He could feel his friends’ eyes on him as he stood from the table, the chair squawking a loud protest, loud enough that Caterina glanced his way. Dammit. This was not how he’d intended to get her attention. He raised his hand up to wave, but by the time his fingers had twitched, she was already turning away and gliding toward the main doors.
Rahul increased his pace, practically running toward her now, intending to intercept her path in a plausibly coincidental way. Puffing with the exertion, he made like a parabola and leaned into the turn that would place him directly in her way. Unfortunately, due to a slight miscalculation, he ended up running into her friend Ava instead.
“Ow!” she said, rubbing her shin. “Excuse you!”
The group came to a stop and Caterina was looking at him, no more than two feet away. She blinked those long, long lashes once, then twice. “Rahul?”
He opened his mouth to say something cool and collected. How was your break? Or I like your dress—is it new? Instead, he blurted out, “Dance.”
This happened to him often. Even though he knew social etiquette required people to make at least one to two minutes of small talk before they launched into the topic du jour, Rahul’s brain and mouth hardly ever cooperated.
“Excuse me?” Caterina frowned in that imperious way of hers, turning his blood to ice and molten lava at the same time. But then she was swallowed by a tsunami of seniors, all of whom chose that exact moment to walk through the dining hall doors, notice her, and immediately swarm her to demand her attention. And Rahul was spat aside like a hastily coughed-up hairball from the throat of a Persian cat.
For a moment, he felt the sting of rejection. But then he brushed it off. That was okay. They ran in different social circles. He’d observed hers enough to know that this was what was expected, nay, required, of her upon returning from a long absence. He could bide his time.
Rahul turned to make his way back to his seat and saw his friends staring at him with unabashed horror on their faces. It lasted only a brief second before they turned their expressions into smiles.
“What?” he asked, looking around at all their faces. He took a sip of his now-tepid coffee. “She’s just a little busy right now. We’ll talk later.”
“Will you?” Jaya asked, glancing at Grey, who gave her a serious look Rahul couldn’t read. Jaya glanced back at Rahul again. It was like she was waiting for a response to her question, which made no sense because he’d made it clear that they obviously would.
Rahul felt his frustration rise. Everyone was always speaking in code when things would be so much more efficient if they just said what they really meant.
DE ran a hand through her red hair. Over the break, she’d gotten it cut even shorter, with an undercut and a zigzag pattern shaved through it. “Dude, you… be careful with Caterina, okay? She’s got really sharp edges, and I’m worried you don’t see that.”
Now, that, at least, he could understand. DE was wrong for a multitude of reasons, but at least she’d spoken plainly. “I can see why you might think that.”
DE cocked her head, her fingers resting lightly on top of her coffee mug. “What, because of how she eviscerated Alaric at the yacht gala?”
“No.” Rahul thoughtfully stirred more sugar into his coffee. “Because you were so oblivious to the fact that Alaric was using you and didn’t care about you at all. You were completely humiliated at the yacht gala, and you’re projecting that onto me now to warn me. But I have taken your warning into consideration and discarded it as not being relevant to this particular situation.”
There was a sudden silence around the table. Rahul looked up to see all five of his friends staring at him, their eyes wide, their mouths open. It was a sure sign that he’d said something they considered wrong in some way. “What?” he asked when no one spoke.
DE bit her lip and looked away, and Jaya reached across the table to squeeze her friend’s hand. Grey rubbed the back of his neck, and Leo and Sam just continued to stare at Rahul.
“Are you… mad?” he asked DE, frowning. Why would she be mad at him for speaking the truth? He wasn’t mad at her for speaking what she thought was the truth.
DE snapped her gaze to him, her green eyes flashing. “What do you think, Rahul?” She pushed her chair back and got to her feet, picking up her books with quick, angry movements. “There’s such a thing as being honest and then there’s just being a shithead.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and left.
Jaya stood. “I’ll talk to her.” Quietly gathering her books, she gave Grey a kiss on the cheek and strode after DE.
Rahul looked around at his remaining friends, his cheeks heating with confused shame and regret. Once again, he’d totally flubbed something and he had no idea why. “I…” He shrugged, but then the cafeteria lead was ringing her silver bell, signaling that it was time to make their way to their first class of the semester.
“Last semester of high school!” Leo said as he stood, and Rahul could tell he was trying to brighten the tone. Leo spent a lot of time doing that after Rahul’s derailments. He turned to Rahul and smiled a little. “Let’s make it a good one.”
* * *
Rahul left his friends behind as he made his way across campus to the humanities building, the brisk wind catching at his clothes and hair. He needed the time to think, to dissect what he’d said to DE and why that might have made her mad. He could ask Grey later, or maybe even Jaya, but it was painfully embarrassing to have to do that all the time. He should be able to figure some of this stuff out for himself, dammit.
A group of freshmen passed him, laughing and talking as if it were the easiest thing in the world. As if social interaction wasn’t infinitely more complex than AP Physics with Dr. Monroe, who used to be an actual NASA rocket scientist before Rosetta poached him away.
Rahul’s phone dinged in his pocket. Shifting his psychology textbook to his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled it out. It was a Google alert, set up to inform him anytime his family was in the papers.
Chief Minister Arti Chopra attends celebrity wedding with husband, Malik, and sons, Vivek and Rahul, the photo caption read. Rahul clicked on the picture to enlarge it. He was looking at a picture of his family dressed in glittering wedding finery, all dark-haired and smiling broadly for the camera. There was his mom, his dad, his brother, Vivek—and his cousin Pritam.
It wasn’t Rahul in the picture, it was Pritam, looking right at the camera, his smile just the correct amount of confident and humble, dashing and down-to-earth. Pritam was a year younger than Rahul, and his clothes—always designer—fit well.
His family had been using Pritam in their photo ops ever since Rahul had first been deposited at Rosetta in second grade. The first time he’d seen Pritam in his place in a photograph, he’d called home, wondering if the photographer or the newspaper had gotten it wrong. He’d been told promptly that it was no mistake, that this was what was best for the Chopra family. Two happy, smiling, socially acceptable sons.
It usually didn’t bother him too much, seeing Pritam in his place. He’d had time and distance to accept this, that he was a shameful secret his family needed to hide. But after that debacle with DE… Rahul took a deep breath, his hand tightening around the phone, his chest aching with something he couldn’t even name. Was there any place where he belonged?