“Do you think I want to be this way, Brandon?” Dad sighs. “I mean, look: I wish to God I could say ‘Suuure, go ahead. Whatever you want, kiddo! Dessert for dinner! Blow off that homework! Loosey-goosey, whatever feels good‌…‌’”

Mom giggles lamely. “Loosey-goosey?”

“The point is,” he huffs, “I’m on your side. Very much so. I want you to be happy. I want to see you fall in love, get married‌—‌”

“I can still do that.”

“But the fact is, you’re never, ever going to be at peace. Not like this.”

I just blink.

“Greg‌…‌” my mother whispers.

“It’s true. You won’t, because your mom and I raised you to know what’s right, and you’re always going to know deep down that this isn’t what God wants for you. That even if he quote-unquote ‘made’ you a certain way, you separated yourself from him with your choices. And if I didn’t keep pointing that out to you, if I didn’t give my only son every chance to fix his relationship with God‌—‌” His voice wavers. He pauses, pulls in an even breath. “‌—‌then what kind of dad would I be?”

The kind of dad I need. If hey_mamacita was real and I was in her fic, I’d say it clear and brave. I’d tell him I respected his opinion, but it wasn’t mine, not anymore. I’d tell him that my beautiful boyfriend was probably still at the bus station, and if I drove fast enough I could probably still catch him.

Instead I just mumble I gotta go. And I hang up.

Three seconds later it rings again.

hey_mamacita says, Answer it, baby. Stand up to him. You can do it.

It keeps ringing.

Tell him who you are! Be Fanfic Brandon! Unleash some mayhem!

Which is easy to say, when you don’t exist.

I wait for the phone to stop ringing. When it’s finally quiet, I send a single pathetic text to my dad’s cell. He always keeps it on his belt, even when he’s home watching baseball or working in the garden. “I don’t want to be fertilizing the roses when someone calls with terrible news,” he likes to say.

GOING 2 BALTIMORE CON

HOME SUNDAY LATEST

I hit send and shut my phone off before it can protest. The world doesn’t end. The cottonwood in front of me is tall and strong and unchanged. I peel a small patch of ragged bark from its side and slip it in my pocket.

Baltimore.

Bec shuffles back down the dirt trail, drawing a line behind her with the tip of a thick walking stick.

“We’re going on?” she says.

“Going on. Yeah.”

My legs are going boneless. I start to shake a little.

“Here.” She hands me the stick, and we start on the uphill path back to the Sunseeker.

CastieCon #6

Baltimore, Maryland

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Bec and I do our usual on the long drive east on I-80.

We put on the playlist we made together a couple years back and hum along with Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine, Rufus Wainwright, Dylan. We argue over whether Scott Pilgrim is actually any good. We polish off the dregs of the snack bin: raisins, stale trail mix, packs of code-orange crackers with crumbly peanut butter filling. She props her polka-dot flip-flops on the dash and reads me ridiculous Cosmo quizzes on the right animal print for your body type and what your favorite martini says about you.

But sometimes I’ll catch her eye over a diner menu or glance at her while we’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper, and I know she knows that everything I say is just filling silence. That inside I’m secretly doing what Past-Tense Brandon does best: flailing wildly.

She’s right. Like right this minute, on the morning of July 4th, what we’re technically doing is listening to the Broken West and estimating how many crunches a day she’d have to do to get as ripped as Della Wolfe-Williams. But the whole time I’m rifling through a flipbook of options. I’ll go home, straight home, and apologize to my parents. I’ll call Abel, beg him for another chance. I’ll find a church and talk to a priest. I’ll pick up some random guy at the Baltimore con and drag him into a bathroom stall. I’ll swear off sex forever and join a monastery and spend the rest of my days meditating and making thimbleberry jam.

“You miss him,” Bec says, for the millionth time. We’re on 76 now, snipping the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. I’m wearing Abel’s white shirt from the Castaway Ball, the sleeves rolled up to fit me and the collar still tinged with blue.

“Yeah.”

“So call him.”

“I can’t.”

“That’s it.” She pulls out her phone. “I’m dialing.”

“No! Don’t.”

“Why?”

“It’ll just make things worse.”

“Like waiting too long won’t?”

“I need a sign.”

“Okay: STOP.”

“No no, listen. I have a feeling.”

She sighs. “Here we go.”

I can’t explain it. I try anyway. I tell her I feel like something’s going to happen at the Baltimore con, at the Q&A. Like I’ll absorb some of Lenny Bray’s storytelling genius on this subatomic level and I’ll have an epiphany, and all the confusion will dry up and I’ll know exactly what to do and where to go next.

Bec nods gravely. “That’s really kind of dumb.”

I grip the wheel tighter and kick it up to seventy. Let her think that; I don’t care. We merge onto 70 East, toward Baltimore. I direct the next part straight to God, if he’s up there. Please help me. Please find some way to speak through Leonard Bray today. Give me, once and for all, the sign I’ve been waiting for.

***

***WE’RE SORRY***

TODAY’S Q&A WITH LEONARD BRAY

IS CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS

MR. BRAY SINCERELY REGRETS ANY INCONVENIENCE

***NO REFUNDS***

For a long time I just stare at the sign‌—‌attached to the closed door of Meeting Room 1-C with cheery mismatched thumbtacks, as if it were announcing a shortage of strawberry ice cream instead of a cruel practical joke of the universe.

“Crap,” I whisper.

Bec squeezes my arm.

Outside the Q&A room in the Baltimore Dorchester, the CastieCon staff‌—‌a burly guy with a black goatee and a skinny lady with straggly brown hair‌—‌are getting absolutely jackhammered. The crowd around them gets bigger and angrier by the minute, the fans shooting out questions and threats and conspiracy theories.

“I drove my son all the way from New York! We’re missing fireworks for this.”

“I knew he’d pull this. He planned it, didn’t he?”

“He’s got stage fright, you guys. He said‌—‌”

“Bullshit! He hates us. Always has.”

“Refunds or revolt, people!”

“Refunds or revolt! Refunds or revolt!”

Bec pulls me away from the chanting crowd.

“Sorry,” she says. “This sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do?”

I scan the convention hall, hoping the answer will pop out. But it’s all the same CastieCon stuff‌—‌the vendors and the overpriced snack stand and the trivia games and costume contests‌—‌and none of it is fun without Abel. I can’t go, though. Not yet. I can’t just go home to my pissed-off parents and the St. Matt’s Funfair and my stupid room with the stupid solar system sheets, like the past six weeks never even happened.

“I need some time,” I tell Bec. “I think maybe a long walk or something‌…‌”

“Want company?”

“Not this time. That okay?”