Page 1 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
01
The only time I see Miller that summer, he’s walking straight at me in a tuxedo.
“Code red,” Maren says, and tugs me sideways into the math hallway. School is quiet—a little over a week before the start of classes, only open this afternoon for senior presentations. I risk a peek around the corner just as Miller’s looking up, a clothbound book tucked under one of his arms. When he sees us, his eyes narrow.
“Maren,” he says, nodding tightly as he approaches. His gaze skates right over me, and I get busy studying the locker Maren plastered me against. A rudimentary etching of the worddickheadis carved like a rainbow around the combination lock.
“Miller.” Maren’s voice is icy, and after Miller passes us she sticks her tongue out and makes a vulgar hip thrust in his direction. He’s cut his hair since May, his usual mop replaced by a short-on-the-sides, tsunami-wave-up-top situation that makes him look like a boy-band front man wannabe.
“Sick tux,” I mutter, and Maren snorts.
“Of course he wore a penguin suit to his presentation.” Her arm’s still hooked through mine, and she guides us back into the main hall. It’s empty now, late-August light slanting in through tall windows that overlook the parking lot. “Has that boynottaken something too far even once?”
I can hear his dress shoes retreating—click, click, click, click.Steady and measured, unshaken by me.
“Come on, Ro.” Maren elbows me in the ribs. “Don’t let him throw you off your game.”
“He didn’t,” I say, even though my chest has gone all tight, that suffocating feeling only Miller ever gives me. A natural side effect of being so thoroughly hated, maybe. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” she says, and nudges me forward. We’ve reached the end of the hall, where a printer-paper sign is taped to the auditorium door:Group A Senior Presentations 12 p.m.–5 p.m.
“Hey,” I say, turning toward her. “Thanks again for coming.” She didn’t have to be here: It’s summer, still—the last few precious days. But here she is nonetheless, just like always.
“You know I wouldn’t miss it.” Maren reaches for the door, swinging it wide so I have to step through. “Now let’s go, you’re stalling. The future awaits.”
I could’ve waited until May to present my senior project. Maren hasn’t even decided what to do for hers yet. But here I am, instead: ten days before the start of senior year, in a room full of teachers I’m not legally required to listen to for over a week, with myunruly hair tamed into a bun and my toes cramped into flats Maren made me borrow.
I could’ve waited until May, like everyone else. But not everyone else has a dad breathing down their neck to apply to college when it’s the last place they want to go. And not everyone else needed all summer—literally every waking moment—to finish their project. I couldn’t have pulled this off during the school year, with eight hours of all my days spoken for, plus homework. Between all-nighters spent coding and mornings studying behavioral science with Vera, I needed all the time I could get.
I definitely needed more time than Miller, but of course when I step onto the stage his presentation’s still up on the big screen, leaching overachiever pheromones into the whole auditorium. His title slide’s plain white, Times New Roman font:
THE ILIAD’S SECOND HERO: THE GREAT WAR THROUGH HECTOR’S EYES
ALISTAIR MILLER
SWITCHBACK RIDGE HIGH SCHOOL
SENIOR PROJECT GROUP A
What a fucking nerd.
“Can you pull my thing up?” I hiss toward the sophomore manning the screen. He’s sitting in the front row with his shoes off and a Styrofoam smoothie cup the size of my head. He takes a long sip before looking at me.
“Name?”
“Rose Devereux,” I say, and after a couple of lazy clicks my presentation blinks up onto the wall. There’s a panel of six teacherssitting behind Smoothie Boy, and behind that Maren’s made herself comfy in the very center of the auditorium, legs folded up in her seat. Otherwise, shit’s empty as Antarctica. A classroom would’ve been kinder, but instead I’m presenting to ninety-two empty seats.Cue the applause, I think, and then my dad walks in.
He holds the door for Vera, and as she teeters in behind him I can see she’s gone the whole nine yards to be here: cloud of gray hair teased into a neat bob, lilac sweater set, her favorite columbine brooch. Maren waves them over to sit with her, and Dad offers Vera his arm to help her down the narrow aisle. He’s still wearing his apron and I’m pretty sure there’s whipped cream on his face.
“Rose?” Mr. Gupta, the AP English Lit teacher, prompts. I’m so busy thinking about how he must have gone googly-eyed for Miller’s faux-intellectual literary escapade that I miss what he says next, and he has to repeat himself. “I said, we’re ready when you are.”
“Right.” I grip the sides of the podium. My notes are fanned out in front of me, but by now I could do this in my sleep. Dad flashes me a thumbs-up from the audience, and I think,This is all for you.Pay attention.
“I love computers,” I say, leaning into the mic so my voice fills the room like a god. “I always have. And the weird truth is, we’re more like them than we think.” Smoothie Boy coughs on air from his straw, doubling over to hack into his hand, and I wait. When all six of the teachers are looking back at me, I tell them what Vera’s been telling me for years. “Human behavior is ninety-three percent predictable.”
Pause for effect.“And in theory, if we knew all of someone’s nature and nurture information—who they come from and how they were raised—we’d be able to accurately predict their behavior. So I built an app that asks the right questions, then tells you your future. It’s called MASH.”
Maren lets out a whoop, and the logo she helped me design animates on-screen: a hand-drawn spiral, spinning over the lettersM A S Harranged in a square.
