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Just as she’d done to pass her green belt test for tae kwon do the week before.
After Billy’s body hit the ground in front of his shocked friends, she’d planted her left foot, clad in her first pair of high heels, in his chest and said quietly, “Bully someone again and see what happens.”
Her father had been proud of and impressed by her.
Her mother had been convinced she’d go to jail.
Billy had never again looked her in the eye.
Her so-called new friends never spoke to her again.
Sebastian had grown six inches that summer and had never gotten picked on again...but had never stopped trying to make it up to Ash ever since.
Six
“I am your hero, go ahead and admit it.” Sebastian dropped a giant gizmo that looked like an old-school soda machine on the drafting table.
“I don’t want a soda. They’re bad for you, anyway. This is what you had to show me?”
When Ash had received a text from Sebastian asking her to skip lunch and meet in the drafting classroom, she’d been expecting... Well, she didn’t know. But it certainly wasn’t a soda machine.
“Do you even know what this is? Hint—not a soda machine.”
“Slushees?”
“No.”
“Frozen yogurt?”
“Stop thinking about food!”
“I’m supposed to be eating curly fries right now—just tell me.”
“It’s a 3-D printer!”
A 3-D printer. Ash’s curiosity was piqued. “There’s such a thing? What does it print?”
“Stuff in 3-D.”
“Thank you, Wikipedia Brown. Like what stuff?”
“Like...” Sebastian paused for effect. “This sketch for example!”
He slapped down a gorgeous sketch of the lehenga modified and shown in a 3-D perspective using their CAD software. He’d spent the past three evenings working on it at Ash’s place after school with Sonali.
It was even better than Ash had imagined it would be. And so much better than the schoolfront they were supposed to be working on. She’d taken over the school project so Sebastian could focus on the dress, and she had to admit she’d been having a lot of fun with designing a new entrance. Too much fun, probably, since none of the ideas she’d had were very practical.
Sebastian logged in to his PC and sent the sketch to the printer and pressed a series of buttons.
“How do you know how to do this?”
“The internet has all the answers,” Seb replied as he made sure the printer was turned on. “We’ll see if it knows the right answers anyway.”
Ash watched in amazement as drops of some weird liquid started dropping, then accumulating and sticking together at the base of the strange machine.
“That’s plastic and acrylic. It’s going to shape the dress.”
Ash continued to watch. She could see the hem of the dress taking its shape. “I see it!”
Even Sebastian looked surprised at his handiwork.
“Wow, I never thought this would work just like in the YouTube video.”
“Where did you get it?” She squeezed Seb’s arm. He flexed it tightly in response under her fingertips. She held on for an extra second, loving how he always wanted to protect her.
“The drafting department just got it from a donation. This local start-up sank and had to start giving up its stuff. I promised Mr. Watkins I’d clean the auto-shop garage if I could borrow it during lunch.”
“Seb. No.” There he went with the heroics again. She needed him to know she was willing to do her own bargaining punishments. “I’ll do it. You’ve done enough for me.”
“Too late. You’re not the kind of girl who is ever going to clean a garage floor. Not while I’m around anyway.”
Ash opened her mouth to protest.
“Anyway, he thinks we’re printing our school sketch, so we need to do that, too. Why don’t you work on making sure it looks kind of finished?”
For once, Ash didn’t complain and started up the CAD software on her PC. She couldn’t believe Seb was doing garage cleanup for her. He wasn’t even getting anything out of this—it wasn’t his dress, or his date’s dress. Knowing Jessica, she’d chicken out and not ask and he would remain dateless. She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t asked anyone yet. Any girl would say yes.
Sebastian, however, didn’t seem put out by it at all. Instead, he seemed really happy and sat with his hands folded under his chin, watching the dress get created, an intensely focused expression on this face.
Ash, in the meantime, deleted her more lame ideas, such as a moat and drawbridge, from the CAD drawing of the school and verified that all of Sebastian’s great ideas were still in place.
She straightened out the pillars and archway and saved her work. It wasn’t great, but at least they wouldn’t fail. It was a hundred times better than the boring, boxy, ’70s architecture the school was made with right then anyway. When she turned back to see how the 3-D dress printing was going, she gasped.
The lehenga bore no resemblance to what it had been. It was halter-style, came in at the waist, left a sliver of midsection visible, and then flowed into a mermaid-tail skirt that just erupted into a bouquet of sparkly ruffles at the bottom.
Somehow, it was better than even the orange dress she’d been lusting over.
“Oh, Seb,” Ash gasped again as the last few drops of liquid solidified the neckline of the dress.
“Hit print.” He gestured pointedly at her PC. “We need to get the schoolwork done so you’re not doing garage cleanup with me. I want you to have a good weekend.”
Ash did as he asked and then went over to admire the dress again. “Can I touch it?”
“Let me make sure it’s not hot.” Sebastian reached out and touched it first. “Yep, all yours.”
Ash picked up the dress with two tentative fingers. It was much sturdier than she thought—like a little plastic toy. She was amazed by the printer gizmo.
“This is gorgeous!” She immediately threw her arms around Sebastian. “Did I mention I love you the most? How can I thank you for this? Let me take over your garage cleanup at least?”
When she didn’t remove her arms from around his neck, he hesitantly put his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly in return.
“You can mention how awesome I am again.” He was smiling as he pulled away. “That’s all the thanks I need.”
