smell a lie,” he says. “You came to get laid, didn’t you?”
Two nuns stroll by. My face burns. “Negative,” I murmur.
“Aw, why not? Makes you feel like a real boy.”
“I am uninterested.”
“Uninterested? You smooth like a Ken doll down there?”
“On the contrary. While I have had many, ah, high-quality partners, the simple fact is—”
Flirting can seem like harmless fun—Chapter 8, Put on the Brakes!—But that person you’re teasing is a vessel of the Holy Spirit. Should you really be treating them like a carnival ride?
“Ye-es?” Abel’s grinning. Waiting.
I clear my throat, scramble for Sim words.
They’re gone.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why not? You’re good.”
“No, it’s just—you know.”
“What?”
I gallop my fingers on the picnic bench. Think. Think. Lie. “Um, well, Zander and I used to joke around like this all the time, so—”
“Oh my God!” Abel slams his hand on the picnic table. An abandoned paper boat of French fries tips off the edge, splatters ketchup in the grass. “Will you shut it about Zander already!”
“But it’s true.”
“I don’t care!”
“It’s just part of who I am. I can’t change it.”
“Christ.” He shoves both hands in his hair. “You know what, Brandon? You know what? That is IT!”
His hot hand locks around my wrist and before I can open my mouth again he’s yanking me through the crowd, past the Tilt-a-Whirl and the candy-striped tents and a bunch of kids playing that balloon-dart game that rattled my nerves as a kid. Pop pop pop. My insides crackle. He could do anything with me now, take me anywhere.
We stop behind the funhouse.
He slams me up against it.
I turn my face fast, fix my eyes on the funhouse mural. Creepy clowns, sword-swallowers, Mardi Gras masks.
“Look at me,” he hisses.
“Why?”
He grabs my face and turns my head slowly. My eyes press shut.
“Look at me,” he says.
I hear my dad: Never ever stare directly at the sun.
“Fine, then. Don’t. Just listen. Listen to every single word, okay?” He grips my shoulders. “Zander. Is. Gone. G-O-N-E. No more!—I’m serious, Brandon!” He shakes me. “This is total insanity and I want you to repeat after me: I. Am. Damaged.” Screams from the funhouse. “Say it!”
I whisper, “I am damaged.”
“I am acting like a pathetic irrational loonytunes in direct opposition to my actual awesomeness.”
“I’m pathetic,” I admit.
“I need to be punched in the face repeatedly and then kissed until my lips hurt.”
I open my eyes. Across from the funhouse, a mini-freefall jerks a carful of kids off the ground. They shudder to the top, right under a clown’s gruesome red mouth. The car stops a second, just for torture, and then drops them down with a mechanical whoosh like when Cadmus stole Sim, the door of his charging dock sighing open in a white breath of steam.
“Go ahead!” Abel prods. “Say it.”
“I need to be…”
“Say it! You know it’s true.”
“Punched…”
“In the face.”
“In the face.”
“Repeatedly.”
“And then—”
He kisses me.
It’s not gentle, the way I picture it with Sim. It’s rough and hard but in a funny way, like in old movies when their faces desperately smash together and then they break apart and breathe their poetic devotion. Abel’s hands are firm and warm around my face. The rest of the fair dissolves; I’m on another planet that’s spinning so fast I can feel it. The three silver moons of Castaway Planet dazzle in the hot black sky and his lips are Sim-blue and he smells sweet and dangerous, like liquor and cotton candy.
Status: All systems suspended.
Then it starts again. The thing that happened after Ryan Dervitz, in the Dairy Queen bathroom with my head between my knees. A rush of memories—Mom’s eyes welling up when I told her, Dad alone in the backyard staring up at my old treehouse, his hands stuffed in his pockets. And then Father Mike calmly crashing through my consciousness, like some movie hero busting down the door to a burning house. His face fills up the whole screen in my head. It isn’t an angry face. He never needs to be angry, not really, because he’s so sure he’s right.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
I shove Abel away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—just—”
I have to walk. Which way is the hotel parking lot? I don’t even know. I just start moving my feet. I dart across the street on a green light; a red car swerves and honks. My eyes flick over a sea of cars and lock onto the Sunseeker’s roof in the near distance. I pick up the pace. Abel’s big boots clap the blacktop behind me.
“What, you’re mad again?”
“No.”
“You are!”
“Stop talking, okay?”
“Brandon,