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A board of photos. A stack of textbooks. A small stain on a wooden dorm desk from a red pen.
When Ben had asked about the latter a week into their first semester of college, Devi had laughed brightly. The sound was still something Ben was growing used to, something he was so happy to finally be allowed to hear, to call his own. “The ink didn’t come out right, like, the day after I tried to buy it,” she told him. There were little crinkles around her eyes, crinkles that Ben wanted to trace with the tips of his fingers and memorize with kisses, but she continued before he could reach out. “You should see the pen, Ben. One little smack against the desk and it just… snapped. Ink. Was. Everywhere.” It was clear that Devi meant each word as its own, perfectly-punctuated sentence. “I kinda like the overall vibe it gives off now, though. I feel badass.”
“You like that your room looks like a serial killer ransacked it?” Ben’s voice was teasing.
Devi rolled her eyes. “Obviously, since I am the serial killer in this scenario, yes.”
Ben snorted. “Sure, murdering a pen by banging it against the table is ‘badass.’ I’ll tell you that I wore socks that didn’t match to class the other day. Socks. That. Didn’t. Match. And did I throw around words like ‘badass’, despite how horribly apt they are? No. Because I’m subtle.”
“You gotta take credit where it’s due, dude. But unmatching socks are your beacon of rebellion? What’s next, forgetting to color-code your notes?”
Ben gasped dramatically. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Devi clicked her tongue. “I know. It’s tragic.”
“You breaking your pen in half isn’t some amazing feat, David. It’s mean. How would you feel if I banged you on the desk?”
Devi snorted, and immediately Ben realized that he was defeated. “Let’s find out,” she said, flipping over the photo of her dad that sat on the dresser next to them.
-
A splatter of red ink. A small green eraser. A chipped porcelain cup that Devi sat precariously at the edge of Devi’s desk, teetering off a crochet coaster that Patty had made for Ben.
Ben felt the corners of his mouth tug upward as he looked at it, trying not to move abruptly because Devi was sound asleep. Her head rested in his lap, and she snored pretty loudly. Ben made a mental note to tease her about it later. He would never admit to her that he found it cute.
They had gone out earlier that day, to the Princeton ceramic club’s pottery fair. Granted, things hadn’t started out that way; they had just been trying to get some cider from the student center. Fall was rapidly approaching, Devi had said, and she needed a warm cup to hold onto while the leaves crunched underneath her new boots. But the pottery fair had been happening on the quad, and they’d dropped in to see what it was all about.
Devi seemed partial to a small floral teacup at first. Ben snorted. “That? The colors look like a Pegasus threw up on it.”
“Hey, don’t insult pegasuses,” she said. “You can’t fly, so I think they could easily one-up you.”
“Are you suggesting that I would fight a pegasus?”
Devi looked him up and down. “No. You’re tripping if you think there’d be a fight.”
“Hey. What’s are you implying?”
“I’m implying nothing. I’m saying that a Pegasus could take you any day of the week. Skewer you on her horn and never look back. You wouldn’t even get in a punch, or a dramatic yelp.”
“I don’t like your tone, or you insinuation that I would yelp dramatically.”
“Again, Ben. Not insinuating.”
He shot her a glare. Devi held onto the floral cup tightly, and Ben supposed that it was probably a lost cause. Fine – let her decorate her dorm like the inside of a Disney Princess’s vagina. See if he cared. He tightened his hold on her hand as he appraised the other pottery pieces, all of them superior to Devi’s weird little flowery abomination. He reached out and grabbed one at random, a plain orange cup with textured grooves unevenly lining the center. “Look at this one,” he said. “It’s elegant, sophisticated. Suave. Versatile enough to go with everything.”
“Wait. Bright orange goes with everything?”
“If you’re daring enough, yeah,” Ben said. He would stand his ground on this.
“Okay, so suppose I wore my bright green sweater.”
“Yeah?”
“You think I’d look amazing holding the orange cup?”
Ben knocked her head lightly. “Don’t fish for compliments, David. It’s unbecoming.”
“I’ll have you know,” Devi said magnanimously, “that I take huge pride in being ‘unbecoming.’”
“I know you do.” Ben nodded. “But this cup doesn’t.”
“It’s chipped,” Devi said, poking the top edge of the mug.
Ben inspected it; she was right. “It adds character,” he told her. And it did. Ben felt a little pull of attachment to the cup as he examined the small, almost invisible white chip that marred its otherwise perfect orange-glossed surface. He liked broken things. He held it closer to his side as he made his way to the checkout with Devi, who put her cursed flowery atrocity back on the table.
