“I’m sorry. I am.” He picks at the spotless tablecloth. “I’m sorry, Brandon, I just—I’ve been burned by this. Like, seriously.”
“I know.”
“We’ll talk later. I’ll play nice.”
“Kay.”
“I want to have a good dinner. Okay? Can we do that?”
I nod.
“Sure. We can.”
***
We can’t.
The lasagna tastes like a tire and he stabs at his lobster tortellini the whole time and the conversation starts and stalls. On the cab ride back to the campground, you can feel a fight brewing thick in the air, like that time Dad spilled Mom’s embarrassing aerobics-class story at her high school reunion and the whole ride home was a tense tick-down to her explosion.
Bec’s curled up on the vinyl couch, watching TV with her phone at her ear.
“Heyyyy, kids,” she sings. “How was it?”
“Perfect.” Abel keeps his back to her, grabs a carton of milk from the fridge and takes a few glugs. I force a smile. It’s dark; she can’t tell.
“I’m watching an old X-Files with Dave.” She points to her phone. “Wanna join? It’s the one with the killer cockroaches.”
“Nah, I’m tired.” Abel slams the fridge. He sears me with a look. “Let’s go to bed, Brandon.”
Bec grins. “I’m turning this up, then.” She cranks the volume.
Abel shuts the bedroom door behind us. He strips off his tie.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Shouldn’t we like—talk more?”
“I don’t dwell on bad things. I just make them better.” He tips his chin at me. “C’mere.”
I look at the floor. He steps close. His hand hooks the back of my neck and he pulls my mouth to his before I can even take a breath. After a second he senses I’m suffocating; his lips soften and migrate to more innocent places.
It’s cruel to you both. Keeping this going.
He drops cute desperate kisses on my nose, my eyelids, my cheeks.
Pull away now. You know you’re going to.
“Abel.”
“What?”
I toy with a button on his polo shirt. “I just…Maybe we should—”
“She can’t hear us. She’s in Daveland.”
“No, like—” I duck the kiss he’s about to plant on my neck. “Maybe we should hold off. Just for a while.”
A light snaps off inside him. I watch hurt morph into disgust on his face, like he’s just caught me sacrificing kittens in the bathroom.
“Damn,” he says.
“Not forever! You know? I just think maybe we did this too fast.”
He shakes his head and shoves my hands away. “You said you were fine with it, Brandon. I asked you like, every step of the way, and—”
“I know. I know.”
“How could you let this ruin things?”
“It’s not a choice. It’s in me. I can’t just make it go away.”
He wraps his white tie around and around his hand. “So—what? We’re just friends now?”
“No…no.”
“Should I like, get written permission to touch you, or—”
“Stop. Abel.”
“What? I want to know! What happens now?”
“I don’t know!” My arms make this desperate wriggly gesture that’s completely offensive, like I’m trying to slough off something gross. “Can we just—hold off on the physical stuff? For now? And then I can work through things, and maybe later…”
“I can’t believe this,” he says softly. “I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, clearly you don’t want me to touch you anymore, so that’s kind of what happens, darling. By default.”
He huddles on the edge of the bed with his back to me. I try to find something smart to say, some bull’s-eye quip that’ll turn this whole conversation around.
I hear a little sniffle.
Oh. Crap.
“Abel—”
“It’s okay. It’s fine. You can’t help this, I know. It’s just the way you are.” He’s speaking slowly and carefully, like he’s reading off cue cards. “I mean, it’s my fault, really. I’ve been through this before. I’m so stupid, I just jump in with both feet every time…”
I kneel in front of him. “I like that about you.”
“I wanted it to be true. I liked you for so long.” He scrubs tears away with his fist and tries to smile, which makes me feel worse. “You just didn’t seem interested and it was all Fake Zander and whatever, and I was with that dumbass Kade and then—”
“It was true.” I correct myself: “It is.”
I touch his arm. He reaches out for me, but he pulls me close too hard and fast and I feel all my muscles go stiff.
He lets go of me. Stands up.
His face erases all emotion, like Sim’s face when he’s in the charging dock. Then it hardens.
He pulls his big black bag out from under the bed and tosses it on the comforter.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving, Bran.” He says it with a simple ease that hurts much worse than bitterness.
“How—?”
“There are these magic things called buses.”
I close my eyes. This isn’t happening.
“I can’t do this again,” he shrugs. “Sorry. I can’t get all moony and ID-bracelet-y over you, and then get a call from you at two in the morning after some college retreat made you have a backwards epiphany and now you think you’re in love with some cute little Polly Pocket who can’t wait to pop out your cute Catholic babies. And don’t try to tell me that’s not extremely likely, because guys like you are a fucking minefield, and I was dumb to pretend I didn’t know it.”
“Abel…”
“Be logical!” He’s shoving clothes in his bag. “What happens if I stay? More awkwardness. More fights. We break up and we can’t even be friends anymore because we let things get ugly, and then I end up crying for days and calling up my exes and eating Nutella right out of the jar.” He throws his bag on the bed and yanks at the zipper. “So we make a clean break now, and this way I get to keep my dignity, right, and you get lots of time or space or whatever the hell you need to figure things out, or not figure things out, whatever works for you. Sound good?”
He grabs the bag. I know exactly what I need now. I need a Speech that Changes Everything. Like Cadmus’ quotable “Today, We Survive” speech in the pilot, or the tearful speech Abel gives me in whispering!sage’s “One Day More,” where we make up in a hospital bed before I lapse into a coma. I catch myself thinking What would hey_mamacita write?
Beware of false prophets, Brandon.
Just let him—
“No. Don’t go.” It’s all I can get out. “Please.”
“Put up a fight, then,” he says. “Convince me. Tell me exactly how it won’t end horribly.”
All the words I’ve ever learned scuttle out of my head. If I had more time I could call them back, arrange them in just the right order. But I know without looking him in the eye that I’ve already paused too long, and he’s not going to wait.
He hoists the bag over his shoulder.
“Have fun at the Baltimore con,” he says. “Tell Lenny Bray I said hi.”
***
He’s gone.
He can’t be, though.
He left Plastic Cadmus behind, face down on the Whitetail Wildlife bedspread.
He left his Sim shirt from the ball dangling damp from the doorknob and the spicy-sweet smell of his cinnamon soap hanging in the air.
He left me standing by the bed with his last kiss still fresh on my cheek and a hundred better things to say.
So I wait, because I know he’s coming back. I stand right here in the spot where he left me, rocking gently on my heels. I’ll be patient. He went for a long walk to clear his head, took a detour to a diner to sulk at a cup of black coffee, and when he’s done making me sorry, making me want him back so much that nothing else matters, the Sunseeker door will creak open again and there he’ll be.