Page 44 of Devil in Disguise

“What?” Owen’s voice suddenly got a lot scarier. “Dyma? You there?”

She sighed. “Yep.”

“What male students?”

This had been a really bad idea. “Never mind,” she told him. “I forgot that I didn’t tell you that part.”

“Whatmale students?” Owen persisted. “What did they do?”

“They didn’t do anything. They—he—just said a few … some things that I, uh, objected to.”

Owen didn’t react like she expected. Instead, he said, “Are you safe?”

Suddenly, she wanted to put her head down on the desk and weep. Because he was so sweet, and he wasn’t here. Because she’d barely been here a month, and so many things were already going wrong. Because she was tired and messy and unprepared, and she wasn’t just mad anymore. She was scared. What was going to happen if she got kicked out of the dorms? If she lost her job? What if she had to go home to Portland, because she’d failed?

This was supposed to be her big thing, herfuture,and she was already failing!

Stop it,she told herself.You’re not going home to Portland. It’s one bad day. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a sudden rain does not last for the whole day.But somehow, the Tao wasn’t helping.

“I’m safe,” she told him, steadying her voice with a major effort. “I’m fine. There was just a … we just had to clear some things up, like I told you. And I did clear them up. It was a misunderstanding. They thought they could be horrible to me, and I made them understand that they couldn’t. And now I’m fine.”

20

Purity Test

She was eatinga late dinner that evening with her Electromagnetism textbook in front of her, doing her best to turn over a new leaf. Avery and Fletcher had already eaten and left, once she’d told them that she couldn’t hang out tonight. “I’m going to flunk out after one quarter,” she’d tried to explain. “It’s kind of … harder than I thought to keep up. I thought I’d have tons of time to get everything done, since I’m hardly in class at all.”

“You’re not going to flunk out,” Fletcher said. “They put you on academic probation, that’s all. Half of the CS department was on academic probation after Fall quarter of my freshman year. Everybody screws up at the beginning.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, “my scholarship requires at least a 3.2, or it’s gone.”

“Want to come climbing with me tomorrow?” Avery blurted out, apropos of nothing. “After your morning class?” When she hesitated, he said, “You need the exercise.”

“Nice,” Fletcher said.

“I don’t mean you’re gaining weight,” Avery hurried to say. “Although even if you did gain weight, that would be OK. I mean, you’d still look good even if you did. Which you’re not.”

Fletcher laid his head on the table and groaned. “Dude. Just stop.”

Dyma, though, was laughing. “I kind of love you guys. And yeah. Climbing sounds great.” Another three dollars for shoe rental, and Averywouldwant to get a coffee afterwards, because both he and Fletcher seemed to have plenty of extra cash, and they always wanted to hang out. Which she had to start saying no to.

Discipline. That was going to be her new word. And, yes, she’d already spent her whole first-quarter budget and then some. Another thing she needed to do this weekend: look at her outlays. Also practice saying, “I can’t.” Not easy.

“I thought we were all going climbing on Saturday morning,” Fletcher said. “I have class tomorrow morning.”

“We can go Saturday, too,” Avery said. “Or do something else. I’m asking about tomorrow.” For once, he didn’t sound quite so easygoing, because that had been almost a snap. The two of them always seemed like such good friends. Were they not getting along?

“Tomorrow would be great,” Dyma said. “And Saturday, too.” She’d just say something casual about the coffee. Espresso drinks were four bucks apiece, and she didn’t have four extra bucks a day. She’d just say it. It wasn’t like she was ashamed of not being rich.

Fifteen minutes later, she was doing, yes, the homework, when somebody else slid into the seat across from her. She looked up. It was the girl from last week, with a meal tray.

“Hi,” the girl said. “Pavani.”

“Oh. Right. Hi.”

“I know,” Pavani said. “You’re studying, and this random girl shows up, blah, blah. You can tell me to take off if you need to.”

Dyma wasn’t exactly beating off hordes of friend-prospects right now. At the moment, she had exactly two. She’d had enemies before, since she wasn’t that good at keeping her head down and her mouth shut, but she’d also always had friends. She said, “Hey, anybody who wants to punch Cassandra and Sydney is OK with me.”