◆The word kiss is derived in part from the Old English cyssan, “to touch with the lips” in respect or reverence

◆No two lip prints are the same

◆In medieval times, it was common to sign the name with an X, then kiss the mark as a display of sincerity

I BEGIN TO TRICK JARRED INTO TOUCHing me. I stand in the middle of the hallway each morning when his bus arrives.

He enters the building in the stream of other bodies, bookbag slung over his shoulder. Morning still crusts his eyes.

I hold my breath until he gets close, closer, closest, then brushes against my arm and I am lit by a million watts.

“Why are you always in my way?” he hisses.

But I still radiate from it, the contact of our skins. The light of it makes me want.

MY BODY IS A LAND UNDISCOVERED, MY heart beneath the skin wanting to be found and touched.

Between my legs, nothing has happened since rocking horse. Some nights, I slide a pillow there and rock again, thinking of Jarred.

TODAY, MY MOTHER IS FOCUSED ON SELF-improvement.

“Take off your clothes,” she says.

We stand in her bedroom.

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s time to look at ourselves with honesty,” she says.

My mother has been going into town. She’s been spending more money. Her fingernails are made of plastic now. Her teeth gleam whiter than snow.

“Your teeth are so white,” I say.

“It’s a new technique from the dentist in town,” she says. “He is a hunk.”

She yanks my dress over my head, then runs her hands over my body, fake plastic nails brushing my shoulders, my arms, my hips, then thighs.

“We need to slim you down,” she says.

VISION

I am the queen of the cake room.

There are dozens of round cakes on silver steel tables. Pastel frosting flowers dot their edges and tops. I am starving, My hand sweats around a fork.

I step toward them, mouth full of drool.

The first cake is round, white with pink flowers. I sink the fork into it and pull out a big hunk. In my mouth, the sugar dissolves against my tongue. I’m fast to fork another piece between my lips, the sugar smearing across my cheeks.

I eat and I eat and I eat, the cake filling my stomach. There are cakes everywhere and no one can stop me, not my mother, not my father. I eat, and I eat, and I eat, the sugar rushes through my veins. There are cakes everywhere, and when I’m done with this cake, I can eat another and another and another and no one can stop me.

MY MOTHER HANDS ME A BROWN PAPER bag with a single rock inside.

“This is the latest diet,” she says. “Suck on this at lunch. The dirt and meat particles have calories that burn fat in them. I read about it in a magazine.”