Payal Mehta's Romance Revenge Plot, page 3
“I don’t do well with blood. And your knee is really—” Jon was hunched over, and his shoulders convulsed a little.
“No, wait, Jon—” I managed to utter.
But then, no joke, Jonathan-fucking-Slate threw up on me. Again.
Alright, that was a slight exaggeration. This time he was nice enough to throw up next to me.
This better be how our freakin’ love story starts, I swear to god[*6].
Skip Notes
*1 This was our high school’s latest digital watercooler of choice—six months ago, the hot social app had been something called WereHere. People were still arguing over whether that one was supposed to be a funny rhyme or something existential and sad. It’s the internet, so I was squarely in the existential-and-sad camp.
*2 Sometimes my parents used this pretty standard term of endearment in a really sarcastic way that I definitely have never deserved.
*3 My mother, the critic.
*4 Today I will be guided by the great philosophers Horace and Shah Rukh Khan.
*5 Affectionately! But this car was truly a disaster and had broken down more times than I could count.
*6 All of them. I swear to all the gods.
Chapter
Three
I was sitting in the front of the school nurse’s office, alone. Two sophomores had seen the entire thing go down and ran to help after Jon spilled out his breakfast onto the stairs. One of them had walked me to the nurse’s office. I think he even grabbed my car keys. After a brief attempt at apologizing and quite literally turning green the moment he opened his mouth, Jon had followed a few steps behind. His arm was wrapped around his middle, and his mouth was decidedly closed. I was glad for the quiet—I wouldn’t even know what to say.
Ms. Bunting, the nurse, looked at my knee for exactly fifteen seconds after I rolled my jeans up and decided that I’d be fine with some peroxide, a Band-Aid, and some help to get to calculus. Jon, on the other hand, was allowed to lie down in the back because of his nausea. Seemed fair. I’d be on display for anyone who walked into the office, and he’d get to stay mysterious and invisible in the back.
I groaned, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back against the wall as I waited for the student aide to come walk me to my class.
A few months. My mom’s words were echoing in my mind. That seemed easier to imagine in the comfort of my bedroom. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the pain radiating from my knee. Sitting here under the awful fluorescent lighting in the same building as my peers made me realize how foolish I’d been. A few months in high school was a long time. I needed to make up my mind about how I was going to spend them.
I resisted the urge to put my face in my hands.
“Payal?” A voice I recognized floated over from the doorway. I looked up to see Divya Bhatt standing and looking at me questioningly.
“Hey, Divya.”
I had known Divya, like Neil, forever. She was cool. Really cool, actually. Maybe too cool for me. Sometimes when we hung out, I couldn’t help but feel like a little baby who knew nothing of the outside world. But not because of anything she said or did. She was smart and beautiful and well-dressed and well-read and clever and—okay, I could keep going, but I’ll stop. But, for example, she walked in with her long hair pulled back into an elegantly disheveled bun, wearing a tank top and drop-crotch pants that on anyone else would look like diaper pants, holding what looked like a collection of essays. And she did all this without looking like a parody of herself. She looked authentic. How was that fair? No one should look good in drop-crotch pants! And her eyeliner was always perfect. Like Aishwarya-Rai-in-Devdas-style perfect[*1].
“How are you feeling? Do you need to put your arm around my shoulders?” She was also the nicest person I knew.
“Nah, I think I can walk, but company is probably a good idea in case I’m wrong.” I stood up from the painfully uncomfortable orange office chair and gingerly tested putting weight on my offended knee. It would hold okay.
“Alright.” She hovered near me while I picked up my backpack. I took one last look back to where Jon was still lying down. No movement that I could see. Good.
“Ready?” Divya asked. I shouldered my bag and nodded.
“I can hold your bag for you, you know.” She grinned and held out her hand.
“Eh. It’s already on.”
She gave me an acha head nod in response. “Whatever you want, di[*2],” and she followed my limping butt out the door.
Our school was set up like the most generic of TV-show high schools. Long, locker-lined hallways, tiled floors, and the least flattering lighting you could possibly imagine. I cursed my boring high school under my breath—if I went to one of the open-air schools in any other part of South Florida, with their fresh air and beautiful green quads, I wouldn’t be in this mess. If I went to one of those schools, I wouldn’t have tripped on the stairs, because there would be no stairs. At least school was twenty minutes into first period, and so our long hallways were blessedly empty.
“So, Jon Slate threw up on you, huh?” Divya asked, voice echoing slightly in the otherwise silent space around us.
Scratch that. The hallways were hatefully empty and quiet.
“Divya, can we talk about literally anything else?”
“Sorry, when I saw that post come through last night, I already felt bad, but twice in the span of three days…yikes.”
“Try experiencing it firsthand,” I said drily.
Divya grimaced before changing the subject and sparing me further thoughts of Jon’s weak stomach. “Okay, okay, I can tell you about how much Bharatanatyam practice is totally kicking my butt.”
I looked down at my bum knee. “I am so glad my mom made me take tap. And then let me quit.” I paused, taking in her outfit again. “Oh, those drop-crotch pants make more sense in the Bharatanatyam[*3] context.”
