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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 fucked 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 crashfuclass="underline"

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.