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sunscreen, and something I can’t quite identify. The shavings<br />
from a pencil sharpener? A new textbook? Stardust?<br />
Whatever it is, I shut my eyes and inhale.<br />
That’s when it happens again. Thwang. My heart beats<br />
into his atomic pin. The back of my neck feels like it’s being<br />
tickled. I can’t stop smiling. Before I can control it, I fall<br />
more in love than ever.<br />
“What’s all over your teeth?” Celeste asks after third period,<br />
after I stood in front of health class reciting the ten myths<br />
of an STD, read from Anne Frank’s diary in English class,<br />
and passed Perry in the hall, smiling alluringly.<br />
“My teeth?” I gulp.<br />
“Is that blood ?” Celeste reaches into a side pocket of her<br />
pack and hands me a mirror.<br />
Horrified, I see that the super-lustrous, extra-long-wearing<br />
Race Car Red lip crème—that Mom would freak out if<br />
she saw—has vanished from my lips and settled into the<br />
cracks between my teeth.<br />
“It’s not supposed to do that,” I say weakly, running my<br />
tongue back and forth.<br />
Celeste stares. “What is up with you?”<br />
“Nothing.” My gums have now taken on a rosy hue.<br />
Digging a tissue out of my pack, I rub my teeth and gums<br />
hard. The lipstick comes off, but the tissue dissolves in my<br />
mouth, sticking to my lips. “What’s wong with a wittle<br />
makeup?” I say, spitting tiny wads of wet Kleenex into the air.<br />
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