Chapter Text
Devi Vishwakumar strode into Sherman Oaks High School for her last first day of high school, ready to wow Princeton, ready to seize the crown of valedictorian, and ready to establish beyond the shadow of a doubt the sartorial supremacy of cute floral prints. And of course, Devi was truly, madly, deeply, single.
She absorbed the energy of the nervous freshmen, the overbearing helicopter parents in the parking lot, and groups of friends reuniting after summer. She felt good. Really good. This would be a great year. All of her problems were solved, or well, she had moved on from them. Totally moved on.
Devi practically bounced over to Fabiola and Eleanor once she spotted them in the hallway, hooking an arm over each of her two friends and pulling them along towards the green.
“What’s up my dawgs? Ready to rock senior year?”
“Stop. We need to talk about this.” Fabiola held up her phone, open to their groupchat. “The fact that you are retaking a 1580 is evidence of clinical insanity.”
Eleanor gave Devi some side-eye. “Honestly, your vibe is even scaring me. Are you sure you’re ok?” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You’re not gonna have an issue seeing Ben?”
Devi pranced ahead, spun to face her friends, and gave a finger gun to Fab.
“Not up for discussion.”
And another finger gun for Eleanor.
“And nope. We’re friends.”
Fabiola and Eleanor exchanged a doubtful glance, but Devi clapped as if that settled the matter. “I’m single and working on me.. and on you guys. This is my god-damn Emma era. Speaking of which, Fab, I’m sorry about Addison.”
Fab rolled her eyes. “Don’t be. Turns out they were a total fuckthem.”
“Excuse me?”
“A fuckboi, but like enby or.. ”
Devi cut her off, “oookay, not a thing.”
Just then they reached Devi’s locker. Devi’s insides rearranged themselves. Right there, looking intently into his own locker, was Ben Gross. Her friend, Ben Gross.
Fab and El arched their eyebrows and said goodbye, moving on towards their own lockers.
“Hey Ben”
He turned towards her with an unreadable look on his face. Had he grown over the summer?
“Hey.”
And just like that, Devi felt herself tumbling back to that night after graduation when she had been lying in her bed and felt that stupid paper slip in her pocket. She steeled herself. Not the time to relive that core memory.
“Hey!” Devi overcompensated for the nausea of the memory with her cheery tone.
“You said ‘hey’ already..”
“Uh I did?” Devi shook her head and opened her eyes as if trying to wake up. “Must be losing some vocabulary. You know all those whippits over the summer.”
She laughed awkwardly at her own joke. Her funny joke. And all the moving, fidgeting she was doing, that was for comedic effect too, certainly not for anything else, but why was Ben so still?
The shadow of a questioning frown passed over his face, turned slightly away from her.
“Your summer, huh”
“Come on Gross, no cracks? I’m really not sure I know how to have a conversation with you if you don’t call me U.N. or something at least once.”
“Is this a conversation? because it feels like you’re just talking at me.”
It had none of Ben’s normal casual edge. Instead, when Devi looked up at him, now directly in the eyes, she saw a stoniness that made her cringe inside. What had she done to the old Ben, and what had happened that night after graduation? He was the one who had rejected her, the one who hadn’t wanted to hook up. And honestly, she didn’t blame him. But he was the one who had said they should be friends, and here he was giving her the cold shoulder.
“Fine. Consider this conversation over.”
Devi slammed her locker, gave Ben her bitchiest head bob, and marched confidently away to AP Physics C. After approximately five steps towards the first class of her senior year, Devi realized that she had forgotten the physics textbook in the locker she had just departed.
She gave what she hoped was a smooth pirouette in place and made a beeline back. He was still standing there. Not that she looked at him. Well, maybe just a glance afterwards. And maybe he was looking back at her, with a hint of a smile on his face.
xxx
Ben had a mantra that he repeated to himself whenever the ugly black emotions started climbing towards the surface, threatening to pull him back down to the place they had come from. It was:
“Just one more year. Just one more year.”
One more year and he would be out of this godforsaken shithole of an excuse for a high school, off to Columbia where he would start over. A new slate in New York. New friends, his people. They were waiting for him somewhere. And above all, he would be far away from her. Far away from those confusing feelings that he could never quite bear to analyze, far away from her painful gravity. Somehow, when she was nearby, he could never quite pay attention to anything or anyone else.
The truth was, he felt like he was always running. He found it hard to sit still in his cavernous empty house when Patty wasn’t there. It reminded him of everything he didn’t have. School was the same. He found it hard to stop working. Without his manic workaholic behavior, he could tell the dark feelings would catch up with him, pull him down, until he wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed.
The sound of the bell woke Ben up, and he panicked a little. He looked around at the empty hallway. He was never, ever late to classes. Speedwalking through the door into Mr. Schaefer’s Physics class, he saw Devi talking to some new kid. Ben spotted the last remaining seat in the back of the room and plopped down.
