AVERY WAS TAPPING her stylus on her tablet, frowning down at a physics problem, when a knock sounded at her door. For a glorious, terrible instant she thought it might be Atlas, before she remembered that they weren’t speaking, and besides, Atlas’s knock had always been louder and more self-assured.
“Yeah?” She turned around, one leg crossed over the other in her chair.
Her mom paused in the doorway. She was wearing a red-and-black day dress with tights and a cropped black jacket. “I just wanted to make sure you knew about dinner,” she said, smiling. “Sarah is cooking short ribs.”
Avery’s eyes widened. “What are we celebrating? Did Dad already figure out his next project?” Genuine short ribs—the kind that weren’t grown in labs—were hard to come by and, even for the Fullers, implied a special occasion. Usually a new real estate acquisition.
“Atlas is officially taking the Dubai job! He and your father negotiated all the details,” Elizabeth exclaimed. She gave a little laugh, as if the idea of Atlas negotiating his salary with his own father was too amusing. So, Avery thought, that explained why both her parents’ spirits had visibly lifted these past few days.
She’d known this was coming, yet the news still stung her, more than it should. “I wish I could,” she said immediately, “but it’s actually Risha’s birthday, and we’re all going out to dinner.” No way was she staying here with her parents and Atlas, pretending to toast to the news that threatened to shatter her already-broken heart into even smaller pieces.
“Really? Do you have to?” Elizabeth pressed, but Avery held firm.
“It’s her birthday, Mom! I’m sorry.” Her mom finally nodded and shut the door.
Avery wandered mechanically into her bathroom to splash water on her face, then grabbed a towel from the UV sanitizer to pat it dry. The touch-activated floor was warm on her bare feet. Her counter was enormous, lined in pristine white marble, not a fingerprint or smudge in sight. And all around her were mirrors: curved mirrors, flat mirrors, even an antique hand mirror that her grandmother had given her on her first birthday. They were positioned at all angles, as if Avery might need to constantly check herself from new and unexpected perspectives.
Normally Avery switched the mirrors to project an ocean view—she hated the way her mom had decorated this bathroom, made Avery the focus of it, just as she was the centerpiece of the rest of their lives. But now she leaned forward on her palms and studied her reflection. A ghostlike self, pale and hollow-eyed, looked back at her.
She watched the ghost tap a series of commands into her makeup diffuser, making Avery beautiful, it seemed, without any help from her actual self. She closed her eyes as a fine mist sprayed over her face, instantly brightening the shadows around her eyes, darkening her lashes, highlighting the sweeping architecture of her cheekbones. When she looked up, she felt almost like Avery Fuller again.
She reached for the jasmine lotion in its crystal dispenser and rubbed it over her bare arms. It had been a gift from Eris, who used to order it from a tiny boutique in the Philippines, and always smelled like it. The scent was soothing, and so painfully familiar that it made Avery want to cry.
Eris would have understood this feeling, Avery thought: the sensation that there was a terrifying emptiness inside her, where something sharp and brittle rattled hollowly. Probably the broken pieces of her heart. Eris would have hugged Avery, and assured her that she was better than the rest of them combined. She would have sat with her eating cookie bites and hiding from the world until Avery felt ready to face it again.
But Eris wasn’t here, and Avery had to get out of this apartment if she wanted to avoid seeing Atlas tonight.
“Compose flicker. To Risha, Jess”—she hesitated a moment—“and Ming.” Avery still resented Ming for the way she’d embarrassed Eris at her birthday party, but she wanted a lot of people around her right now, and Ming was the type of person you needed on nights like this, loud and game for anything, with a flair for the dramatic. If nothing else, Ming would help keep Avery from thinking about Atlas.
“We’re going out tonight. Dress up. Meet at Ichi at eight.”
“What’s going on?” Jess asked when they were seated at Ichi a few hours later. Despite the late notice, all three girls had shown up, as Avery knew they would.
Avery tugged nervously at her laser-cut black dress and reached for the platter of lobster tempura on the table before them. Ichi was a trendy sushi restaurant, an old favorite of Eris’s, nestled like an opulent gem in the center of the 941st floor. It had no exterior windows, but that worked perfectly with the clubby atmosphere: dim lighting, techno music, and especially the low-slung tables that forced everyone to sit on the ground, amid piles of red silk cushions.
“I just wanted to have a fun girls’ night,” she said, flashing a smile.
“It’s a Wednesday,” Risha pointed out.
“I’m avoiding my parents,” Avery decided to admit. “They wanted to have a big family dinner at home, but I’m upset with them and not in the mood. I don’t want to get into it,” she added, and Ming—who’d already opened her mouth to ask a question—reluctantly stayed silent.
A waiter swooped over with the rest of their order: eel sashimi, tartare tacos, an enormous baked miso soufflé. When he started to deposit bright purple drinks at the corner of each place setting, Avery looked up in surprise. “We didn’t order lychee martinis.”
“I did,” Ming announced, and turned to Avery with a challenging smile. “Come on, you know you want one.”
Avery started to protest; she wasn’t in the mood to drink, at all. But then she thought of Atlas, sitting there with her parents, toasting to the job she’d never wanted him to take. One drink wouldn’t hurt.
The girls were all looking at Avery, awaiting her judgment. “Okay,” she said, lifting the martini to her lips.
“Let’s take a snap!” Jess squealed.
