with him.

Then he grabs Ed Ransome, dips him to one side, and gives the fandom the first and only official Cadsim kiss.

People must be screaming, because my eardrums hurt. And the flashing lights, I guess those are two hundred cameras catching history, snatching proof. This is how they did it. This is how they made it look real, even though the kiss was in shadow and no one actually saw their lips lock together. How Ransome’s arms flailed around at first, and then settled around Darras’s shoulders. How they gasped and flushed when they came up for air; made a big show of smoothing their shirts, fixing their matching bowties.

“I gotta call my wife,” says Ransome.

“I’ll explain everything,” says Darras.

They crack up, high-five. I lean my head back, let the disco ball paint me with spatters of light like Dad’s St. Christopher medal spinning from the Sunseeker rearview. I have to go through with this now. They made it look easy. For five seconds I’ll get to see how it feels, a perfect easy kiss with someone you trust completely. And afterwards I can smooth my shirt and clear my throat, pretend it was all a big joke. I can even borrow his words: I gotta call my wife.

I pop a Tic-Tac. Darras and Ransome are plugging ahead with the Q&A, but I don’t hear a word. My head’s ballooning with possibilities. Which way to tilt my head, where to put my hands.

Abel pokes me in the back.

“I gotta go,” he says. “Sorry.”

***


I keep pace beside him. Back through the ballroom doors, into the sallow chlorine-smelling hall, through the too-bright lobby with its throngs of late rumpled travelers.

If I keep up with him, I can tell myself he’s not walking away from me.

“You can stay,” he mutters. “Stay at the ball, Bran. Have fun.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“Since when?”

“I dunno.” We squeeze through a herd of businesspeople who gape at our costumes. “It just hit me. I guess maybe the sashimi‌…‌”

“Abel.”

“My dad says never to eat in hotel restaurants‌—‌this one time he had a bad shrimp cocktail at this medical conference in Florida and he‌—‌”

“Stop.” We’re at the elevators. Abel jabs the up button. “What’s going on?”

He looks at the floor. I wait for it: I can’t kiss you, even as a joke. You’re too neurotic. Too short. Too not-my-type-so-what-were-you-thinking-you-idiot.

“I don’t want to do that,” Abel says. “What they just did in there.”

“Okay.” I nod fast. “It’s okay.”

He holds the elevator door open. We step in.

“I know I said I would,” he says, “but‌—‌I mean, it’s just gross.”

I flinch. “It’s fine, okay? I get it.”

“Yeah. Right.”

He punches the button.

Three floors ping by.

“It’s so f*cking easy for you,” Abel blurts. “This whole thing‌…‌”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He turns his back on me. “Forget it.”

In bad elevator fics, Cadmus is always hitting the EMERGENCY STOP to pick a fight with Sim, which of course always turns into their heated bodies hungering in unison two paragraphs later.

I spot the red button. My hand shoots out.

We grind to a stop.

“What are you doing?” Abel’s voice spikes up an octave.

Crap. I didn’t think it would work.

“You seriously stopped the elevator?”

Brandon drew in a deep, calming breath. I can do this, he assured himself.

“I want to know what you mean,” I tell him. “Why is this easy for me?”

“Brandon‌—‌!”

I step in front of the button. “We’re not going until you tell me.”

“Fine.” He backs into a corner, as far from me as possible. “You went from one fake relationship to another, and it’s not fun anymore, and now we need to stop. Okay?”

“I thought you liked this.”

“I do. I did,” he says to his white Sim shoes. “But like, you get to play Cute Plastic Boyfriends with me for the camera, and it’s sweet and fun and safe for you and then you get to turn it off and walk away.” I open my mouth but he holds up a hand. “And I mean, look: it’s my fault. Okay? I was the idiot. Because I said yes to this fake-flirting thing like it was a game and I shouldn’t have said yes because I knew this would happen, I knew I was getting this diabolical crush at just the wrong time and I’d be in over my head but I couldn’t say no to you and now it’s gotten too weird and too dangerous and I have to end it because one thing I really really cannot do is have you break my heart, because then we probably couldn’t be friends. And I want to stay friends. No matter what. Don’t you?”

I blink at him. My Abel-to-English decoder spits out the results.

Holy Saint Peter on a hoverboard.

Hot chills wash over me. I take a step closer.

“What do you mean,” I say, “break your heart?”

He closes his eyes. The mechanical heart blinks slow and steady.

“Don’t make me say it,” he whispers.

The rough draft of tonight’s story was set in my head this morning, but now it’s rewriting itself into something ten times better. It makes a weird kind of sense. It’s not going to happen in some expected place like the dance floor, while “Such Great Heights” tweedles in the background and the disco ball bathes us in generic starshine. It’s going to happen in a stopped elevator, like the worst, hackiest Cadsim fic on the Internet, only now it’s for real and it’s going to be amazing, just like if hey_mamacita had stayed up all night to get every detail just right.

I kiss him.

Brandon’s blood sizzled as his lips met Abel’s: his body sang an anthem of strength and softness, of celebration unshackled from fear. I’M KISSING A BOY, he silently shouted. They conjugated the verb with rapture and wonder and cinnamon-flavored bliss. Kiss, kissing, kissed. And kissed again.

We break apart, the scent of cinnamon jelly beans tickling my nose.

“You don’t have to,” he mutters.

“Abel‌—‌”

“You just think you like me,” he says to the floor. “That’s all this is.”

“That’s all it ever is.”

“You think you do, because you told me all those private things and we like, bonded, and maybe you think you owe me‌…‌” His eyes are filling up. “Or maybe‌—‌”

“Abel.”

He looks up. “What?”

“I think I love you,” I tell him.

It slips out soft and quiet, and so easily I think maybe I didn’t say it out loud. But then I see his face, and I know I did. He tilts my face in his warm hands and kisses me back, and it’s like one of those perfect TV kisses they save for May sweeps, the ones the previews tease you about all season until you swear it won’t happen, and then when it does the forums blow up and the fans add eighteen exclamation points to everything and swear they’ll never ask God for anything else for as long as they live.

Abel rests his forehead on mine.

“That is most welcome news, Captain.”

I don’t call him Tin Man. I exhale, for the first time in five minutes.

I hit the elevator release, and we’re on our way.