He pulled out his notebook and arranged it perfectly on his desk, aligned with the edges. Time to forget about everything else. Time to do school. He knew how to do school.
xxx
At lunch, Devi had to listen to El wax poetic about her romantic summer with Trent. Sunset drives along the coast, getting high and cooking at home, hooking up in empty movie theaters. Eleanor was sighing at her own anecdotes. Devi sighed too.
Fabiola gave her a frown.
“What are you sighing about?”
Devi jolted. “My welsh’s fruit snacks.” she responded quickly.
Fab accepted her response with a dreamy smile. “Real fruit and an excellent source of vitamins A and B…”
It wasn’t the Welsh’s fruit snacks. It was the fact that Devi had managed to ruin every potential romantic relationship in her life, and any time she was reminded that normal people all around her were engaged in normal relationships, it felt like the knife in her gut twisted just a little bit more. Well, Des wasn’t really her fault, but still.
At that point inner monologue #2, Mature Devi, kicked in. Remember, this year is about YOU. No more chasing after boys. Self-love first.
But inner monologue #1, Hormonal Devi, cut her off. Holy shit dude!
The new kid she had met in Physics, Ethan, has just flopped down into the fourth seat at the girls’ table. His wavy brown hair danced around his head.
“mind if I sit with you guys?” His face wore an easy smile.
The girls were shell-shocked. The hot new kid sitting with them?
“Guys?”
Devi rushed to answer him “No. I mean yes. I mean no. I mean no, we don’t mind, and yes, you can sit with us.”
Ethan’s smile had inverted into a worried look. “Good?”
Devi made a split second she needed to recover her coolness by pretending to forget his name.
“Remind me your name again?”
“Ethan. Devi Vishwakumar, right?” Devi mumbled a “yeah”.
Fabiola and Eleanor introduced themselves with their own personal brand of awkwardness. A slightly uncomfortable pause ensued. What did you talk about with guys again?
As usual, Eleanor could be counted on to have absolutely zero filter and jump onto the first conversation topic she thought of.
“Soooo did you guys see that Paxton’s acceptance video blew up!! The one with me and Trent.” El was talking very fast and her questions were sounding like statements. She turned to Ethan. “Trent is my boyfriend. Devi dated Paxton but now they’re not dating anymore.”
Fab and Devi shot her warning glances. Eleanor looked down and winced, chastened.
“Sorry, I’m oversharing again.”
Ethan laughed. “Nah it’s all good. Are you guys talking about Paxton Hall-Yoshida? the guy with three fan tumblrs?” They nodded. He gave an appraising look at Devi. “Nice work girl.”
Ethan, as it turned out, was surprisingly easy to talk to, voraciously outgoing with a sincere interest in literally everything. Within the next ten minutes he had solemnly sworn to El to come audition for the upcoming fall production of Mamma Mia!, laughed off joining the robotics team (but not before asking all about the competition and how it worked), and enthusiastically volunteered to teach Devi how to skateboard.
Fab let Ethan off easy, but had a harder pitch prepared for Devi. “Look, we need the smartest kids in the school if we’re going to take down regionals this year. You could really help us, and I promise it’ll be a ton of fun.”
Devi felt tempted. After all, she had made herself a promise to be a better friend, and robotics was like Fab’s biggest thing. Plus, it sounded kinda cool. But something felt off…
“Hold up. you said smartest kids plural. Which, OK, I’ll let it slide. But did you ask you-know-who to join too?”
Fab braced for impact. “Yes?”
“Then sorry, I can’t. Turns out things are still… weird.”
But Fab wouldn’t give up just like that. “C’mon” she pouted. “It would be great for college. You know you need a good STEM extracurricular.”
Devi sat back, chewing her lip. Fab pressed the offensive.
“Women in STEM.. Women in STEM” she chanted, like the world’s geekiest hypnotist. “Women in STEM… WOMEN IN STEM…” Her hands moved in circles in Devi’s face.
Beside her, Ethan looked terrified.
Devi panicked. There was only one way to get Fab to stop. “OK, OK.” she half-snarled through grated teeth, grabbing Fab’s wrists. “I’m in. Just stop.” Her friend snapped back to her senses and gave a shy, apologetic smile to Ethan.
“So who’s you-know-who?” Ethan laughed. “If I knew Voldemort went to Sherman Oaks, I might have thought twice about transferring.”
Eleanor was all too ready to fill him in.
“Not Voldemort, more like Voldeshort. Ben Gross. He’s completely evil. Him and Devi have a long and sordid history.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me know when you have a free couple of hours. I can tell you everything.”
Devi met Ethan’s raised eyebrow with an embarrassed smile. Mercifully, the bell rang just then and the three girls traipsed off the AP Euro. Side by side in the hall, Devi was doing her best to scream at Eleanor under her breath.
“What the hell, dude. Can we not air out all my relationship failures with every hot, eligible boy we meet? We need to practice for this situation.”
“I’m sorry, okay? Someone needed to hold up the conversation, and you weren’t doing it.”
“I didn’t know what to talk about. That’s why we need to practice.”
“You don’t know how to talk to guys, but somehow with Ben Gross you don’t know how to shut up.”
She didn’t respond for a moment.
