Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful. Arwen Dayton Elys

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СКАЧАТЬ when we were first boyfriend and girlfriend. “We could, I don’t know …”

      “Okay.” My body was telling me to Run! but it was also, very much, telling me to stay.

      It’s not like I’ve had so many boyfriends (I’ve had two, if you count the one from middle school), but I knew what was what with the kissing and whatnot, even if I hadn’t done any of it in ages. (Jonas had moved away, and then I’d been in the hospital for almost a solid year. Believe me, no one wanted to kiss you there.) I liked making out, and the sexy hormones were winning out over the adrenaline, even as the parts behind the meshline continued to send me uncomfortable warning signals.

      In the semidarkness, I climbed between the front seats into the wide backseat, and Gabriel slithered after me, laughing as he pulled his legs through. One of his feet hit the radio and it switched from the movie soundtrack to a talk radio station.

      “… but it’s about our definition of what it means to be human. What did the Lord intend for us? What was His vision for humanity in this world?” a smooth, slightly Southern male voice was saying, filling the car. Half preacher, half rabble-rouser. “What did He withhold from us? He made us in His image. We know that. This, this ordinary human body is in His image, then.” He sounded young, but his voice made me think of liquor and cigars. He emphasized words I would never have expected him to emphasize, as though he paid more attention to the cadence of his sentences than their content. “We can’t go tinkering around and making fake hearts and livers and growing new stuff Jesus never wanted to see—”

      “Ah, sorry.” Gabriel was obviously embarrassed. He hurriedly reached forward and switched the radio back to the movie track.

      When he got to the backseat, he leaned over to kiss me again. It was a shock to see myself move out of reach, but that’s exactly what I did. A sense of dread was spreading through me, the real parts and the fake, crossing the meshline like no other emotion usually could. I had stumbled upon something here.

      “Was that … was that what’s-his-name?” I asked, nodding at the radio.

      “Reverend Tad Tadd? The one with two first names?” he said with a laugh. “Yeah. My grandma listens to him all the time.”

      It took a few moments to unpack the various implications of this answer. I grasped at the easiest piece to question and said, “Wait, this is your grandma’s car?”

      It was a big, old car, which I’d thought was kind of cool when I thought it belonged to Gabriel. I mean, it’s retro for a teenager to even have a car, and having a really old car is doubly retro. But now that I looked around the backseat a little more closely, in the movie’s low light, I saw old-lady signs that he’d failed to hide before our date: a crocheted blanket spread across the space behind the head rests, a pair of very thick reading glasses in the little rear door pocket, next to a lace handkerchief. These unsexy articles, that voice on the radio—

      “Yeah. I mean, I use the car all the time,” he said, following my gaze and seeing traces of his grandmother. “It’s, like, a family car. My grandma sometimes still drives it—and listens to Tad Tadd, like half the people in LA.” He shook his head as if to say, Grandmas—what are you going to do? Then, seeing something in my face that told him everything was not okay, he added, “She barely drives it anymore, if that’s what’s bothering you. It’s basically mine.”

      My eyes were fixed on the front seat, where I envisioned an old woman turning to stare at me in disgust as she listned to Tad Tadd. She wagged a disapproving finger in my direction.

      “What’s the matter?” Gabriel asked.

      “That guy spews hate. Why would your grandmother listen to him? How can he use faith to attack people who have medical problems? And why can’t he have a normal last name?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. The meshline was tingling with adrenaline, an unpleasant version of how it felt when I drank coffee. It was like needing to pee, but feeling that sensation everywhere.

      “Have you ever listened to talk radio?” he asked me, laughing a little. “It’s full of crazy people. It’s mostly crazy people. Hey, come on.” He reached over and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. Despite the dread and adrenaline, I was touched by this. Like he and I were a team. Or we could be.

      “Does your grandma agree with him?” Again, the words were out before I could stop them. Why was I arguing about his grandmother’s political/religious/racist views on our first date? I shouldn’t even be here in a backseat where … But since I was here, I definitely shouldn’t be bringing up this subject. I hadn’t brought it up, I reminded myself. The radio had been set to that station. Even if Gabriel’s grandmother was the one who’d set it, he must have listened in at least once or twice.

      “I don’t know,” he said. The romantic energy was visibly leaking out of him. “I guess she agrees with him. She’s really old and super religious. They were going to grow her a new heart last year, you know, where it’s mostly real heart, but some of the parts are, like, robotic or something?”

      I did know. I knew because a heart matching that description was currently beating way too fast in my half-real chest. And I cared about that heart very much.

      “She refused, because she thinks God wouldn’t approve,” he went on. And then he shrugged. “She’s old. You can’t argue with her.” He wasn’t saying whether or not he agreed with his grandmother, but his tone hinted that he didn’t.

      It was dark again, because up on the screen, something was happening in a shadowy hallway. Gabriel was close to me, the outline of his face traced by movie light. When he saw my expression soften, he touched my lips with his own. A light kiss, an exploratory kiss, but ready for something much better.

      “What do you think?” I asked, pulling away. I wanted to kiss him more, but I could not keep my mouth shut on this topic. It was like the mesh was my baby sister and even though I fully intended to keep it hidden, I felt honor-bound to root out any signs of prejudice. Because prejudice was everywhere. You didn’t know that until you crossed an invisible line and you yourself were in its crosshairs.

      “Why do you care so much about Reverend Tadd?” he asked. “He’s just a nutjob on the radio.”

      This was the precise question I didn’t want to answer. I felt myself retreat in fear and I stammered, “I—I just wanted to hear what you think. I’m trying to get to know you.” I managed to make the last part sound flirty.

      Gabriel shook his head, as if he would humor me because obviously he was so into me. “I don’t know.” He shrugged again. “I mean, we’re religious, all of us at St. Anne’s, aren’t we? And, like, should we be doing everything that God can do? What about these people who are going to other countries to freeze themselves and avoid a natural death? Even kids? They might be frozen forever. Is that what their lives are supposed to be? Does that seem like something we should be doing? I don’t know.”

      “So you agree with Reverend Tad Tadd?” I whispered the question, knowing that if I tried to say it in a normal voice, it would come out too loud.

      Here’s the thing. I’d heard snippets of Reverend Tadd’s broadcasts from time to time and seen him spouting sound bites on TV, but I’d never really thought about him too much. Sure, he was a ridiculous bigot, yet the important word had always been ridiculous. Tonight, though … tonight his hatred had unexpectedly intruded upon our intimate СКАЧАТЬ