Lessons From the Kissing Booth

When I got closer it turned out that your skin was lined with bombs, which was unexpected, but still I set to work. I unpacked my tools and started defusing, fingers cracked and bleeding from sparks and unexpected wires. Common sense and years of spy movies have taught me that the trigger was probably somewhere near your heart so I followed from the outside in, tracing red wires from green wires from white wires, waiting for everything to explode.

Still, it was a surprise when I got there to find that bomb was all that was left. I took the whole thing out, twisting and ripping and throwing just about as far as I could. I settled in to try adding replacements, bottles of champagne, puppies, an old movie camera I had found somewhere. My own hand with a mouse in it. Nothing else worked quite as well as your bomb, and your breathing grew shallower, your singing voice worse.

The decisions then to be made were unclear. I know less about building bombs than I do about defusing them, and anyway it didn't seem right to fill you back up with explosives. Flowers would only make you smell like potpourri, and more mice would eventually die. There was no way I was going to climb in there myself. The only heart I had on hand was my own, so I carved off a chunk and ironed it out. It wasn't in the best of shape even then, but it was maybe a better option than nothing at all.