Ghost Time

anyhow.
    Cam was wearing his boxers—he’s so skinny, they were almost falling off his hips—and there was still a red outline of my lip gloss on his left hip bone, from when I’d knelt down, kissinghim, because his hip bones drive me crazy. And just above his elastic band, you could see this thin brown line, like this sliver of gold-brown pubic hair, shining in the light beneath the kitchen window. Oh, but when I say skinny, I don’t mean it in a bad way—I love Cam’s body. All the time. He’s perfect, if you ask me, and that’s why I took pictures of him, standing at our kitchen sink, holding a glass of milk in one hand and this humongous double-decker PB&J—like, three pieces of bread, stuffed in his mouth, and this big dab of raspberry jelly on his chin, like he hadn’t eaten for weeks or something. And I said, Don’t move, and I ran to my room.
    Cam’s so used to it by now, me taking his picture all the time, he didn’t move a muscle. Yeah, just like that, I said, focusing, and then he goes, Just look at the camera? And I go, Yeah, look at the camera, and I ended up taking a whole roll—real, honest-to-goodness film, too. Don’t ask me how I’m going to pay to get it printed, but anyhow.
    Cam took all the other photos. Those are just digital, all the ones of me, jumping on my bed, in front of my window. That was just before Cam left, and the curtains were drawn, but the light’s so bright, it’s like it’s taking an X-ray of the whole room. There’s this one photo he showed me, and at first, I was like, Ohmygod, delete! Because it’s a picture of me, lying facedown, on my bed, and all I’m wearing are those ugly tube socks. But before I could ask for my camera back, Cam got another text. Someone kept calling and texting all afternoon, and I was so annoyed, I told him to turn his phone off when he walked over to check the message.
    When he picked up his phone, he looked at it like, WTF? And he had such a strange look, reading the message, I said, What’s wrong? He shook his head no, then he looked up and smiled, and he goes, Nothing, babe. It’s fine, but I can’t stay for dinner—I’ve got to work, and when he said that, I was just like, Tonight? Seemed kind of late to be calling for a tutoring session, but Cam goes, No, not now, five thirty, and I started whining, No! and I threw myself on the bed. So I’m lying there, facedown, legs spread wide apart, squeezing my fists. And you can’t tell by looking, but the moment he took that picture, what I was saying was, Don’t leave! I turned over, and I go, What do I have to do to get you to stay? And Cam goes, Thee, look at this. Look how beautiful you are, as he showed me the picture he took.
    The thing is, I really hated that picture when he first showed it to me, but now I kind of like it. Not because it’s the best picture of my butt, definitely not, but because… because it’s true, you know? It’s so true. I mean, I’m not beautiful—I never really feel that way about myself, on my own. But when I look at Cam, when I see me the way he sees me, I don’t know what happens, but I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2011
    (FOUR HOURS LATER)
    9:26 PM
    I called him twice, and I texted him, too, like, three or four times before I went to bed—he couldn’t still be tutoring after ten o’clock, right? Usually he calls right back, but I don’t know, I figured maybe he was working on his car—sometimes he’ll stay out in the garage, working on his car until, like, two, three in the morning. Cam’s a total night owl—he’ll stay up half the night, working on his car, or taking drives, or writing equations in our notebook: part geometry; part hieroglyphics; part graffiti tags. Cam has a written language all his own that he shares with me—it’s crazy and beautiful, in no particular order. Anyhow, he loves to work at night, so I didn’t worry about it, really.
    And since I figured he was working, I decided I better get some work done, too. Not homework—please, instead of talking to Cam all night, I spent the night working on some drawingsI’m making for him. For the past couple months now, I’ve been designing something I like to think of as our Barbie Dreamhouse. Which looks like a five-thousand-square-foot downtown loft in New York pretty much. Except that in Thea and Cam’s Barbie Dreamhouse, we’ve got this enormous wooden half-pipe, so Cam can skate anytime he wants, rain or shine. And we