“That’s different.”
She didn’t want to think about Ben. Once she started, it was just too hard to stop.
Mr. Shapiro greeted them at the door. He grabbed Devi’s hand and looked directly into her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Traumatized, Devi maneuvered on autopilot to a seat. Behind her, Fab and Eleanor filed in, equally scarred.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” he apologized to every girl that entered.
The teacher pranced to the center of the room. “I’M SORRY” he boomed, pausing for dramatic effect, gaze sweeping across the classroom. “for the fascist supreme court decision this summer.” Tears were welling up in his eyes. Devi was already thinking about how she would explain this experience to Dr. Ryan.
“I’d like all those who identify as men to go around the room. And say sorry.”
Ben, of course, was seated at the front of the class. He was staring daggers at Mr. S.
“I must be in the wrong room. I thought this was AP European History.”
Devi spoke up.
“Mr. Shapiro, I’d like to support him.”
She made eye contact with a surprised Ben, and smiled her best goody-two-shoes princess smile.
“I don’t think Ben knows the word sorry.”
xxx
By mid-afternoon, Devi was dead tired, and regretting all the scrolling she had done last night instead of going to sleep at a normal people time. Just two more periods, PE and then Multivariable Calculus, and then maybe she would take a small nap at home before getting to work. As she walked to the locker room, the hot sun made her relish the idea of a siesta even more.
It took a familiar figure walking quickly across a hallway intersection ahead to wake her up. She blinked and sped up, jogging into the other corridor, backpack bouncing on her side. Her footsteps slapped obnoxiously on the concrete. Panting, she grabbed his arm from behind.
“Paxton!”
He turned around and immediately looked over her shoulder, like a cornered animal plotting its escape.
“Hey Devi,” he mumbled.
She put her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised. Silence lingered for an uncomfortable second.
“Okay bro, do I need to say it? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be blacked on a dorm floor at ASU right now?”
He smiled weakly, biting his lip. “I see you haven’t changed.”
Then he took a deep breath.
“I got rescinded from ASU. You know my college acceptance video, where Trent chucks a beer at me. Apparently, they don’t like it when 2 million people see evidence of their underage students drinking. So I’m taking a gap year. Teaching the swimming unit in PE.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Paxton rolled his eyes. “Right, you’re the victim here.”
He looked away again.
“See you in class, Vishwakumar.”
PE passed uneventfully enough. The only seniors taking PE were the kids who had never gotten any credits from after school sports, which meant zero try hards shaming the class into doing anything resembling genuine cardiovascular exercise. Still, Devi dreaded the swimming unit that she would have to do in the spring.
She walked to the computer lab for Multivariable Calculus. She would be completing it online through UCLA extension school, under the watchful eye of a teacher chaperone, since the Sherman Oaks teaching staff was barely qualified to teach the courses they did offer. And Devi had a decent idea who else would be taking it with her.
“Hey Ben.” she greeted him, as she selected the farthest possible computer from where he was sitting.
Principal Grubbs entered seconds later, Mr. Kulkarni in tow.
“Benjamin Gross. Devi Vishwakumar. You are the only two students taking Mumbojumbo Calculus, and Mr. Kulkarni will be watching you as a reward for his performance as chaperone at a school function. Any questions? No, great.” She wheeled out of the room, without waiting for any questions.
Ben gave his most ingratiating smile to Mr. K. “I’m so excited that you’re the one watching us.”
Mr. K sat down at a table, slapping a stack of ungraded essays down in front of him.
“I’m excited too. One hundred and eighty,” His head bounced with the emphasis on the eighty, “hours alone in a room you two.” He looked up and smiled sweetly.
Devi had almost completed the first day’s lesson and coursework, when she heard the squeak of chair legs on linoleum next to her. Ben was sitting there, leaning forward.
“Hey. I’m sorry.” He paused. “I do wanna be friends.”
Devi looked back at him. Eye contact. Eye contact.
“Who are you and what did you do with Ben Gross?” she said out of the side of her mouth in what she hoped was an ironic fake-impression voice.
“I’m not laughing at that.”
She sighed. “Alright. Apology accepted. Friends.”
Silence ensued.
“We should like fist bump or something. Now that we’re friends.” Devi laughed. They fist bumped.
Ben sat back smugly in his chair. A beat later, Devi turned towards him again.
“Oh my god, are you gloating that you finished already? For a second I thought you had some character growth.” Despite herself, Devi felt a tickle of shame. Another point in Ben’s favor in their eternal volley.
“Come on, what on Earth would make you think that?”
“The fact that you didn’t put your SAT score in your insta bio was encouraging...”
“Oh David, it’s cute that you’re checking my insta. I have no idea what my bio is.” Oops.
She recovered enough to snort. “Whatever. Just help me finish so I can get out of here. I’m on the last one. What did you get?”
“sixteen-” he started. She frowned. Maybe she had messed up. “-hundred.”
He looked at her innocently, eyes wide. “Oh wait, did you mean on the classwork?”
Her fist collided with Ben’s shoulder in an oh-so-satisfying smack!.