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I’m falling in love with you,” I say.
    She readjusts in her seat, pulls away. “You’re falling in love with me?”
    â€œYou know me, Michelle. I mean, I told you about my childhood bedwetting problem, not to mention the recurrence of said affliction in ninth grade, for God’s sake.”
    â€œI’m just not used to guys putting labels on relationships. It’slike they’re afraid of not having a convenient way out. Maybe I’ve learned to feel that way, too.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to push. Or label you.”
    She pauses. She looks at me. I love how she looks at me.
    â€œBut you’re different, Luke,” she says, finally. Yes! I’m different ! “You’re like this raw nerve of passion and naivete and that’s what attracted me to you in the first place.”
    Her eyes are the best eyes God ever crafted. There is a softness in them, a genuineness that unfolds around me like velvet.
    â€œI want to be your girlfriend, Luke. I want to love you…”
    â€œBut…” I continue her sentence for her.
    â€œNo but.”
    She is smiling now. “I just don’t ever want to cause you any pain.”
    â€œThere won’t ever be pain between us, Michelle. I love you too much to ever be mad at you.”
    She kisses me, slow and deep. I melt again.
    Â 
    The next week goes by in slow motion. Tabitha is screwing 8-Ball now, her worst asshole to date. Yeah, he seemed all right at first but now has proven himself to be a total jerkoff. He harasses the hapless waitresses at Waffle House and expects everyone to laugh with him for doing it. Most of them do. And Tab spends her every free moment with him. She skips school to be with him, and we haven’t spoken more than a couple of sentences in weeks.
    All I have to tide me over until my next Michelle fix is my mother’s wine stash and a new smoking habit I picked up with some guys from drama. We hotbox a couple Marlboros in the bathroom until the cherry is an inch long, then make for the theater, running down the hill whooping, our heads floating on a nicotine buzz.
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    On Friday night Michelle and I decide to skip Rocky and meet at Squirrelly’s party. Squirrelly’s apartment can only be accurately described as squalor. The carpet is stained with wax from long-dead candles, cigarette burns everywhere. Even the walls are dirty, handprints visible around every doorknob. Full-page photographs from magazines are taped to the kitchen cabinets, the walls, the sliding glass door.
    Squirrelly, yelling into the phone something about hers being the last apartment on the left, you dumbass, not the first, hands me a pipe and encourages me through charades to take a hit. I get higher than hell this time and then stumble around the living room, laughing at dumb shit.
    This guy Flick shows up with a rum-punch concoction. He hands me a plastic cup and splashes some in, saying, “Take it easy with this. It’s harder than it tastes. It’ll kill you so fast you won’t even know you’re dead.” And that’s how Flick convinces everybody to drink his World Famous brew. It’s his calling card.
    Squirrelly asks me for a kiss.
    I laugh at the suggestion, more stoned than truly objecting, and drink, drink some more. Half a mouthful of punch escapes the cup, dribbles down my chin. Nobody notices.
    â€œI’m serious,” she laughs back. “You’re the only guy in this room I’ve never made out with.”
    â€œOr girl, for that matter,” Michelle interjects.
    â€œCome on, it’s just a kiss,” Squirrelly says, fluttering her false eyelashes at me.
    I look at Michelle and she nudges me toward Squirrelly.
    She’s a damn good kisser, warm and slow, suggestive of far more than just a kiss. As she lets go of the back of my head, I can feel myself spinning out.
    â€œAnd if you think that was good,” she adds, “you should try my