Page 25 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
I offer her a smile, don’t break eye contact. “I’m saying time will tell.”
14
They run the article the following week, a photo of me on that couch beneath the headline: “Time Will Tell: How Switchback Ridge Senior Ro Devereux Built an App That Sees the Future.” In the picture I’m gesturing with one hand, looking directly at Vanity out of frame. Felix was right about the jacket. I look cool as hell.
The article is grudgingly complimentary, and when I read it I can imagine how every word must’ve nagged at Vanity Jones’s skeptical sensibilities.
With nearly six million active users and over two hundred thousand matches, MASH has taken the country by storm. What started as a high school senior’s school project has turned into America’s favorite app—and Ro Devereux is only getting started.
Even Dad is proud Thursday night when I slap the paper onto the kitchen counter as he’s making dinner. He reads the headlineleaning away from the stove, stirring onions as his eyes skim the page. His smile spreads slowly, and when he looks up at me I start laughing.
“Can you believe this?” I ask him, and he just says, “Yeah, I can.”
The story gets picked up by all our local news channels, syndicated to every corner of the internet. And every time, it’s my face there with it, so no one can forget.Ro Devereux built an app that sees the future.It’s mine. I did it.
I spend every afternoon at the XLR8 office, where momentum from the article hisses among us like woodsmoke. We’re all breathing the same eager air, taking lungfuls of it. Every day, MASH downloads go up. Every day, people meet their matches.
And every day, still, there’s the One Issue. Alistair freaking Miller.
We follow all the rules: He drives me to school every day but Thursdays, right on time at the end of my driveway like predictable summer rain. I post about him on Instagram twice a week—how he looks with afternoon sun coming through the driver’s-side window, or a forced-smile selfie on the one day a week he eats lunch with Maren and me. We go on our dates: Dad eyeing us over the espresso machine at Beans on the Lake, the two of us sitting on the pebbly lakeshore long enough to take a photo and go. When we hold hands now, my palms don’t sweat. Unless someone is looking directly our way, we don’t speak.
Since that first day in the car, I’ve kept the heat out of my voice when I talk to him. He’s doing his job, and I’m doing mine. The pinprick memory of our past stays where it is: unspoken, buried with the versions of ourselves we were back then. It lives betweenus like a translucent membrane. I can see Miller through it, but I can’t feel him there. In some ways, it’s impossible. In some ways, it’s easier.
But in the most important way, it’s working. Jazz books us, together, for an interview onRocky Mountain Live, the Saturday morning show on Denver’s NBC affiliate. Miller doesn’t have Instagram, but my account hits fifty thousand followers. I get verified, that little blue check blinking up next to my name.Officially a big fat liar, I think, when it happens. When I can’t sleep I scroll through the #MASHmatch tag and look at people’s beaming faces, one after another after another, and remind myself that I’ve done something good.
The day after theDenver Postarticle drops, Miller and I get ice cream after school. This date’s on a Friday, clearly differentiated from our previous Saturday and Sunday dates in Miller’s carefully kept Very Genuine and Totally Normal, Nothing-to-See-Here Date Calendar.
We cross the parking lot with Maren after last period, headed toward Miller’s car with his cool palm flush against mine. I feel people watching us as we go: heads lifting from phone screens, cross-country runners glancing up as they lace their sneakers near the track entrance. The senior class president, Sophie Zhao, mentioned theDenver Postpiece during morning announcements, and Principal Armistead taped a copy to his office door, which everyone has to walk past to get basically anywhere.
All of it’s been equal parts mortifying and amazing, but things definitely start to tip towardmortifyingwhen we reach Miller’swagon and Aiden Sharp eyes us from the hood of his Jeep. Aiden, who hasn’t changed much since fifth grade’s Dumpling the Hamster Incident. Aiden, who’s looking at us like we’re the butt of a joke he can’t wait to tell.
“Ro Devereux’s only getting started,” he quotes in a snide, nasally voice. He chuckles at nothing and props a sneaker on his front grille. “What’s next, then, Ro?”
“Flattered you memorized the article, Aiden.” I throw my backpack through Miller’s open passenger window. “Means a lot to me.”
Miller’s already sliding behind the wheel, avoiding Aiden just like he has for years. Aiden looks at him pointedly, then back at me. “Weren’t you guys friends in middle school or something?”
“Or something,” Miller says at the exact same time I say, “Well, we’re not just friends now.” Miller glances up at me and then quickly away, turning the keys in the ignition.
“When’s the wedding?” Aiden asks, and Maren reaches over to smack the brim of his baseball cap upward, sending it flying onto the roof of his car. “Spare us, Aiden.”
He goes scrambling after it and Maren turns to me, rolling her eyes.
“Come with us for ice cream?” I ask. XLR8 made us promise to go on dates, but they didn’texplicitlysay she couldn’t come, too. I beg her with my eyes over the roof of the wagon, where Miller can’t see.
“Actually, I can’t.” She glances at her phone, and when she looks back at me her cheeks are pink. “There’s, um. I’ve been meaning to—”
“You ready?” Miller calls from inside the car. “I’ve got tutoring at five, remember?”
I shoot Maren a look, mouthing,Sorry. “I’mcoming.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Aiden shouts, throwing open his car door and chucking himself inside.
“Oh my god,” Maren says. She thrusts an arm out and shuts his door, nearly clipping his elbow. “You’re literally like a very loud mosquito.”
“Ro,” Miller says again. “Come on.”
“Okay, okay. Jesus.” I duck into the car, sending a wave at Maren.
