Chapter Text
Devi Vishwakumar wasn’t new to humiliation. This was a girl who had propositioned a total stranger with sex. A girl who had been mauled by a wild coyote in front of her classmates. A girl who had hit on Jonah, the world's most obvious gay guy.
But it was this particular moment - standing fully clothed in a swimming pool at her nemesis’ house party after a public fight with her two best friends - that Devi felt she'd reached a new low.
As Devi watches Eleanor and Fabiola walk away to clean off some of Trent’s ball punch, a hand appears in front of her, pulling her out of the pool.
“Are you okay?” says Ben, taking off his jacket and placing it around her shoulders.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“That was a crazy nerd fight,” says Shira in her trademark vocal fry. Devi looks around the party in embarrassment until she realises everyone has immediately lost interest and gone back to their drinks. This generation really does have a short attention span, she thinks.
Shira starts tugging on Ben’s arm. “I’m bored. Let’s go make out in your parents' room.”
“I have to help Devi,” he says. “She needs to change out of these clothes or she’ll freeze.”
Shira rolls her eyes and starts walking away. “Fine, I’m gonna go take selfies from your balcony."
“Can’t believe you’d miss the chance to make out with your girlfriend just to help your sworn enemy,” says Devi quietly.
"Well, I can't have you taking attention away from me, it's my party," says Ben. “Besides, most of the time when Shira says ‘make out’ she really just means taking flattering photos of herself with me kissing her cheek, to show how adored she is,” he explains.
He gestures for Devi to follow him inside the house. She drips a trail of water behind her and sees Paxton and Trent, watching her. She catches what she thinks is a sympathetic look from Paxton before he whispers something to Trent and they laugh. Of course, she thinks. It wasn’t sympathy, he was embarrassed for her. She was a tragic, pathetic disaster.
Devi follows Ben past the party goers, up the stairs and to his bedroom. It’s exactly what she expected – trophies, books, basketball posters and expensive looking linen. As Devi stands there taking mental notes of anything embarrassing she could use for future burns, Ben hands her a towel from his ensuite before thumbing through his closet and picking out a sweater and shirt.
“I’m shredded and much taller than you so they might not fit,” he says, handing them over. “I’ll leave you to get changed.”
As he’s closing the door, Devi turns to face him. “Why are you being nice to me?”
Ben looks at his feet sheepishly. "Your family was nice to me when I had a shitty day," he says. "The least I could do is return the favour.” He smiles and closes the door.
Devi dries herself and slips on the shirt and sweater. The shirt is long and comes to her knees, but it makes an acceptable dress. She notices that they smell nice too, kind of woody, masculine.
Devi opens the door and finds Ben waiting patiently in the hall. He runs his eyes over her new outfit, and something in his gaze makes her blush.
“Do I look okay?” she says “Weirdly, your clothes almost fit perfect.”
“That’s not emasculating at all,” Ben says sarcastically.
She holds up her dress, balled up and dripping water. “Do you have something I can put this in?”
Ben steps into the bedroom and retrieves an old shopping bag from a drawer, handing it to Devi.
She sits on the edge of his bed, remembering the look on her friends’ faces, and how Paxton pretended not to see her, and she wants to cry.
“Sorry for ruining your birthday,” says Devi. “I didn’t mean to make it about me.”
“Don’t worry, these people aren’t really here for me anyway,” says Ben. “Lucas Jones, who has been in classes with me since the second grade, told me “Happy birthday Brendan.”
Devi laughs, but still feels lousy.
“You sure you're okay?” says Ben.
Devi sighs. “Would be it alright if I just hung out here for a minute? I’m not ready to face everyone downstairs.”
“Of course.” Ben takes a seat on his bed next to her. They both look straight ahead and neither seems to know what to say.
“You don’t have to stay with me,” says Devi, breaking the awkward silence. “If you need to go find Shira or whatever.”
“Shira will be more than happy taking selfies with her friends.” Ben pauses. “Unless you want me to go? Shit, I’m sorry, I totally misread that! I’m lingering." He starts to stand up but Devi pulls on his arm.
“No – stay. I mean, if you want. It’s your room,” she says clumsily. “It would be nice if you stayed.”
Ben sits back down. “I’d understand if you wanted me to leave, given what happened earlier,” he says, sounding a little embarrassed. “Don’t worry, I wont try kiss you again. Being rejected twice in one night was more than enough for me.”
Devi’s not sure why - perhaps it was his kindness or that they were both feeling vulnerable - but she wanted to tell him her secret.
“Hey, you think that's embarrassing?" she begins, "I promise I have a story that's way worse.”
Ben looks at her, intrigued.
“You know that rumour about me and Paxton? It started because I waited for him after swim team practice and asked him to have sex with me. It was the first time we had ever spoken. I just blurted it out like a psychopath.”
She smiles at Ben, and sees he's trying hard to stifle a laugh.
“Its okay, you can laugh,” she says, "I know it's stupid." They both start chuckling at her ridiculousness.
“Oh my god,” says Ben. “What did you do when he said no?”
Devi gives him a smug look. “Actually, he said yes.”
“What!?” Ben erupts into laughter again. “That is insane... but you didn’t actually have sex right? You touched his chest and bailed?”
