How to Repair a Mechanical Heart - By J. C. Lillis Page 0,31
that wasn’t on a cross, at least not so close up. I don’t know where to look. His belly button. Belly button. Look at the belly button.
He’s holding his shirt out. “This is more you than me.”
“I don’t need to change.”
“Yeah you do.”
He grips the front of my shirt and pulls me closer, makes his voice all low and raspy like Cadmus.
“You’ll want to look sexy for Jesus,” he says, “in case it’s our last night on earth.”
Chapter Eleven
Near the mouth of the crystal spider cave, now definitively sealed by a Xaarg-generated avalanche, Cadmus and Sim huddle together for warmth. Or Cadmus huddles close to Sim, if you want to get technical about it. Sim controls his own body temperature. He turns up his own regulation switch, just behind his right ear, and then dials it back when the heat gets too much.
“Captain, I must apologize for this detour,” says Sim. “I have long suspected a malfunction in my compass application.”
“Ahhh, don’t be sorry.” Cadmus shivers. He pats Sim’s arm and gives it a squeeze. “It’s Xaarg. Either way, we were screwed.”
Some girl goes Boom-chicka-wow-wowww, and giggles erupt in the Lunar Rose Coffeehouse. That flyer didn’t mention this was a Season 4 marathon, or that 80% of their clientele are apparent Cadsim shippers. By the time the cave episode rolls around, I’ve already endured the full horror of hearing Sim’s best lines chanted out loud, like some kind of deluded shipper incantation, by a bunch of girls in costumes and homemade t-shirts that say TEAM CADSIM in blue glitter. Abel and I scrunch down on a battered velvet couch at the back of the room, hoping no one recognizes us from Screw Your Sensors. These girls would eat us for dinner.
I check the door every few minutes. No Hell Bells spies yet. Abel’s probably right—who would follow us here?
“This episode blows,” whispers Abel. He’s sipping a cinnamon latte and scarfing a second giant snickerdoodle, like he didn’t just show me his naked torso less than two hours ago. I still can’t look him in the eye. But at least we’re not fighting.
“I know,” I whisper back. “Terrible.”
“That speech Cadmus gives Sim about how his dad missed his graduation?”
“Shameless.”
“So out of character.”
“Sim’s should-I-have-stayed-human angst is a two-ton anvil, too.”
“Yeah, like, why do we need a Breakfast Club scene where they talk it into the ground?”
Onscreen, the arm touch segues into lingering eye contact and the girls go bananas: Kiss, kiss, kiss! I shake my head.
“It’s fanservice. Pure and simple.”
“It’s lazy. Snickerdoodle?”
“Just a tiny piece.”
Abel breaks a big chunk off for me and drapes his arm across the back of the couch. I move a little bit, just out of habit.
“Oh…I’m not in your space, am I?” he grins.
“Shut up.”
“You started it,” he says.
“Yeah, well, you disappeared on me. Call it even.”
“Sorry,” he mutters around his cookie.
“Why’d you just leave like that?”
“I dunno. Shandley was such a dicksmack, I couldn’t deal. You get in your bubble, you forget what the rest of the world’s like.”
“I don’t think he’s a bigot.”
“Self-loather?”
“Maybe.”
“Ugh. They should die in a fire.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Sooner they go extinct, the better. They make us look bad.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for them, though?”
Abel flicks my ear. “Quit being nice,” he says. “You make me feel like a turd.”
“Sorry.”
He takes another bite and brushes crumbs off his shirt, red with a neon old-school joystick on the front. He leans his head back and lets out a long, showy sigh. “So he hooked up with Arch.”
“Who did?”
He makes a duh face. “Kade.”
“Oh.”
“Arch. Even his stupid name tries too hard. He’s like 27 and he wears these Goth t-shirts from the mall.” Abel wipes foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “He met my sister once at Antonelli’s when my family was out to dinner, like right after she published the book with Mom, and he talked to her like she was a cocker spaniel. And then he was all like ‘I really admire people with Down syndrome,’ like he was in a stupid man-pageant and the world-peace answer already got used up. He asked her for a signed copy of Susannah Says. I wanted to kick him in the nuts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I really really liked him.”
“Arch?”
“Kade.”
“I know.”
“And he was all like, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, were we monogamous? I missed the memo.’ Like it’s my fault he just couldn’t wait to fuck someone horrible.”
“That sucks.”
“Susannah didn’t like him. I should’ve known. My sister can spot a cockpunch from