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heard the love that would help him believe again in his writing. In the touch of her hand he felt the confidence that he would one day not have to masturbate quite so often, but also, paradoxically, the need to do so almost immediately.
    His fantasies, however, were always tinged with sadness, as he had no doubt that she was out of his league. Though she didn’t wear any rings, Perry was certain that a woman like Amanda had to have a boyfriend, and one who probably owned an unstained pair of pants. She never mentioned anyone, though, and the germ of hope that had infected Perry began to cause sleeplessness. He needed to know the bad news as soon as possible to be able to move on with his life. So in the middle of one of their after-class conversations, Perry blurted out, apropos of nothing, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
    To his surprise, Amanda didn’t flinch at the Asperger’s-like awkwardness of this question.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, and Perry’s heart plummeted down an elevator shaft. ‘But—’ His heart shot back up into his chest. ‘He lives very far away. We’re trying to make it work.’
    ‘Right,’ Perry said, feeling the blood returning to his limbs. ‘Long-distance relationships can be very challenging.’ Just like that, he decided that Amanda’s boyfriend was history. Some day, before the term was over, Perry would ask Amanda if she would like to have a cup of coffee and talk more about her screenplay. She would gladly agree, and that coffee would become a date, which she wouldn’t even realise was a date until they found themselves in each other’s arms. This date would become several dates, a relationship and, eventually, the love that would save Perry from lonely misery.
    This, Perry knew, was the Romance Story, one of seven story templates from which all Hollywood movies were constructed. But that didn’t stop him from believing it.
    There was only one problem with this plan. While the other students routinely assaulted Perry with long and terrible screenplays that demanded his immediate attention, Amanda hadn’t turned in a single word. As the term went on, this became a source of anxiety. Why is she in my class? he wondered. Was she mocking him? Did she think she could just sit back and watch his degradation without participating in it?
    ‘Excuse me, Mr Bunt?’ In the back of the classroom, Amanda patiently continued to hold up her hand. It took Perry a moment to remember the current discussion. How long had he been staring at her? ‘I had a question? About Mr Laskey’s script?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Amanda. What is it?’
    ‘Was Molina’s head cut off by the main blade or that little whirling thing in the back?’
    Before Perry could react, Brent Laskey adjusted his backward baseball cap with the cocky confidence of an auteur . ‘The main rotor. My guy spins the helicopter upside down, flies it six feet off the ground and whack , no more head.’
    Amanda smiled and made a note on her pad. Et tu, Amanda? Perry thought. He glowered at the class. ‘The question is really beside the point, since no one in the history of the world has ever used a helicopter to decapitate someone purposely, let alone flown one upside down.’
    ‘That’s what made it so awesome,’ said Heath Barber, another Faux rantino. ‘It’s completely new. You literally nailed it, dude.’
    As Heath and Brent exchanged a high five, Perry fought back extreme annoyance. In addition to encouraging Brent’s suspension of logic, Heath had flagrantly engaged in Perry’s linguistic pet peeve: the use of ‘literally’ to mean its opposite. Normally, Perry would have corrected this, but the conversation was already running away from him, devolving into a debate on whether you could fly a helicopter upside down. To his further irritation, this was the liveliest discussion of the term.
    ‘It’s physically impossible!’ Perry interrupted. ‘It breaks every rule of aero-fucking-dynamics, all right? It can’t possibly