“Thanks for the gift,” she said, taking the orange mug out of Ben’s hands after he paid.
“Uh… who ever said I got this for you?” Ben glared.
Devi shrugged. “I did.” Her voice held zero shame. “It’s mine now. I said thank you. So manners dictate that you should say…”
“Fuck you.”
Devi giggled.
When they got back, Devi put it on her desk before settling onto the bed next to Ben. “I like the cup,” she said. “It reminds me of you.”
Feeling seen, Ben felt an odd pressure behind his eyes. “You mean that it’s vibrant and strong?”
“Sure, Ben,” she said, closing her eyes. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
-
A porcelain mug. A tube of henna. A single nail sticking out of the wall by Devi’s light switch, unadorned and unbothered as Ben pressed against it with his fingertip.
“Dude,” she said. “What are you doing? Trying to see if you’re dreaming?”
“Why would I be dreaming?” Ben blinked rapidly, feeling somewhat caught out.
“Well, you do have the hottest GF in the world, so…”
“Ugh.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Fine. I kind of walked right into that one.”
They made their way over to the desk, where Ben slung his favorite Neiman Marcus jacket. They were well into fall, now, and Ben was finding himself more and more glad that he’d bought a car specifically to visit Devi on the weekends. His Columbia buddies were great, but it was Devi’s warmth that he found himself wanting at the end of a long week. He opened Devi’s desk drawer and pulled out a box of Swiss Miss packets.
Devi rolled her eyes but put some milk in her favorite orange cup. She put some more milk into a gaudy sunflower mug she’d bought as a gag gift for Ben. She then stuck both unceremoniously in the microwave.
They had had dozens of heated conversations about this method of heating up milk before, so Devi knew all of Ben’s many protests. As one might expect, she did not care. Her way was faster and easier, she claimed, and it would be stupid to waste time on something else when this worked out just as well.
So, instead of protesting, Ben asked about the nail. “What’s it doing there? Gonna impale intruders on it if they break into your sanctum sanctorum?”
“Please. Do you think I need a nail to impale someone? I’d just stab them with one of my pens.”
Ben snorted. “I do hear that you think it makes you seem badass.”
“I am badass,” Devi said, mixing the hot chocolate packets into the mugs with determined precision. “Look at me, braving this steaming milk.”
“I’m not sure those mugs are microwave safe,” Ben told her.
“I’m not sure that criticizing my cooking skills is safe.” Devi’s voice was a deadpan, but her little smile betrayed the joke. She stirred in silence for a moment as Ben attempted to read the scores on a pile of tests stacked up on her desks. He couldn’t let her get too many higher scores than him. But when she finally decided enough was enough and sprinkled some little marshmallows on top of the beverage, she spoke again. “No,” she said. “The nail is for my dad’s tennis racket.”
“A tennis racket? On that little nail?”
“Yeah, okay, you can be a dick about it, but it worked my entire senior year of high school.”
“What did?”
“Hanging my dad’s John McEnroe racket from a nail.” She paused. “He was my dad’s favorite tennis player, and when I was a kid, he ordered one of his old rackets on eBay. Not a good one. A dusty old one that sat at the bottom of his bag.” She sipped at her mug. “Honestly? Maybe it wasn’t his racket. I don’t know. But sometimes I feel like he’s watching over me-”
“-John McEnroe?” Ben teased.
“No, dummy. My dad. And that racket is, like, a symbol of that.”
Ben knew not to criticize this; some things were not meant for teasing. So he gave her a little nod over the side of his ridiculously awful cup to let her know that he was listening. “I just… I don’t know,” she said. “I like to think that he’s with me here. At Princeton.”
“He is,” Ben reassured her. “Look, David. I know this might sound easy for me to say because my dad named a room in the Columbia math department after me-” Devi snorted- “but I do understand how hard it is to miss a parent.”
“I know you do,” Devi said. “That’s why you get it.”
“Yeah,” Ben told her, kicking her with a socked foot. “I do.”
-
A nail in the wall. A small stuffed lion. A piece of popcorn, wedged between Devi’s bed and the wall.
When Devi’s friend came over, one day, she asked about it.
Devi had remembered Ben’s face as she put a small piece of popcorn in his mouth, how warm his arms were as he held onto her shoulders tightly and hit the “play” button on her screen.
And she smiled.
“It’s something like home,” she said.
And if that confused her friend, then so be it.