He was wearing a new loose linen button-up shirt and perfectly faded jeans along with gold-framed glasses that looked new, and expensive. Also, ugh ... was he taller? His hair was still a bit long and wavy, and the (also new) messenger bag on his shoulder made him look ... worldly. Sophisticated.Hot.
He looked like the king of the school. And of course, my body was still reacting to him. Stomach doing backflips. My stupid eyes were even watering. I quickly blinked before the tears could ruin my eyeliner—because the whole sad-clown look was not how I imagined I would look for this reunion.
Because, yes, Ihadimagined this meeting. Many times. For those first few weeks after the breakup, when I barely left the house,fantasizing about seeing Devin was a regular pastime, in between practicing pi, playingDragon Arenawith LostAxis, and watching the saddest Hindi romance movies on Netflix. At first, most of those fantasies were the same—he’d unexpectedly come back from India early. I wouldn’t be wearing pajama pants and a stretched-out camp shirt. Nope. I’d be in somethingsexy—even though I didn’t own anything that could remotely be called that. Whatever—fantasy Samaya was way cooler than real Samaya.
And Devin would take one look at me and ... fall to his knees. He’d weep at the sight of me and beg for forgiveness for leaving me. He’d say he figured out who he was without me, and it was an empty shell of a seventeen-year-old nerd with nothing inside. He’d say he’d discovered that everything in his life was worthless without me standing by his side. The stars had lost all their shine. Music didn’t sound melodic. Art looked flat. Food lost its flavor. (I confess the dialogue in my daydreams was mostly lifted from the grand gestures in the movies I was bingeing.) In the fantasies I’d put my hand out to wipe the tears falling down his cheeks, then sink to the ground and wrap my arms around him, burying my face in his neck, smelling that warm, spicy scent of Devin.
My first, and only, love.
However, after three weeks, when I traded my stained pajamas for an ice cream shop uniform, my fantasies changed. Maybe it was from having my arms deep in freezers all day, but my grief turned to anger. I stopped daydreaming in the romance genre and turned to the women-seeking-revenge one.Kill Bill,Promising Young Woman,The Craft. And although my daydreams started exactly the same, with Devin falling to his knees (now at the ice cream shop instead of my driveway), they ended with me flipping my hair (for some reason I had long, voluminous femme fatale hair in this fantasy) and giving him a bored look while he continued to apologize. I made himworkfor it. I told him how much he hurt me.
But in both fantasies, the weeping contrite Devin or the pleading apologetic Devin, two things were the same. Devin wanted me back, and Itookhim back.
And now? Now, he was in front of me for real, on a Tuesday morning in our high school hallway, and it felt nothing like the fantasies. He wasn’t begging. Or weeping. I was wearing clean clothes. And he didn’t look like my Devin anymore.
And now, I had no idea if I even wanted him back.
I waited for him to speak. Mostly because I was still frozen in shock, but also becausehedumpedme. He had the last word, so he got the first now.
He finally spoke. “Are you wearing makeup?”
I exhaled. “Hi, Devin. How was India?” My body was still in haywire mode, but I spoke in an annoyed tone. Because Iwasannoyed—I hadn’t seen or heard from him for months, and he asked about mymakeup?
“India was hot,” he said. He looked up at the ceiling, then fiddled with the strap of that way-too-trendy messenger bag. “I have a bag of stuff we got you there.”
He looked ... uncomfortable. Awkward. Like he didn’t know what to say to me. I wasn’t surprised his mother had bought me stuff ... She was like that. I liked Devin’s mom. Mom liked Devin’s mom even more. “Thanks,” I said awkwardly.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Feels like we haven’t talked in months.”
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my pounding chest. “We haven’t. And you were the one who said you needed space.”
Devin exhaled. “I deserved that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I need to get to my class, but can we talk? Maybe at lunch? I need to tell you something. We could go for a walk by the bluffs.”
Our high school was next to a park that ended at the edge of the Scarborough Bluffs, an impressive length of towering cliffs on the shoreof Lake Ontario. I liked parks, but I usually stayed out of them in the fall because my tree allergies were no joke this time of the year. But the winding path overlooking the cliff with wide views of the lake stretching to the horizon was one of my favorite spots, so I was willing to put up with a bit of sneezing for it.
I knew we’d have to talk eventually. I was dreading it, but maybe ripping the Band-Aid off and getting it over with on the first day of school was the best way forward.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll meet you in front of the school at twelve.” Without waiting for an answer, I turned and hurried down the hallway. I had physics before lunch—and even though I could do physics with my eyes closed, Samaya Janmohammad couldn’t be late for class.
Devin was waiting for me on the steps of the school promptly at noon, and without saying much to each other, we walked over to the park.
It was chilly—as to be expected for early September, so I was glad I had my black bomber jacket. Devin was wearing a new denim jacket. Seemed he’d bought a lot of clothes in India. “This feels like Antarctica after a summer in Mumbai,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. This felt weird. We used to finish each other’s sentences.
“India is always too much,” he continued when I didn’t speak. “My cousin’s wedding was ridiculous. Did you see the pictures on my Insta?”
“No.” Like I would torture myself with his Insta. Tahira made me unfollow all his accounts the day we broke up.
I stopped walking to look out over the bluff.
“I’ve seen yours,” he said. “You haven’t been posting much, though. How was your summer?”
My head shot around to stare at him. Had he really asked that? As if he didn’t know that my summer was complete shit, thanks to him.
Whatever it was he was doing right now, I wanted no part of it. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”
“Samaya, come on. We were so close. Why can’t we just talk?”
