Chapter 1
Ray first fell in love with Vanessa when she turned into a potato.
Not metaphorically.
An actual potato.
Their first year of high school started at home.
There were no new classrooms, no awkward introductions, no getting lost in unfamiliar hallways, and no sitting next to a stranger only to realize you would be stuck with them for the rest of the year.
There was only a Google Meet link.
Every morning, twenty-eight little boxes appeared on Ray’s laptop.
Most of them were black.
RIZKY P.
NADIA.
M. ALDO.
Samsung Galaxy A51.
Ray never found out who Samsung Galaxy A51 was.
That person attended almost every class, never turned on their camera, rarely spoke, and somehow survived an entire school year under the identity of a mobile phone.
Ray wasn’t much better.
Camera off.
Microphone off.
Present in body.
Questionable in spirit.
Vanessa was different.
Her camera was almost always on.
That was how everyone learned her name so quickly.
And Vanessa was difficult not to notice.
She was pretty.
But pretty girls existed.
The problem was Vanessa was also smart.
“Okay,” their teacher said one morning. “Who can answer number three?”
Vanessa’s digital hand went up.
“Vanessa?”
“B, Miss.”
“Why?”
Vanessa explained.
Ray understood maybe half of it.
Apparently, the teacher understood the other half.
“Exactly. Very good, Vanessa.”
Vanessa smiled.
Ray stared at her little box for three seconds longer than necessary.
Then he noticed his own face in the tiny camera preview.
His hair looked terrible.
He immediately turned his camera off.
His hair had suddenly become a personal emergency.
For the next two months, that was basically how Ray knew Vanessa.
A little rectangle on his laptop.
She asked questions.
She answered questions.
She corrected teachers sometimes, but somehow managed to do it without sounding annoying.
She always seemed awake, which Ray considered suspicious.
Then came the potato incident.
It was Math.
7:30 in the morning.
A time when no seventeen-year-old should be expected to understand numbers.
Their teacher was explaining something when she suddenly stopped.
“Vanessa.”
“Yes, Miss?”
“Why are you a potato?”
Twenty-seven teenagers immediately became more awake.
Ray looked at the screen.
Vanessa looked perfectly normal from the neck down.
Unfortunately, where her head should have been was a potato.
A very expressive potato.
“I don’t know, Miss.”
“Turn the filter off.”
“I’m trying.”
The potato disappeared.
For approximately one second.
Then Vanessa became an alien.
Someone unmuted just to laugh.
“Vanessa.”
“Sorry, Miss.”
The alien disappeared.
Now she had a mustache.
Ray muted himself.
His shoulders were already shaking.
“Vanessa, please.”
“I’M TRYING.”
The mustache disappeared.
Heart-shaped glasses appeared.
“Vanessa!”
Her camera went black.
Silence.
Their teacher closed her eyes for a moment.
“Okay. Let’s continue.”
Then Vanessa spoke.
Except her voice was now extremely deep.
“Sorry, Miss.”
The entire class exploded.
Ray dropped his head onto his desk.
Even their teacher looked like she was fighting for her life.
“THE VOICE TOO, VANESSA.”
“I DON’T KNOW HOW!”
“Leave the meeting.”
“What?”
“Leave and come back.”
Vanessa disappeared.
Thirty seconds later, a notification appeared.
Vanessa A. has joined the meeting.
Camera on.
Normal face.
Normal voice.
Hair slightly messy.
Vanessa sat there like nothing had happened.
Their teacher stared at her.
Vanessa smiled politely.
“Sorry.”
“Can we be serious now?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Good.”
The teacher took a breath.
“Now, can anyone explain why the answer to number six is not C?”
Vanessa’s digital hand immediately went up.
Ray stopped laughing.
“Vanessa?”
“It’s A.”
“Why?”
She explained.
Perfectly.
Their teacher sighed.
“Correct.”
Ray looked at Vanessa’s box again.
Pretty.
Smart.
Apparently incapable of operating a filter.
Interesting.
Their first real conversation happened because of physics homework.
Ray was lying on his bed when his phone vibrated.
Vanessa:hey
He sat up.
He looked at the notification.
Then at her name.
Then back at the notification.
He waited forty seconds before replying because he didn’t want to look too excited.