“You’re lucky you’re hurt, or I’d push you down for that one. I look amazing in these.” She’d stopped and posed against the wall like only a classically trained dancer can, her strong arms raised above her head in mirrored arches while her hands formed into a mudra I didn’t understand. I sighed and kept limping along.
“I know. I hate you.”
“Like you could ever hate me.” She laughed. “You and your family are still coming to my performance this weekend, right?” It was the city’s South Asian Society social event of the month, so there was no way we’d miss it. Divya’s mom would never let my mom live it down if we didn’t show. Also, these things were usually super fun.
I flashed Divya an excessively goofy smile before opening the door to my class. “Obvio[*4]!”
Her laughter followed me into Ms. Díaz’s calculus class.
* * *
“Payal, Neil told me you were with the nurse, but you look fine.” Ms. Díaz narrowed her eyes. “Do you have a pass?” I reached into my pocket and grabbed the paper Ms. Bunting had scribbled on earlier.
“Here you go.” Díaz glanced at the note in disdain. Puzzled, I waited to see if she’d say anything. It was unclear what the note had done to piss her off.
“Please take a seat,” she finally said.
I hobbled—exaggerating my lumbering movements to prove a point—over to my desk in between Neil and our friend Caitlin Martin. Ms. Díaz turned back to the board and started talking about derivatives. Instead of paying attention, I sat down and wondered how many people knew I was Jon Slate’s partner in the Vomit Olympics.
“Pst.”
I looked to my left. Caitlin was looking at me and holding a folded-up piece of paper. She was usually very attentive during calculus—which I appreciated, considering she was my math tutor—but it seemed like there were other things on her mind today. She tossed the folded-up note onto my desk. I opened the note, careful not to tear Caitlin’s intricate origami-level work, and read over her wide block letters.
Did Slate really tackle you on the stairs this morning? Joey is telling everyone that he saw Slate try to kill you.
Sighing, I turned the paper over to reply. I needed Neil to handle this. I turned to look at him, but he was actually taking notes on what Díaz was teaching.
Payal, laugh it off. Literally no one is going to care.
Phantom Neil was probably right, but he could have been nicer about it. I threw real Neil a glare in his stead. It took a second, but like he could feel my death rays, Neil’s shoulders came up around his ears. Then he turned to see me glaring and mouthed, What?! like his phantom self had not been super rude to me a split second ago.
I continued to glower at him. He rolled his eyes and turned back to the front of the class. How did we live in the future, but I couldn’t mentally connect to my best friend whenever I needed to?
As I considered what to say, I gnawed on my pen cap, my teeth finding the well-worn grooves on it. I needed to minimize.
No, I tripped and he tried to help. No big.
I passed the note back to Caitlin and then threw another glare at Neil because I was handling this. He looked over at me and caught the irritated look, but returned it with his best seriously-why-are-you-looking-at-me-like-I-hurt-your-favorite-pet-Payal look. Not that I was overly familiar with that one or anything.
Caitlin seemed to take my explanation at face value, because she read the note, shrugged, and shoved it into her calculus textbook. I hid a grin. Then Díaz’s voice shook me out of my momentary relief.
“Payal! Can you tell me the answer?”
“Uh, can you repeat the question?”
* * *
“Sucks that Díaz busted you like that, Pie.”
Caitlin and I both had a brutal ninety-minute block of calculus followed by a ninety-minute block of AP Psych. Our school wasn’t set up for seven subjects a day, every day. We did four classes each day, with one class being shorter and repeated every day of the week, and then we alternated between odd days and even days. It was probably more complicated than it needed to be, but it meant that you got more of your favorite class on a given day and more of your least favorite class on another day. And AP Psych was definitely a favorite class.
“Eh, it’s fine. Eventually, Díaz is going to have to accept the fact that math and I will probably never be friends.”
Caitlin chuckled and tucked a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear. “Oh, come on. It’s not that hard.”
I clenched my jaw in annoyance once or twice before replying. “Not all of us are cut out to be mathletes, you nerd,” I joked, and then added, “Also, thank you for holding my bag even though you didn’t have to.” Caitlin had graciously offered to be my human support.
The loud sound of flip-flops slapping against tiles hit me just before Jeremy Owens almost followed suit as he dashed past us on his way to class. Despite the near miss, Caitlin and I both ignored him, since this was standard Jeremy Owens behavior.
“You’re welcome, friend!” She hoisted both our bags onto her shoulder. “I don’t know how you’re so terrible at math, Pie. I mean, it’s like you’re not even Indian!” I’m not sure there’s anything better than when someone says that particular sentiment out loud.
“Hilarious, Caitlin. Hilarious,” I said sarcastically.
“Come on.” She laughed. “Can you blame me for relishing the fact that this white girl”—she gestured to herself—“gets to tutor a person whose culture invented zero?[*5]”
“Oh, look, we’re here.” Luckily, we’d made it to our psych classroom in time to cut the conversation short. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Caitlin, and she really was doing me a solid by tutoring me in the god-awful experience that is calculus. But I hated feeling bad about something I supposedly should be great at. Or at least something every other Indian kid seemed to be good at. Comments like that always had a way of burrowing under my skin and sitting there just waiting to dart into my brain and make me feel gross.
