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Ben’s weekend is weird.
Well, not really. It’s quiet (his parents are away). And food-filled (Patty isn’t).
It’s weird because he hasn’t heard from Devi.
He hadn’t realized that talking to her was something he’d gotten used to until his phone had gone silent following Friday’s adventure. She and her family had stopped by the house to pick up her stuff before heading home for dinner (“Pancakes,” she had said, as if that explained everything), but then…nothing. No random venmo requests. No digs at his Model UN skills. No vague references to what happened.
What did happen? Ben wonders. He’s still not really sure anything happened at all.
(Except it totally did.)
When his phone lights up late on Sunday night, he scrambles up from where he’s lying on the basketball court to read the notification.
It’s Shira. He slowly sinks back down.
hey, it reads. can u like my IG post?
It’s followed by miles of hearts and kissy faces, and Ben feels…well, disappointed. Usually, a text from Shira doesn’t make him feel anything. But this? This makes his chest kinda hurt.
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, his brain supplies. Almost snidely.
He kicks the basketball away from him and sits there for another minute, debating. His thumb hovers over one of the tiny icons above Shira’s name. He takes a breath. Then another.
Then he presses “call.”
Monday morning is weird.
Ben and Paxton are both unusually early for history class, and Devi is nowhere to be found.
He looks to the back of the classroom to find the other members of her squad accounted for. Eleanor’s poring over what looks like a script for the school play. And Fabiola’s recalibrating her robot while her new girlfriend watches over her shoulder.
But no Devi.
Paxton, however, is very present. And looking super out of his element for once.
He looks like Ben feels, actually. All nervous and glancing toward the classroom door every couple of seconds (Ben’s secretly doing the same thing, but Paxton’s not subtle; he looks like he’s a starving man waiting for food to come out of a restaurant kitchen).
Paxton’s nervous energy radiates off him in waves, and Ben finds himself twisting his pencil in his hand just to avoid it.
Eventually, he can’t stop himself.
“You...all right, man?”
He regrets asking the second it comes out of his mouth. Paxton will probably ignore him, and the question will fall to the floor between them, like a crumpled piece of paper the other kids kick through the halls. That’s why it’s a surprise when he looks right at Ben as if seeing him for the first time all morning.
“What? Oh, yeah,” Paxton says in reply. He pauses for a second, then his dark eyes focus. “Actually, have you seen Devi?”
Ben feels his eyebrows shoot up. And something green sliver up his throat. He tries to clear it abruptly.
“Uh, no,” he says. Partially because it’s true and partially because he wants this conversation to be over.
Instead, Paxton swings around sideways in his desk, his biceps flexing as he grips the front and the back with broad hands. “Look, man, I don’t usually do this but, uh, I think I messed it up with her, and, like, I don’t know what to do.”
Ben’s not sure how to feel in this situation. Is he supposed to give Paxton—a guy who has literally never given him the time of day—advice? Is he supposed to feel vindicated, because at least he knows more about Devi than Paxton seems to? Is he supposed to say something right now?
Based on the look on Paxton’s face, he guesses the latter.
He’s about to open his mouth to say…something—he’ll figure it out as he goes, he guesses—when the warning bell rings.
And suddenly, Devi is standing in front of Ben’s desk, both hands on her backpack straps and grinning ear to ear. To his right, he hears Paxton say her name. She doesn’t even acknowledge him.
“Heard you broke up with Shira,” she says to Ben instead. In lieu of greeting. So Devi. She tilts her head in a not-quite question.
“You heard…right,” he confirms, because there’s no use denying it. He doesn’t want to deny it.
“Hm,” she says, grinning broader now. Ben starts to feel a similar expression overtake his own face. It’s hard not to when her smile is a hundred watts bright.
“All right, then,” she says. “Dinner at my house tonight. My mom wants you to bring over that old chessboard your dad has.”
Now Ben’s smile is as big as hers. “OK, but be warned, David,” he says, because he can’t help himself. Neither of them can. “I’m gonna wipe the floor with you.”
Devi scoffs (of course she does) and just says “Bet” before turning and making her way toward her desk. She says nothing to Paxton, whose mouth is agape. He tries to stutter something in her direction, but the second bell rings and Mr. Shapiro is already talking about what podcasts would have existed within the context of the Civil War.
Weird, Ben thinks. But good.
Yeah, good.