But if you keep drinking milk...

As I unpack my newly arrived shipment of exclamation points, I look over to see Ms. Wildstar frowning at the shadows beneath my desk. Since Marin had vanished into the blackness of the dustbunny wildlands, I'd been going about my days without too much annoyance from discarded characters. I mark a full week down as a record, sigh, and give the angsty teen the attention she's craving.

"What?"

“Look at them.” She points to where I can now make out two people sitting on the ground holding hands, gazing at each other and doing all that lovey-dovey crud that generally makes me queasy.

“Is that Zsmed?”

She twists her fingers in front of her and nods.

Is that jealousy I spy? I look a little closer and it all becomes clear. “Delilah? Is that who he was with last week when I was looking for him?”

She bites her lip and nods again.

Ms. Wildstar’s friend and cast off from failed cheesy sequel 1.0. Ouch. Not that I can blame Zsmed. See, I got a little carried away with Delilah. Her name was totally intentional and played up every aspect of her biblical namesake. I should also mention that she has a killer body, and we’re not talking murder here. Oh, and one more thing…

“Hey, Zsmed, you do realize she’s only seventeen, right?”

“What?” He drops Delilah’s hand and runs over to me. “Look at her, she can’t be seventeen.”

I pat the distraught fighter pilot on the head. “You weren’t created yet, but see, there were these milk commercials...”

He gives me one of those raised brow what-the-heck-are-you-rambling-about looks.

“When she was created, I was a teen, and therefore most of my characters were teens. But teens are typically gawky and unsure of themselves and have zits. I needed her to fit in with the other characters but fill her role in which she needed to be really attractive and confident. And there were these commercials were they took those teens and told them if they drank milk, they’d be hot and healthy in a few more years.”

“You made Delilah drink a lot of milk?”

“Um. No. I gave her the hot college girl’s body but made her seventeen, because that’s the age everyone else was in the story.”

He turns bright red. “But that means I just spend the last week…”

“Yeah, but maybe her parents are okay with that, I mean, she is an alien after all”

He goes from red to white and grabs ahold of my chair with a trembling hand. “She’s what?”

“Sorry, I probably should have made her blue and given her some tentacles or something to clue people in. Besides, what do you care, you’re not human either.”

“True.” Zsmed takes a deep breath.

“Just be glad I wrote you with short hair. No telling what she might have done.”

He runs his hand over his head and grimaces. “I think I’m going to lay off the women for a bit. If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner sorting adverbs with Nekar.”