“Let me get the door for you.” Caitlin opened the door, and I limped to my desk. She dropped my bag next to me and moved back a couple rows to find her seat.
“Thanks for the assist!” I said with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. She waved a hand in response. Caitlin was generally cool, but I could have done without feeling dense on top of feeling awkward today.
Mr. Lutton breezed into the room with his characteristic lively energy. He was one of my favorite teachers. I didn’t know if they realized it, but we could tell when teachers were excited about their subjects, and it helped. I swear. Like, I don’t know if I really cared about what Carl Jung had to say about literally anything…but Mr. Lutton did, and his excitement was infectious.
“Alright, kids, today we’re going to talk through psychological experiments. It’s a short class thanks to the pep rally schedule, so let’s get started!” No! I forgot about the pep rally. Mr. Lutton turned and started writing on the whiteboard, and somehow managed to keep speaking words while writing different words on the board. “As you know, everyone is expected to complete one experiment from start to finish.” He spun around with the word experiment half-written on the board. “Can one of you tell me what the first step is?”
I raised my hand along with a few other kids. This was my jam.
“Yes, Ms. Mehta?”
“First we have to have a hypothesis about something.”
“Yes!” Mr. Lutton exclaimed. I sat back, more than a little pleased with myself. Lutton looked out at the entire class. “We’ve been reading up on psychological experiments this semester. Over the next few days, spend some time thinking about what you could test using student surveys as well as primary and secondary sources. You have until next class to turn in your hypothesis.” I heard a few groans around me, but I didn’t care. This could be really fun if I could think of something good. He stopped writing due dates on the board and turned around. “I mentioned at the beginning of the year you’d have it a little easier on the final project since it’ll be due during exam week…so you get to have partners!”
Now it was my turn to groan. I hated partner work. Someone always got stuck doing the majority of the work while the other person coasted.
“Now, after the Great Snake Disaster[*6] two years ago”—there was another collective moan, which he wisely ignored—“you are not allowed to pick your own partners, and so, Katie, you’re with”—he glanced down at a piece of paper on his desk—“Jamal. And, Oliver, you and Julio will be working together…” People got up as he called their names to move next to the kid they’d be working with. Mr. Lutton continued to slowly nix names from my mental list of potential partners. As he went on, I realized where this was going. I gripped the edges of my desk. Please don’t say it, please don’t say it—“Payal, you’re going to be working with…” PLEASE DON’T SAY IT—“Philip Kim.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Skip Notes
*1 I love my friend so much and am only mildly jealous sometimes.
*2 Di as in didi, not di as in Divya, since technically she’s three months older than me.
*3 Google it. You’ll see. I’m right.
*4 When you grow up in an immigrant household, you get two whole worlds’ worth of pop culture references.
*5 Caitlin Martin starring in the role of My Mom, ladies and gentlemen.
*6 Don’t ask.
Chapter
Four
Philip Kim was seriously sort of my…nemesis. That sounds dramatic, but it was also true. There was a reason I’d asked if Philip was going to be at Rachel’s party. Actually, a lot of reasons. Our enmity started four years ago. We’d had a single class together every semester since freshman year, and from that very first day, we’d known. It was ninth grade and I was working on a terrible still life in art class when this short Korean kid with spiky hair, a thin scar under his right eye, and a bomber jacket at least two sizes too big came over to my canvas, sneered, and said, “I bet I finish my landscape before you finish your still life. And I’ll get a better grade.”
At the time I was more confused than anything—who was this guy? I asked him as much, and with—trust me—a lot of ego, he replied, “Philip Kim.”
I did remember looking back at his canvas and being pretty sure of my success. It was supposed to be the beach near our school, I think? The fact that it was questionable gave me some confidence. So I took the bet. And I lost…but only because when I reached for my paints, they were gone. Philip had hidden them. And I learned a lesson. There was no playing fair with Philip Kim.
Then there was sophomore-year world history. We both did diorama projects on the French Revolution, but mine was so good it basically decapitated his. Okay, I built a mini fake guillotine and maybe I put his tiny marshmallow Robespierre in it and then ate the head. Anyway, it’s gone on like that for the last three and a half years: sabotage, drama, and a semi-constant war. That he started.
This year, our single class together was psych. He was the only one who could ever beat my grades, and it was driving me bananas[*]. I narrowed my eyes at him as he loped to my desk, all arms and angles. Philip still had the bomber jacket, but he’d grown enough that it fit him now. The scar under his eye had faded to a light line, and his hair was longer and disheveled, hanging over his forehead and nearly hiding his ears. Unfortunately, his personality hadn’t changed much. He caught my eye and smirked. He actually smirked. Could he be more annoying? But as I watched, he tripped a little, and I snickered. There was an awkwardness to his gait these days that I relished. Philip wasn’t so short anymore. He was probably hitting near six feet, if I was being more generous than I needed to be—but he had one of those teenage-boy bodies that grew too fast…like he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of using his limbs yet. He looked like a baby lamb walking through the aisle toward me. He sat down in the recently vacated desk in front of me and turned sideways.
