How to Repair a Mechanical Heart - By J. C. Lillis Page 0,72
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