Ray:hey
Vanessa:did you do the physics homework
He had not.
Ray:almost
This was a lie.
He hadn’t even opened it.
Vanessa:number 7 makes no sense
Ray immediately opened the assignment.
Ray:yeah number 7 is weird
It wasn’t weird.
Ray simply didn’t understand number seven either.
Five minutes later, another message appeared.
Vanessa:wanna call?
Ray sat up straighter.
He checked his hair.
Changed his shirt.
Moved a pile of laundry outside the area his camera could see.
Then he waited another thirty seconds.
Ray:sure
Their homework call lasted three hours.
They spent maybe forty minutes doing homework.
The rest was Vanessa talking.
She wanted to make movies.
Not act in them.
Make them.
“I want to direct,” she said.
“Like... movies?”
“No, Ray. Traffic.”
He laughed.
“I’m asking.”
“Yes, movies.”
Vanessa already had ideas.
Too many ideas.
A horror movie about a woman who kept receiving phone calls from herself.
A romance where the couple only met inside elevators.
A movie with no dialogue.
A movie shot entirely from inside a refrigerator.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a refrigerator.”
“Exactly.”
Ray had no idea what that meant.
Vanessa apparently did.
She talked about cameras.
Lighting.
Scripts.
Film festivals.
Directors Ray had never heard of.
Then she grabbed a notebook and held it in front of the camera.
There were six badly drawn boxes on the page.
“What am I looking at?” Ray asked.
“My storyboard.”
“That’s a person?”
“That’s a woman.”
“Looks like a chair.”
“You’re not the target audience.”
Ray laughed.
He liked listening to her.
Vanessa talked about her future differently from everyone else Ray knew.
Most teenagers said things like:
Maybe I’ll study medicine.
Maybe I’ll go abroad.
I think I want to be an engineer.
Vanessa never said maybe.
“When I make my first movie...”
“When I go to film school...”
“When I direct my first feature...”
When.
Never if.
She talked about those things as if they were already waiting for her somewhere in the future.
Ray found that fascinating.
“So what’s your dream?” Vanessa suddenly asked.
Ray froze.
“My what?”
“Your dream.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have one?”
“I probably do.”
Vanessa frowned.
“How do you probably have a dream?”
“I’ll tell you when I find it.”
She stared at him through the screen.
Then nodded seriously.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll help you find it.”
Ray smiled.
She said it so casually.
Like finding someone’s dream was just another homework assignment.
“Sure.”
He didn’t tell her that, at that moment, he probably would’ve agreed to almost anything she said.
Months passed.
They studied together.
Texted during class.
Sent each other answers they definitely should have figured out themselves.
Sometimes they video-called until late at night.
Ray learned that Vanessa hated raisins.
Vanessa learned that Ray could fall asleep almost anywhere.
Ray learned that Vanessa had approximately one new movie idea every four business days.
Vanessa learned that Ray would listen to all of them.
They became friends.
Then close friends.
Then whatever came after close friends but before either of them was brave enough to call it something else.
And all of it happened through a screen.
Then one afternoon, an announcement appeared in their class group.
Schools were reopening.
Ray read it twice.
For the first time since they became high school students, they were actually going to high school.
No more Google Meet.
No more black boxes.
No more Samsung Galaxy A51.
Probably.
Vanessa called him that night.
“Ray.”
“What?”
“What if you’re ugly?”
Ray stared at her.
“What?”
“I’ve only seen you through a screen.”
“You’ve seen my face.”
“Yeah, but what if you’re secretly ugly in 3D?”
“Vanessa.”
“I’m serious.”
“What if YOU’RE ugly in 3D?”
She gasped.
“Impossible.”
“Wow.”
“I have data.”
“What data?”
“Mirrors.”
Ray laughed.
“See you Monday.”
“See you Monday.”
She smiled.
Then the screen went black.
Call ended.
Ray stayed there for a moment, looking at his own reflection on the laptop.
For almost a year, Vanessa had existed inside a rectangle.
A face.
A voice.
A collection of midnight messages.
A girl who always seemed to have another question, another answer, another movie she wanted to make.
On Monday, that rectangle would disappear.
For the first time, Ray would meet Vanessa in the real world.
And his biggest concern was embarrassingly simple.
He really hoped she wouldn’t think he was ugly.