* * *
Though it was only two in the afternoon on a weekday, the line at Molly Moon’s was around the corner, the for-sure sign that spring had arrived in Seattle. Ash insisted on buying cones for both of them, salted caramel and Earl Grey tea double scoops for her and balsamic strawberry for Sebastian. They had gotten the exact same order for so many years, Ash didn’t even need to ask Sebastian if he wanted a drizzle of homemade caramel on his cone.
They wrapped napkins around their cones and walked across the street to wait for a unique Capitol Hill tradition: bicycle polo. Groups of eight people rode around on bicycles and tried to score goals on each other with polo sticks. The game was due to start any minute.
“I can’t believe that 3-D printer thingie.” Ash reached her head over and took a lick of Sebastian’s cone without asking permission.
“It’s cool, huh? I love technology.” Sebastian held his cone out so Ash could have another bite without a struggle.
“I’m starting to love technology. I always thought it was just a bunch of nerdy guys making stuff no one understands...”
“But it’s actually cool stuff that makes everyone’s life easier.” Sebastian finished her thought.
They’d always been that way. Ash would sometimes think of something to ask Sebastian and he would bring up the topic before she could. Laila had a scientific explanation for it, something along the lines of them being in sync because they had grown up together surrounded by the same environmental influences.
“What do you want to do?” Sebastian asked vaguely.
Ash took a few licks of her cone. “Figure out how to get that dress sewn to look like the figurine.”
Sebastian smiled as Ash helped herself to more of his cone. She was liking going among the three flavor choices. “I mean more in the scope of life. What do you want to do?”
Ash considered this. “Be a lawyer like my mom?”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of research.”
“Oh.” Ash noticed a few polo-ists starting to arrive at the little basketball court they had the game in. At this point, even they had their lives figured out more than she did.
“So, you don’t know,” Seb said.
Ash shook her head. “I’ll figure it out at U-Dub.” She had gotten into the University of Washington along with half the senior class.
“I wish you were going to Michigan,” Sebastian said, not in a nonchalant, casual kind of way
Ash was silent for a second as she took a few more bites of her ice cream and pretended to be watching the polo warm-up. Where was this coming from?
“It’s going to be the first time in our lives we won’t just be able to see each other whenever we want,” Sebastian reminded her. “We won’t be skipping last period to have ice cream and watch this spectacle.” Sebastian gestured toward where an obviously beginner polo player rode his bike into the fence.
Ash swallowed. For some reason, she had not digested that information. Starting in about six months, she was going to be without Sebastian for the first time in her life.
“I promise to visit you,” she said at last, after noticing Sebastian was waiting for an answer. “A lot. I hear Ann Arbor is gorgeous.”
Sebastian shook his head sadly. “You’ll be busy with school. I think we’ll only see each other over vacations once or twice a year.”
Once or twice a year?
They saw each other once or twice an hour right now.
This was not something she wanted to ponder. Having a teary meltdown while the polo players watched was not going to be how she was going to end this wonderful day.
* * *
“Wow. What on earth is that?” Laila Montague pointed at the 3D dress creation that was sitting on the counter. She was home early that evening as Sebastian and Ash sat in their usual places in the kitchen.
Ash was on her Surface, trying to make their school sketch look more school-like. Mr. Watkins hadn’t been impressed by their work so far—he said it was too “literal” and needed to jibe with the rest of the students’ work for their final project. Ash had promised to take over the project. Sebastian had done enough. She welcomed the distraction after their serious talk at Molly Moon’s. She didn’t want to even think of a time when she wouldn’t see Sebastian every day.
Sebastian was searching sewing websites for ideas on how to make their dress sculpture a reality, with minimal sewing to the lehenga since neither of them knew how.
Sebastian glanced over at where Laila was pointing. “Oh, that’s for my doll collection.”
“Sebastian, really.” Even stoic Laila looked amused.
Seb was grinning. He was one of the few people who could make Laila loosen up after her long workdays. “Actually, Ash said she would love to wear your lehenga to the prom.”
Laila’s smile was contagious. Ash suddenly realized how beautiful her mother was when her whole face opened up and relaxed. Those were the moments when she hoped everyone was right when they said she was a copy of Laila when her mother was her age.
“Really? I knew she’d change her mind.”
“Again. People. I’m right here.” Ash looked up from her work. “Talk at me, please.”
“I knew you’d change your mind,” Laila said smugly.
Ash did an eye roll. “I didn’t. Seb came up with the idea of modifying the lehenga into something less...Mogul-esque, and that is what we, well he, came up with.”
Laila picked up the tiny dress sculpture. “It’s lovely.”
“I love it,” Ash said. “We just need to find instructions for how to modify the real one. It can’t be that hard.”
“What?” Laila almost dropped the sculpture. “You want to modify my dress? Into this?”
“Mom!” Ash could tell by the tone of her voice that she was about to quash their great idea. “Can you not be negative for once?”
“Ashmita Montague, do not ‘Mom’ me!”
“Seb, talk to her!”
“Here we go again...” Sebastian nearly flipped his chair over as he leaned back. He shook his head at the ceiling in despair. “The women in my life are going to drive me crazy.”
* * *
“What’s going on?” Josh Montague came in from the garage, where he’d just finished up with the band.
“Ash is eavesdropping,” Sonali said helpfully, looking up from her chalk sketch of a lifelike tiger.
“Shh!” Ash shushed her father, who was talking loudly by the loud refrigerator. She was standing at the edge of the kitchen, trying to listen in on the hushed conversation in the living room.
