“Do you like yourself, Miles?”

The therapist was bringing out the old classics today. I couldn’t even begin to count how many times she had asked that question over the past going-on three years now.

I was sprawled out on the couch, while she was seated in the big armchair, notebook and pen in hand, legs crossed. Her hair was up in a bun. Blond. She was wearing glasses. Her clothes were too tight and too short, which struck me even as a young man as extremely inappropriate, considering the reason I was there.

After the incident with Ryan and Ms. Hayes, the blame was all thrust on me. Everyone saw me holding the remote. Everyone saw me pounce on Ryan. It didn’t matter how much I protested, so I didn’t. I told them what they wanted to hear.

“I’m sorry,” I had said, when we were all gathered in the principal’s office. I was crying, and the tears were real, for whatever that was worth. “I don’t know what came over me. Life’s just been so hard since Dad left.” I turned to Ms. Hayes, who was in the room, having recovered her senses, somewhat. I made sure I was sniveling. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Hayes. You were always so nice to me. I think- I think something’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”

Everyone bought it, and I got off with a therapy sentence. Tom was the only one who knew I hadn’t really done it. And Ryan and co., I guess. Maybe a couple of other kids.

For more than two years I had been coming to see Ms. Levine every Tuesday afternoon. I broke my rule somewhat for her. I had to. I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, because she wanted to hear what I was thinking. I still tried to fake giving her what she wanted, but I think she knew I wasn’t opening up to her. You can’t fool everyone, I guess.

“Sure,” I said. Not particularly, I thought. What does it matter if you like yourself? What matters is if you’re effective. I’m simply not effective. Tom is effective, so I become Tom when I want to be effective. It isn’t that I don’t like myself. I’m just not special.

You let your guard down. I never talked to Ryan again after that day, but his words were often echoing in my mind. He was right. Maybe he was even right about having done me a favor. I hadn’t made that mistake again, that’s for sure.

“There’s something on your mind,” Ms. Levine said. That was true.

I had gotten used to the looks. The stares. The whispers. I embraced it. Yes, I’m the kid who deepfaked a video of himself with his teacher. So what. It even earned me a small bit of respect among some of the less savory male students. I still got an occasional “Hell yeah, dude,” from a passing stranger in the hall.

I wasn’t thinking about all of that. I was thinking about Isabel.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Ms. Levine asked, as if reading my mind. I started. “No,” I said quickly, which was also true.

“Why not?” she asked. This was a new line of questioning. Had she gotten bored with our regular routine?

I shrugged. That was my favorite answer to her questions. She sighed, which seemed highly unprofessional.

“I know school has been tough for you,” she said. “It would be tough for anyone after what you’ve gone through. But there’s only a couple weeks left of the school year, right? High school could be a new start for you. A clean slate.”

“A lot of my classmates will be going to the same high school,” I argued, just to be combative. But I had been thinking the same thing.

I wanted to tell Ms. Levine - or somebody, anybody - about my problem, my conundrum. I knew better, of course.

There was this girl. Isabel. She’d started looking at me in class. I don’t know how else to describe it. She’d just give me this look. This look that burned away at every part of me that wasn’t thinking of her.

I’d never noticed her before - didn’t know if she was a new student, or what. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to change schools right before going to high school, but I guess life happens that way sometimes.

I wanted to ask her out. She wouldn’t say yes. Everyone knew about me. Some guys could respect it, but no girls. I was a creep. Maybe she hadn’t heard. Maybe she was new. No. Impossible. She knew. Had to.

But I had to try. “OK Miles,” I hear you saying. “Easy enough. Just do what you always do when you need to get something done. Do what Tom would do.”

Just one problem. Tom doesn’t date.

I didn’t know why, exactly. I mean, I’ve asked him. He said that he needs to “fix himself” first, and that “women could wait.” He couldn’t put it in a way that made sense to me, though he tried.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

So I couldn’t mirror Tom. So it’s a no-go, right? Hadn’t I learned my lesson? Well…

I had another idea. It was risky. It could blow up in my face. But it was now or never. If I screwed things up now, there was still a chance I could fade into the obscurity of the crowded city high school. Some of my old classmates would be there, but the high school was massive compared to our middle school. I’d probably be forgotten, no matter what happened. Bigger fish.

“Y’know what, Ms. Levine?”

“I told you before, Miles, you can call me Carol.” She had told me many times. I knew she preferred Ms. Levine, even though she told me to call her Carol. Women rarely say what they mean. At least, that’s what my Dad had told me.

“Y’know what? I think I’m going to ask this girl out.”

“Really?” she asked. That brought her to attention. The statement seemed to have reinvigorated her. “What girl? What made you make that decision?”

“You think it’s a bad idea?” I asked.

“No no, not at all,” she said quickly. “Just, why all of a sudden? You never wanted to talk about girls before. What changed your mind?”

I smiled at her. “You did, Ms. Levine.” And then her little timer went off, alerting us that the session was over. I had timed it perfectly.

“Oh,” I said, as if I had just thought of it. “You won’t tell my mom, right?”

“Of course not, Miles. Strictly confidential.”

There. I had finally told her what she wanted to hear. It was half BS, but that wouldn’t do her any harm.

-

I started pirating movies. Mostly James Bond movies, but also old black and white movies with male leads, the entirety of Mad Men, and anything I could find with a suave or “bad boy” character in it. I studied.

My day of reckoning came. It was in science class. We were assigned to different groups, different tables. A minor setback. What would James Bond do?

She looked at me from across the room. I looked back. It was time.

I walked over. Confidence. I was James Bond. I always got the girl.

