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“He’s kind of adorbs,” Abel whispers. “Don’t you think?”
“No.”
“C’mon, he’s all awkward-turtle.”
“Sh.”
“Like he just won a tech award at the Oscars—”
“I’m trying to listen.”
“So anyway, guys,” Bill taps the last index card. “There’s a trivia contest in twenty minutes, 30% off DVD sets and novelizations, and don’t forget to partake of the goodies at the snack bar or we’ll have to, ah, cast them away. Any questions, I’m your go-to guy. Yes? You sir.”
He’s calling on Abel.
“Can you come to our table? We have a question.”
“Sure thing.”
I smack his arm. “What’re you doing?”
“Talk. Just chat a little. You need your wheels greased.”
“I told you—”
“Heyyy, Bill!”
Abel makes introductions. Bill smiles and shakes his hand. I hide mine under the table; they’re already slick with sweat.
“What can I do for ya?” he says.
“Brandon, tell him your question.” He whispers to Bill across the table. “It’s a really good one. We wanted a Castaway expert to weigh in.”
“Wow! Well, I’m flattered. Shoot.”
Bill turns his postcard-pool eyes on me. I get that hot sick feeling I got at Abel’s birthday party in March, when his spi
Bill smiles politely. “So…ah, what’s your question?”
I can’t talk. My clothes feel see-through.
“It was about Sim.” Abel jumps in, shooting me death rays. “We’re debating if he should’ve stayed human after he got his evolution chip in Episode 2-14.”
“Whoo, excellent question. Hmm.” He bongos the table. “What do you think, Brandon?”
Ryan never looked me in the eye again. We used to talk baseball and debate classic X-Files episodes in sixth-period study hall, but he suddenly had reams of algebra homework that required total concentration. I’d watch him scritch his pencil nub across his notebook, factoring quadratic trinomials with dark broody passion. I never knew I wanted to kiss him back until it was way too late.
“Brandon.” Abel kicks my shoe.
I know what’s happening. Red splotches spreading, one on each cheek. I want to vanish.
Abel glares. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he says. “I think when Sim was ‘human’ it was one freaking excuse after another. That whole arc was one long whine about how inconvenient feelings are and how it sucks to know you’ll never know everything, like, we get it. Stop being so emo about it and get on with things, you know?”
“I guess,” Bill says. “I thought it was sad, though. How he went back to being—”
“A total bore?” Abel stiffens his shoulders and tilts his head. “Captain Cadmus, might I suggest some seventeenth-century poetry to distract your mind from existential torment?”
His robot voice is still dumb, but the dim lights here contour his face in Simlike angles and shadows. I get this quick fanfic flash: his strong hands gripping my wrists, slamming me up against a spider-cave wall.
Put on the Brakes!, Chapter Five: Ask God for the strength you need to flee temptation. And then don’t walk away—run!
I try to shoo the words away. They scuttle into unreachable corners of my mind, prodding me with tiny sharp claws.
Don’t run, I tell myself. You idiot. Don’t listen.
My chair’s already screeching back.
“Brandon?”
Abel charges after me. Grabs my arm by the bakery case. He does it like it’s nothing, like he doesn’t even realize his hand is there, and meanwhile my arm is zapping hot panicked messages to my brain: he’s touching me I’m being touched don’t move don’t breathe act normal be Sim.
“What is with you?” says Abel. “You can’t string two words together?”
“I—”
“Practice! You need practice!” He shakes my shoulders. “What happens when we’re at the Castaway Ball and you see a flawless guy in a Sim suit and he starts walking over? What then?”
“I run from the weirdo.”
Abel gives me a why-must-you-be-you sigh. Whatever. Used to those. I got them a lot from my parents after The Talk: Why him? Makes no sense. He likes the Phillies. He can tie twenty-six different kinds of knots.
“We’ll get you back in the saddle. You may require more intensive intervention than anticipated.” Abel plucks a free lanyard from the basket on the bakery case and hangs it around my neck ceremonially, like we’re in a Hawaiian airport. “By nerd prom night, you’ll be ready for greatness again. Trust me.”
He gives me a kiss on one cheek and goes for the other but I jump back. I can’t help it.
His eyes narrow.
“You okay?” he says.
“I—You smell weird.”
“I do?” He sniffs his pits and shrugs. “I like it.”
Across the room, Bill drums the table and drifts away, probably wondering what kind of curricular adaptations I needed to graduate high school. I touch the spot where Abel’s lips brushed my cheek.
Careful, says Father Mike.
Then I see Bec.
She’s standing by the DVD display, holding up her phone and giving me The Look—the same one she gave me the night her sister and mine got in a parking lot catfight at the DQ. Teeth clenched together, eyebrows bunched. Our standard code for something’s really wrong.
Chapter Four
Bec pulls us down a quiet aisle. My insides rumble. What if Dad looked up Castaway Planet and found our vlog? He’d know Abel was here. He’d know I lied, and he’d flip in that scary-calm way I can’t handle at all. Bec’s dad used to roar like a chainsaw; mine makes tiny snips that bleed you so slowly you don’t notice until you’re weak.
I picture him on the deck he and Mom built together, adjusting his brown plastic eyeglass frames and depositing guilt in my voicemail. Lying, huh? You know, you might not believe this anymore, but there’s actually this crazy thing called ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’”
“Okay.” Bec holds up the phone. “So I was reading the Cadsim fanjournal—”
“—And someone hates us,” says Abel. “Boo hoo, like that’s even—”
“Just look!”
We huddle on either side of her. The little screen shows a post with two words: HELL BELLS in red all-caps. She taps it and a blurry picture of Abel pops up. Not a regular photo. A screencap from the post we put up on our vlog this morning. He’s holding our action figures up to the camera and whoever capped it took a lot of care to catch him in an ugly moment, with his open mouth looming over the head of Plastic Sim.
Abel lets out a cartoon gasp and clutches my arm. I yank away and lean closer.
Under the Abel picture is a comment from the person who posted it. I don’t recognize the username. hey_mamacita. Her icon freaks me out: a statue of an angel with a halo made of knives.
She says:
tick…tick…
*BOOM.*
brandon & abel: we see you boys.
operation hell bells has begun.
any Cadsim girls wa