Page 19 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
Miller swallows, then jerks his head in a sharp, definitive nod. I watch him sign three different pieces of paper, his mother reading each one before he wraps his name over the dotted line. After that he stands, shakes Evelyn’s hand, and walks out of the office. He says nothing to me, does not look at me, makes it clear I am not a going concern at all.
“Well,” Felix says. There’s a smirk warping the lines of his mouth. “This’ll be fun.”
11
When I walk to my truck the next morning, Miller is idling at the end of the driveway. Dad’s been gone for hours—Mondays start at five o’clock at Beans on the Lake. The air is crisp and clear, that good end-of-summer weather, and I’ve got twenty minutes until the first bell of my first day of my last year of high school.
Miller’s car is his dad’s old one, a white station wagon with fake wood grain on all the doors. Miller stares up at me through the windshield. Not so shy about eye contact today, apparently.
I look from Miller’s face to my truck and back again. I’ve got my backpack on, a thermos of tea, and my car keys around my pointer finger. This is not how I imagined this morning going.
Miller rolls down his window. “If you’re supposed to be my girlfriend, you should probably get in.”
The word burns like acid in my ears.
“Match,” I tell him, circling my flatbed and opening his passenger door. “I’m your match, not your girlfriend.”
Miller cranes his neck to reverse down our driveway. He’s wearing a thin hoodie and the same jeans from yesterday and his hair’s still wet. His shampoo smells good, which I hate.
“Functionally,” he says, “what’s the difference?”
There isn’t one, probably, but he’s such a smart-ass it makes my skin sting. I can’t believethisis the first conversation we’re having.
“If you’re going to do this with me, you need to use the right vernacular.”
“Vernacular,” Miller repeats, glancing at me as I try to get comfortable. The passenger seat has no padding left and feels like sitting in one of those plastic chairs at a baseball stadium. “Okay, Ro.”
My name in his mouth is familiar in a bad way.
“Why are you doing this?” I look at him, then decide it’s easier not to and stare straight ahead. “We could’ve just met at school.”
“Is that what we’d do if we were in love?”
I almost spit out my tea. He’s just going to throw that word out there, when we’re only two minutes in?
“I have absolutely no idea what it would be like if we were in love.” I look at him, and he’s so unrattled it makes me seethe. “I cannot evenbeginto imagine that scenario.”
“Well, you should probably start trying.” He comes to a standstill at a stop sign, waiting a few seconds even though there are no other cars around. “You have a lot riding on this, and I do, too.”
I grip my thermos, look out the passenger window. A hawk lands on a fence post and stares at me, blinking his yellow eyes as we roll away. Already, somehow, we’re back where we’ve alwaysbeen: Miller with the clear vision, keeping us to plan. Me, too wild, veering off course. Even though all of this is mine. Even though MASH and our fabricated relationship and his tuition money wouldn’t even exist without me.
“I know that,” I say. Last night, Jazz posted a graphic to the @MASHapp handle—pictures of Miller and me spliced right next to each other with a little pink heart connecting them. Like we were fourth-grade valentines, passing cardboard notes with candy glued on.One match to start them all, the caption said. Sawyer and Josie boosted it, just like we’d planned. And like lights blinking on at sundown, like dominoes clicking down the line, my feed filled up all night long: one match after another. People I didn’t know, using what I made to find each other.
Sawyer had texted me at nine thirty, the pout radiating from her words:You reunite with your adorable childhood boyfriend right off the bat and I get no match? :( Keep pressing the button but just get a “Love is on the way! Check back soon” message
Just means there isn’t a good match in your parameters yet, I told her, willfully ignoring her incorrect uses of the wordsadorableandboyfriend. Sawyer knew Miller when we were young but assumed, like most people, that the only thing to come between us was time. I didn’t have the words to explain to her what had happened back then, and I never found them.Can’t pair you up until your match joins MASH
What if he never does??
I don’t know, I thought.Date like a normal person?I wasn’t amatchmaker; I was a programmer. And half of me wished MASH had served me up the same message—Love not found.None for you, Ro!Maybe it would’ve been easier than this.
“But we don’t need to be inloveyet,” I say, finally, every word sticking to my teeth like taffy. Like some trapped, sickly thing. “We just matched a day ago, and everyone knows it.”
“Don’t you want to start on the right foot?” Miller says, glancing at me. There’s no good answer to a question like that, but he doesn’t even give me a chance to respond. “At any rate, we should align on our strategy.”
I want to mock him, his stupid boardroom-speak even though it’s just me and him alone here in this shitty old car. But this will be easier, I know, if we play nice.
“Agreed,” I mutter.
