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roll over. “Want to see my tits?”
    “No. It’s not about that. It’s about how you look in this light. Stay like you are.”
    “Wake me up before Grandma gets home.”
    “Don’t worry.”
    I pull the covers up a little. I want part of the Firebird tattoo that erupts from her underpants, but I don’t want the waistband. And I like the way one foot sticks out from under the sheet.
    I adjust the blinds, then shoot another minute or two of film. It’s easy to make her pretty because she is. Or could be. And I’m not sure
pretty
is the right word, anyway.
    Finally I open the blinds as wide as they’ll go and tilt the lamp on my desk. The oldest tats bleed and fade. There’s a callus on her other foot. A bruise on her left shoulder, right beside the Grim Reaper tattoo — a skull smoking a cigar, a banner under that with the name Johnny Too Bad.
    Then I sit at the desk, and play it all back on my Mac. Maybe my next movie is about her. She’s what’s on my mind. So I go over and wake up the most unlikely muse ever.
    “Time to go home. Grandma will be back pretty soon.”
    She looks at me, tries to focus. “You’re cute.”
    “You’re half asleep.” I tug at her. “C’mon.”
    She holds on tight. “I know I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, but don’t give up on me. I’ll be a better girlfriend. I promise.”
    Colleen picks me up for school every morning. We do homework together. I make sure she eats things that are at least slightly good for her. Grandma tolerates her.
    Then one Friday, Oliver Atkins meets us in the parking lot. When I get out of her VW, he screams, “Well, if it isn’t my Judy.”
    Colleen warns him, “Take it easy, Oliver. Ben is mine. All one hundred and twenty handicapped pounds of him.”
    “Fifty thousand hits so far,” Oliver says, “and the beginning of I don’t know how many meaningful dialogues.”
    I tell him, “You’re welcome.”
    “You should thank me, Benjamin. I am going to put you on the map.”
    Colleen watches him prance away. “Did Oliver put the moves on you?”
    I just look at her. “Get serious.”
    “Did you ask him why he wears that ridiculous hat with the feather on it? He looks like one of Robin Hood’s extremely merry men from RumpRanger Forest.”
    “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re wearing panty hose that you’ve ripped up on purpose, shorts with holes in them, and a tank top with green zombie hands on your boobs. The phrase ‘You should talk’ occurs to me.”
    She drapes one arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, but I look hot; Oliver just looks gay.”
    “You don’t know him like I do.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “For
High School Confidential
I talked to Oliver for a long time. I told you what it’s like making a documentary: you shoot an hour of film and use a minute and a half. So I know him.”
    “Are you saying he’s not gay?”
    “I’m saying he’s not just gay.”
    We’re on our way to class when she tells me, “I got a postcard from Ed. Boot camp is killing him.”
    “At least he’s clean and sober.”
    “Get serious. He says he could get high every night if he wanted to.”
    I want to ask if she still likes him, but I don’t want to hear the answer. I’m afraid he’ll come back on leave bigger and stronger and better-looking than ever.
    Instead I say, “I’ll see you at lunch.”
    She grabs my T-shirt and pulls me in to her. “He’s history, okay? He’s poison. I can’t be around him or guys like him ever.”
    I let one hand slip into the back pocket of her thrashed shorts. “I didn’t say anything.”
    “I can read you like a book, Benjamin.”
    “Since I’ve seen you read, that doesn’t exactly scare me.”
    Colleen pretends to beat on me and I pretend to cringe. I’ve seen kids do this a hundred times. Couples horsing around. Just regular kids. I like it that that’s what Colleen and I are.
    At noon, I beat her to the cafeteria, and I’ve barely settled down behind a