“Hey,” I said, but not to her. To her science partner. A good-looking girl, but not my type.

“Hey yourself,” she said, not even looking at me. Isabel was definitely looking at me. I could feel it.

“Do you know John?” I asked. I pointed over to my science partner. “Big muscular guy? Football team?”

She blinked. “Not personally.”

“Well, he wants to know you,” I said. “I suggested we swap partners. He’s game if you’re game.”

She looked at John, then at Isabel. Isabel shrugged. “Why not,” the girl said, and left.

“Was that a lie?” Isabel asked as I sidled up next to her. She was dressed in all black. Black hair. Green eyes.

I looked her in the eyes. I grinned. “Are you going to tell on me?”

She grinned back. “Do I look like a snitch?”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

She laughed.

Perfect. Attack. “I’m going to be at the lake tonight. The north dock. You know it?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to be there, looking at the stars and throwing shit into the lake.”

“How exciting,” she said, sarcastically.

“That’s where I’ll be. If you want exciting, meet me there.”

She looked at me. I think she was searching for something in my eyes. I’m not sure if she found it, but she nodded.

Then I left. I’d never skipped school before, but I knew that’s what a movie character would have done. It completed the scene.

“YES!” I shouted when I got outside the school grounds, pumping my fist. “FUCK YES!” It worked! It fucking worked!

I didn’t go back to school that day. I went home - Mom would be getting home late, wouldn’t notice.

I paced around my room nervously until dark.

“Going to Tom’s, Mom!” I shouted on my way out the door. She didn’t care.

We didn’t live far from the lake. The walk hardly gave me time to think, but I didn’t want to think. Thinking would ruin everything.

She was already there when I arrived, sitting on the pier with her feet dangling over the water. The full moon illuminated her.

She must have heard me coming, but didn’t turn around as I approached. “You didn’t tell me what time to be here,” she said. I wondered how long she had been waiting.

I had to stop myself from saying sorry. Saying sorry is what I would have done. It’s not what a movie character would have done. I said nothing.

Next to her were 2 six-packs of some cheap beer, in bottles. “Alcoholism starts early,” I said.

“Fun doesn’t wait,” she responded.

She finally looked up at me, smiling. “You going to sit?”

Inside, I was ecstatic. I was over the moon. But I played it cool. “Next to you?” I asked. “If I have to.”

I sat. We stared at the lake for awhile.

“Where’s the shit?” she asked eventually.

“The shit?”

“The shit you’re supposed to be throwing into the lake.”

“Do you always ask questions like that? Maybe I plan to throw you in.”

She snickered. “Is that a threat of violence?”

“Are you into that?”

She looked away, back out at the water. Too far?

“Is it true?” she asked. She didn’t have to clarify. She was talking about the deepfake.

“Yes,” I lied.

She shook her head. She muttered to herself, and I just barely caught it. “You’re perfect,” she said.

“You’re not,” I said. She stared at me suddenly, glaring. I couldn’t tell if it was real or fake anger. Maybe we were both faking all of this, just two actors playing our roles. It didn’t matter. I finished my thought. “But you’ll do.”

She kissed me. I was startled. I almost started to pull away, but she brought me in close. Even more surprising, she grabbed my hand, and brought it up to her chest. I didn’t protest. It was absolute bliss.

The moment was too short. It was interrupted by a flash of light. I opened my eyes, looking for the source of it. She was holding her phone. “Perfect,” she said again.

“What are you doing?” I asked, confused, my facade of cool washing off of me.

“Look,” she said. She showed me her phone. On the screen was what I assumed was a picture of me and her, making out. Because of the angle, I couldn’t actually make out my face, but you could clearly see hers. It must have been me though, obviously. In the photo, I had one hand on her boob, and you could clearly make out the beers behind us.

“What am I looking at?” I asked. Everything felt weird. My skin was crawling. It was suddenly very cold out.

“If I was your daughter,” she said. “And you saw this picture, what would you think?”

“What? I’d be pissed, I guess,” I said. I was starting to fear where this was going.

“Perfect,” she said. She took her phone back, and a little *ding* sounded as she pressed send.

I started to stand up. “No, wait,” she said. I stopped. Would Tom have stopped?

“I really do like you,” she said. “Really. I just needed to do that. I think you’re cool. You’re so cool, so uncaring, so alpha. This isn’t about the picture. That’s just bonus. I like you. Really.”

This isn’t right. I thought. She doesn’t like me. She likes Robert Redford, or James Bond, or fucking Jon Hamm. I can’t do this.

“Don’t leave,” she said. “Please. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

I let her pull me back into her arms.

-

We didn’t actually have sex - just laid there, her naked, me clothed, making out for awhile, then just kept laying there. Me holding her. Her holding me. It felt good. And bad. Complicated. We looked up at the stars. We threw the beers into the lake. Wordlessly. Just because.

Afterwards, she asked me a question. I had my head in her lap, and she was playing with my hair. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?” I said, feeling less than human, but better than yesterday.

“The deepfake. With the teacher.”

I was silent for awhile. Should I just tell her the truth? Should I say at least one truthful thing to this girl?

No. Not her.

“Put your clothes back on,” I said, finally. “And I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

The line was meaningless. I had stolen it from For Your Eyes Only. But she didn’t ask anything else. She got dressed, and we left.

And I did buy her ice cream. We agreed to see each other again.

Well, I thought to myself afterwards. It worked. Mission accomplished, I guess. Half of me really did feel accomplished. But I kept hearing Ms. Levine’s voice in my head.

Do you like yourself, Miles?