Lessons From the Kissing Booth

"Who are you hoping to run into? Donatello? Leonardo? ...Raphael?"
"Um. Those? Are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
"Oh. Oh yeah, I guess they are."
"I don't give my phone number to Ninja Turtles. I don't care if they are heroes on the half shell. What sort of girl do you take me for?"

For a few years my father drove a motorcycle that I remember as red but which was probably black. My stepmother eventually made him get rid of it because she's not a fan of motorcycles, and the thing is neither am I. But I can't seem to get away from them--even my mother rides them now, and the last boy I went out with was in the process of buying one when we fell out of the habit of, um, dating. I do not like them, and will not like them, as there are too many pictures pinned to the back of my head. I have been to too many funerals of boys I once knew.
I am, on the other hand, a big fan of motorcycle helmets. I remember taking possession of my father's helmet whenever I could find it, carrying it around the house with me until someone took it away. I'd snatch it as soon as he took it off and hide my hands in the heat inside. I am certain that it was red, and I'd lay down on the floor with my head inside it, face mask closed, breathing in the smell of my dad in the dark.
That helmet always smelled like shampoo and Drakkar Noir and sweat. And it is still through that helmet that I think of my father most fondly.