“Yup. I had the chance to have sex and I freaked out,” says Devi, before adopting a more serious tone. “Guess I’m just a tragic virgin with no friends.”
Ben drops his smile and looks at Devi warmly. “Hey, you still have friends, you just need to give it time and they’ll forgive you. And I’m your friend too. Kind of.”
Devi smiles.
“High school’s the worst isn’t it?” Ben says, exhaling.
“You got that right,” says Devi. “Between the acne, the high school rumour mill, and controlling parents who don’t let you leave the house –shit! What time is it!?”
Devi reaches over and checks Ben’s watch.
“I need to call a Lyft,” she says, picking up her stuff from the floor, “I'm not supposed to be here and if I'm not home before my mom, she's literally going to murder me.”
“I can take you.”
“Ben, you’ve already done enough. You’ve literally clothed me. And you've been drinking!”
“It’s fine, I’ve only been drinking non-alcoholic punch all night, I can drive you. My dad left his Porsche Cayenne here - the only crime would be not to drive it.”
In the car, Devi sneaks glances at Ben under the passing streetlights. He’s very serious when he drives, and Devi thinks it’s cute how his brow furrows. He drives like a grandpa. He keeps his hands firmly on the wheel at all times, and never gets anywhere near the speed limit.
“Do I have something on my face?” He asks while looking straight ahead at the road.
“Huh?” says Devi.
“You keep staring at me, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly, averting her eyes out her window.
She thinks about what he said about the non-alcoholic punch, and how that means he lied about being drunk when he tried to kiss her... which is a weird thing to lie about.
They pull into her driveway and she checks the clock on her phone: 10.58pm.
“Well that’s a modern miracle,” she teases, unfastening her seatbelt, “considering how slowly you drive.”
“David, the speed limit is exactly that – a limit,” says Ben defensively. “You’re supposed to drive below it.”
Devi shakes her head and smiles, holding her damp dress and shoes in her lap.
“Sorry again for ruining your birthday,” she says. “I’m sure you didn’t want to spend it rescuing your nemesis from a pool.”
Ben shrugs. “To be honest I was kind of glad to have an excuse to leave for a bit, I wasn’t really enjoying it.”
“At least I got a cute outfit out of it,” says Devi, gesturing to Ben’s clothes she’s wearing. “Am I crazy or am I actually pulling off the oversized t-shirt dress look?”
Ben looks her up and down and smiles. She remembers what he said before about not trying to kiss her again, and wonders if that was a hard, definitive rule he had imposed.
The look he’s giving her is the opposite of how Paxton looks at her. She thinks about the humiliation she felt when Paxton changed his mind about her de-flowering proposition, and wonders if she should have brought it to Ben first. Granted, they are mortal enemies and she hates him (sort of, most of the time). There was also the small problem of his having a girlfriend. But ultimately, Devi is just a regular horny teenager, and her curiosity gets the better of her.
“Ben, can I ask you something?”
“I told you I’m not trading Model UN-” he begins, not missing a beat.
“It’s not that,” says Devi. Ben looks at her, and the intensity of his gaze starts to make her self-conscious. “Can you close your eyes while I say this? I think it would be easier if you weren’t staring at me.”
Ben makes a confused face but does as instructed, and leans back in the driver’s seat, shutting his eyes. “Better?”
“Thanks. I was just wondering if, in some alternate universe, I had asked you instead of Paxton to, you know… what I said earlier.”
She thinks she sees Ben’s cheeks turn pink. “Uh-huh...” he says carefully.
“Do you think you would ever have considered…helping me?”
Devi watches Ben closely but he remains completely still, his face giving no indication of an expression.
A painfully long silence falls between them.
“Did you hear what I said?” asks Devi.
Ben slowly opens his eyes and turns to look at her. “Are you asking me—"
Before he can finish that sentence, they both jump out of their seats, startled half to death by Devi’s mom rapping frantically on the passenger window.
“I knew it!” Nalini says. “I give you one rule to stay at home tonight and what do you do!? Sneak out of the house!”
“Mom, lower your voice or you’ll wake the neighbours,” says Devi, dying of embarrassment. “This isn’t what it looks like – Ben was just giving me a ride home, I swear.”
“Hi Mrs Vishwakumar,” says Ben, giving a small wave from the driver’s side.
“Hello Benjamin,” says Devi’s mom warmly, before turning back to Devi. “Well obviously I know this boy hasn’t been impregnating you in the backseat of his car. Benjamin is far too smart and respectable to get involved in such cliché teenage scandals. I trust him completely. You, on the other hand, I have no trust in whatsoever. Now get inside so we can have a long talk about rules and curfews.”
Devi does as instructed, walking barefoot behind her mother into the house with her shoes and dress in hand. At the front door she turns to watch Ben pull out of the driveway and mouths a quick thank you. He smiles and responds with a small nod.
As Devi changes out of Ben’s clothes and into her pyjamas, she thinks how for the first time in her life, she was actually glad that her mother interrupted her before she did something truly stupid. She knows she needs to focus on fixing things with her two best friends before starting a new drama with her arch nemesis (even if he can be sweet).
But that mature perspective goes right out the window when she gets a text from Ben as she’s falling asleep.
“Hey,” he writes. “About your proposition…”