How to Repair a Mechanical Heart (30 page)

“Abel had a point, though.”

“Doesn’t matter. See, when you love someone, the gentlemanly thing to do is stick with them and willfully ignore your differences and draw little valentine hearts over all their weird hangups and just be in love for as long as you possibly can because how often does that happen? And then when you finally start making each other miserable or you meet some perfect guy in your freshman philosophy class, then you can have your tearful heartrending ‘it’s over’ phone call and a nice long satisfying wallow.” He sighs. “So see, there’s no way we’ve earned a tragic breakup yet. We didn’t put in enough time. I pulled the plug too early.”

My heart’s going phosphorescent.
When you love someone.
“So you’re saying‌…‌”

“We need a rewrite. Abel shows up at
Brandon’s
house, all apologies.”

“Really.”

“Well, mostly apologies. Know what would really be romantic, too?”

“What’s that?”

“If he’d fixed that mechanical heart he stepped on. Like if Susannah helped him glue it back together, and he wrapped it up in a little silver box and everything.”

“Kind of an obvious metaphor.”

“Yeah, but so? I mean, just think how sweet that scene would be.”

“What if Brandon’s parents were there?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t be. Not in this part of the story.”

“No?” I turn onto my street.

“It would be a criminally gorgeous early summer evening‌…‌Abel would be standing on the brick front steps of Brandon’s white split-level‌…‌”

I brake in the middle of the street. Plastic Cadmus and Plastic Sim knock heads in the cupholder.

“‌…‌taking in a scene of awesomely adorable Americana: the birdhouse, the red geraniums, the Fourth of July wreath made of pom-poms‌…‌”

I creep forward.

“‌…‌thinking about the ‘hi, we’re boyfriends again’ vlog post we could make from your cute little bedroom if we got back together‌—‌oh, and figure out the logistics of doing
Castaway Planet
recaps from different colleges, and draw up a shared-custody arrangement for Plastic Cadsim‌…‌Bran? You still there?”

“Keep going,” I whisper.

“‌…‌so I watch a butterfly flutter around your mom’s flowers, and while I practice exactly the right things to say to win you back, I watch patiently for an old blue Jetta to putter into view‌—‌it is a Jetta, right?” I spot him down the road on my front steps now, a perfect action figure in tight jeans and snakeskin boots. He’s standing up, showing me the back of his head as he cranes his neck at the opposite end of the street. In his hand is a little silver box, glinting in the fading sun.

“You getting any closer, Tin Man?” he says.

I ease my foot off the brake and start the downhill coast to home. “Almost there.”

Acknowledgments

Huge hugs and a bucket of cinnamon jellybeans to the following fine people:

Jarrett and Rosie, the two main planets in my universe, for enduring a houseful of scribbled-on sticky notes and helping me to the finish line with just the right blend of tough and sweet love.
My mom and dad, for teaching me that brains are for using and that real love and respect survives differences.
Margie, Anthony, Kim, & Brett, for understanding when I vanish with my laptop.
Mindy Dunn, cover designer extraordinaire, for being consistently awesome and putting up with my OMG-my-first-book-cover eagerness and indecision.
Andrea Sabaliauskas, for the brilliant cover illustration of Brandon and Abel and nearly two decades of friendship, support, and B&N chats.
Wendy Bond, my lifelong BFF, one of the first people I ever shared my writing with.
The illustrious Dr. Maverick, my partner in crime and #1 fandom-enabler.
My work pals, for being excited about this project (especially Courtney Stansbury, for coding advice, cheerleading, and lively
Game of Thrones
debates).
My writing mentors who made me think I could do this, especially Charles Marsh.
The magnificent geeks who invented the Internet so other magnificent geeks could find each other and perpetuate the species. Without you, fanfic would be mimeographed and mailed, this story would not exist, and people would not be skimming this acknowledgments page like “tl;dr.”