“Really.”
“I mean, whatever: you guys are pretty hot together. I’ll admit. I wouldn’t have kept writing that silly fic if you weren’t, you know…compelling in some way. But taking your past into consideration?” She makes a dismissive tch sound. “I don’t think you’re ready for a relationship.”
I feel six inches high. “That’s…mean.”
“No it’s not. Look, I freaked when I saw your schmoopy post that night. It was a total what-have-I-done, Frankenstein’s-monster moment. I had no clue it would go this far.”
“Yeah, well, we would’ve—”
“Hooked up anyway? Maybe, maybe not. It’s a bad idea regardless. I’m a screwed-up Catholic too, you know? I sympathize. I mean, Missy’s too full of herself to have hangups but I’m a total chickenshit in real life, to the point where I’m too chickenshit to even deal with being chickenshit, which means I’ll never get anything figured out.” She pops a handful of gummy bears. “I’ll probably be a virgin till I die. I think I might be a lesbian. Or maybe I’m bi, I don’t know. I don’t have any answers.”
“Oh.”
“Like, all that stuff I spouted in my fic, how God didn’t make us to suffer? Pfft. How would I know? Maybe he’s like Xaarg and he uses us for his sick amusement, you know? Maybe he thinks it’s hilarious that I’m attracted to people, but then I sort of feel like throwing up when they touch me, and I’ll probably end up dying alone in a studio apartment with a Chihuahua eating my face off.”
I study the railing. “You won’t.”
“Don’t be so sure. Honestly, I don’t think people ever get un-screwed-up. I think it’s just, how well can you pretend to be someone else, and how long.”
Two businessmen in suits clomp across the bridge. The koi startle and scatter. Abel appears across the lobby, scanning with the bewildered concentration of someone trying to find someone.
My time with her is almost up.
“So, ah,” I draw in a breath that makes my throat ache. “Guess you weren’t really sent by God?”
I try to keep my voice light and jokey, but it splinters on the word God. She flicks one last gummy bear off the railing and stares down into the clear trembling water.
“You’ve thrown a lot of pennies in ponds,” she says. “Haven’t you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I don’t want Abel to find me. Not yet. I duck down a corridor, slip into a quiet stairwell.
I don’t think people ever get un-screwed-up.
My heart pummels so hard I expect to hear an echo.
I don’t think you’re ready for a relationship.
I lean over the railing. My head swarms. I wish I was good at dismissing people. I could be like Nat: What a bitch. Screw her. Who does she think she is?
I don’t have any answers.
My phone goes off. I jump. HOME CALLING.
I sink down on the steps and pick it up, not thinking it through. All I’m thinking is yes, please, I need home.
“Thank God,” Mom says. “Brandon, we were worried!”
“You haven’t called for days,” Dad snaps. “We just get one email, four words long—”
I feel like crying. “I’m sorry.”
“You could’ve been kidnapped. Maybe someone was impersonating you. How would we know?”
“Did you really think—”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter! The point is, you made your mother lose sleep.”
“You’ve just been having fun with Becky, right, Brandon?” Mom says. “That’s all.”
I drop my head on the concrete step behind me. “Yeah,” I get out. “It’s been really great.”
“That’s so wonderful. See, Greg?”
“Did you take her out for that dinner?” Dad harrumphs.
“No, but I will.” I close my eyes. “Maybe tonight. I think tonight we will.”
“Okay. All right,” Dad says. I sense the anger funneling out of him and for now that’s enough, making him okay with me again. “I told you, I’ll pay for it.”
“Sure.”
“Wherever you two want to go.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks.” I’m a total chickenshit in real life.
“Brandon?” says Mom.
“Yep.”
“Are you all right, sweetie? You sound—far away.”
“I am far away.”
“I know this is such a…confusing time for you, but—”
You have no idea. “I’m great, Mom. Don’t worry, okay?” She sounds so sad. “I’ll be home before you know it.”
“Maybe you’ll come to the St. Matt’s Funfair on the Fourth?”
“…Sure.” No. No.
“You’re a good kid, Brandon,” Dad says.
I’m not stupid. I hear how he says it: like a command, not a compliment. But his words work on me, independent of the tone, and I want it all back again. I want to be the good kid. I want to be the kid who never made them worry, the one who was safe in his bed while Nat was off at Rocky Horror throwing toast and making out with A.J. Brody. I want to believe what they believe, to feel Mom’s smiling eyes on me while I strum “Be Not Afraid” at the Folk Mass, to ask Dad for advice when he stops by my room to say goodnight. Except now my problem is I’m afraid I’m going to break my boyfriend’s heart. And even if I got brave enough to ask, I don’t think he’d sit down on my bed and ruffle my hair. He’d just turn off the light and walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Our clothes tumble together in a dented old dryer at the Compass Creek Campground laundry room. Abel and I sit on molded plastic seats the color of pea soup and watch. I spot my Castaway Planet shirt and keep my eyes on that, watching it get tossed and battered and tossed again.
Nothing’s changed.
I tell myself that, over and over. Nothing’s changed. I’m here in a laundry room doing a quick load of darks with my boyfriend, and then we’re going to take a walk in the woods and play WordWhap with Bec and have late-night cherry Pop-Tarts in bed like we’ve done every night since Long Beach. I tell myself that, and then Michelle Arnott’s face pops up and I start breathing faster, bracing myself for all the other bad things to come back. It’s like that scene in the cave when Cadmus lit a match and the crystal spiders all started crawling out of secret dark places, hissing closer and closer.
I joggle Plastic Sim in my hand, lose myself in the machine’s warm mechanical hum. I want to disappear into Sim again. I want the simple ease of clean robot fantasies that fade out with kissing and don’t come with a crapload of complications.
“Brandon,” Abel says. “You sneaky bitch.”
“What?”
“You’re having a relapse.”
“Huh?”
“It all makes sense!” He waggles a finger at me like I’m a Scooby-Doo villain. “You were like a billion miles away at the go-kart track.”
“Sorry.”
“And I made you my world-famous kitchen-sink nachos and you completely failed to rhapsodize.”
“World-famous?”
“Well. Susannah likes them.”
I force a shrug. “Too spicy.”
“Surprise surprise.”
Five seats over, some grizzly guy in camo pants is chomping a chalupa and waiting for his afghan to dry. He gave us this look when we walked in. I think back to three or four years ago, when Dad’s remote stopped at Project Runway for five seconds. “What they do is their business,” he’d grumbled. “But why are they all so loud about it?”
“I’m okay,” I lie. “No relapse.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“What’d what’s-her-face say to you at the hotel? Just tell me.”
“I don’t want to.” I slouch down in my seat. “I just want to forget her.”
He cracks into a two-pack of snack cakes. “It’s almost kind of funny. If you think about it. Cupcake?”