Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ is a teen comedy-drama that focuses on the story of the students in Moordale Secondary. The protagonist of the story is Otis Milburn, a shy kid who is an expert at giving sex advice but hasn’t had sex himself. In the first season, he opens a sex clinic in school with Maeve Wiley, an outcast who is known for her sexual flings. Over the course of four seasons, we see Otis and Maeve’s relationship develop from acquaintances who join hands to run a business profitable to them both and end up falling in love with each other.
Apart from each other, Otis and Maeve have relationships with other people as well. Otis briefly dates Ruby, the most popular girl in school. They also collaborate in the fourth season when Ruby helps Otis in his campaign to set up the only sex clinic in Cavendish College. Their history is mentioned in between this a couple of times. But why did they break up? SPOILERS AHEAD
Ruby and Otis Were Never Meant to Be
Ruby and Otis belonged to different social circles. She was one of the Untouchables, while Otis was barely paid attention to. He comes into the limelight when he becomes the sex expert on the campus and helps other teenagers figure out their sex issues. He doesn’t become popular, but people know who he is now, and he becomes the go-to person for sex problems.
Ruby and Otis first hook up in the second season. They attend a party where they both get drunk and wake up next to each other the following morning. Otis reveals that this is the first time he’d had sex but panics when he discovers that neither he nor Ruby is sure they used protection. To throw out all doubts, they decide to get a morning pill for Ruby, where she reveals that her father has MS, which is why she’s been sad lately and slept with Otis to feel better.
This is also when Ruby notices that Otis actually cares about her problems. He is sweet and not like other guys who don’t bother to know anything about her. This is the end of their brief fling, but they sleep with each other again at a party Olivia throws during the summer holidays. They spent the entire holidays dating each other secretly but didn’t tell anyone about it because Ruby was still the most popular girl in school while Otis was not. Eventually, however, they decide to go public with their relationship.
As they spend more time together, Ruby falls in love with Otis. He is the first guy she takes home to meet her father. It’s quite an intimate thing for her to do because she hasn’t even let her best friends, Olivia and Anwar, into her house. Otis’ thoughtfulness and caring nature make her fall for him even more, and during a phone conversation, she confesses his feelings to him. She says, “I love you,” but he doesn’t say it back.
At this time, Ruby doesn’t know Otis is in love with Maeve. He’d been in love with her since Season 1, but there was always something keeping them apart. He leaves her a voicemail at the end of the second season, which Maeve never gets to hear because Isaac, whom she was dating at the time, deletes it. When he doesn’t get any response from Maeve, Otis is heartbroken.
In the third season, when Otis gets together with Ruby, it is while being under the impression that Maeve doesn’t want anything to do with him. He thinks she heard his voicemail, in which he’d confessed his feelings, and chose to ignore it because she doesn’t want to be with him. This is why he stays away from Maeve and spends time with Ruby. However, while Ruby falls in love with him, he is struggling to get over Maeve, which is why he cannot reciprocate Ruby’s feelings. When Ruby realizes Otis doesn’t love her, they talk it over and decide to end things. Ruby decides they should not see each other anymore, even though she is more heartbroken with this whole ordeal.
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