Avery started to shift aside like she normally did. She’d always hated being in snaps: she couldn’t control how the images made their way through the feeds, never knew who saw them, and despite all that effort there were far more pics out there than she wanted. But tonight, something stopped her. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if Atlas saw her out right now with her friends. Maybe it would start making things normal between them.
“Here, take one with me in it,” she said, her voice ringing strange even to her own ears. She felt slippery with anxiety.
“Of course.” Ming pulled her lips into a tight, angular smile as the other girls turned and posed with practiced ease. “But, Avery, you never want to be in snaps. Who are you trying to make jealous?” Ming demanded, suspicious.
“Everyone,” Avery said easily, and they all laughed, even Ming.
Avery leaned back and glanced around the room. Everyone here was young and well-dressed, their skin bright with the elusive glow of wealth. A few boys at other tables glanced their way, clearly wondering about the young women in their short dresses and long glittery earrings, but no one had yet ventured over to talk to them.
“Risha. Tell me more about you and Scott,” Avery commanded, just to hear someone talk.
Risha dutifully recounted the latest development in her on-again-off-again romance with Scott Bandier, who was a senior at Berkeley. Avery forced herself to laugh so that no one would notice her strange mood. If she laughed and smiled and nodded enough, nothing would really be wrong.
But inside, her mind was roiling erratically, fluttering from one topic to the next without any resolution. She couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t think—just kept picking at the cold remains of the miso soufflé. The kaleidoscope of light and sound washed over her, dulling the persistent ache in her heart. She kept taking sips of her martini, which Ming must have refilled at some point, though she hadn’t noticed.
Eventually their group began to swell. First it was a couple of other girls from their class, Anandra and Danika; they’d seen the snaps and wanted to join. And then more Berkeley kids showed up, clustering around the bar, ordering that signature purple martini and posting snaps to the feeds, bringing even more people. Soon Avery felt like half the Berkeley student body was there, spilling onto the dark wooden dance floor in sticky clumps. She thought she saw Leda at one point, but before she could be sure, a trio of guys—Rick, Maxton, Zay Wagner—bore down on their table.
“Zay dumped Daniela, you know,” Ming whispered, with a meddlesome wink.
Avery didn’t react to that news at first. She’d been sitting in the same place all night, a little like a queen presiding over her subjects; not that she’d meant it that way. She just hadn’t cared enough about anything to bother moving.
But Ming had a point. Why shouldn’t she talk to Zay? What was left to hold her back? She didn’t have Atlas anymore, no matter what she did.
Avery suddenly remembered how whenever Eris felt heartbroken after a relationship, she would throw herself violently and wholeheartedly into a flirtation with someone new. Avery had asked her about it once. “There’s no forgetting like that kind of forgetting,” Eris had replied, with an arch smile and a knowing flash of her eyes.
“Zay!” Avery exclaimed after a beat, standing up slowly, the way Eris would have. “How’ve you been?”
Zay seemed startled by her attention; after all, she’d soundly rejected him several months earlier. “Great, thanks,” he said cautiously.
But Avery was determined not to be ignored. She turned her flirtation on full wattage, flashing her brightest smile. Poor Zay didn’t stand a chance.
She was just about to lead him onto the dimly lit dance floor when someone tapped at Zay’s elbow.
“Mind if I cut in?” Cord took Avery’s arm and smoothly led her away. Zay stood there about to protest, his mouth half open like a gutted fish.
“That line was a bit clichéd, even for you,” Avery accused, though she didn’t really mind. She hadn’t actually cared about Zay. She’d just felt strangely loose and unmoored, and needed to do something—anything—to feel anchored.
And if Atlas saw her on the feeds, bright and glittering and careless, that wouldn’t have bothered her either.
“Here I thought you were going to thank me for the rescue.”
“Zay isn’t that bad,” Avery protested unconvincingly.
Cord laughed. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was rescuing Zay from another broken heart. You’re a little cruel sometimes, you know, Avery,” he said lightly.
Avery glanced up at him. They hadn’t spoken since the party the weekend before. “I didn’t know you were coming out tonight.”
“I wasn’t, until I saw all the snaps.”
“Cord,” she said, not quite certain what she wanted to tell him. That he shouldn’t read anything into that moment on his couch, that she was raw and hurting and that he should stay away from her. But before she could formulate a coherent thought, she let out a hiccup.
Cord laughed. Avery had always loved the way Cord laughed—really laughed, not his cynical dark laugh but the genuine one. He laughed with his whole body, the way he used to when they were kids.
Before she’d quite realized it, they were dancing, his hands at her waist. “You’re still not going to tell me what’s going on, are you,” he said at last.
“I’m fine.” Avery gave her head an emphatic shake.
“Look, I don’t know who this guy is, but if you really want to make him jealous, you need to do better than Wagner.”
“How did you know it’s a guy?” she asked quickly, wondering what had given her away.
Cord gave a triumphant grin. “I didn’t, until just now. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.”
Now it was Avery’s turn to laugh. It made her feel surprisingly good; almost normal again, for a fleeting second, if there could be such a thing as normal in a world without Atlas.
“Come on, you’ll have to get closer to really sell it,” Cord told her, his voice husky. Avery hesitated before stepping in to loop her arms around Cord’s shoulders. He really was very tall. A terrible, sinful part of her hoped that someone was snapping it and uploading it to the feeds. It would serve Atlas right.
But then she thought of Atlas actually looking at the snap, wondered what he would think of her for going straight to Cord—again—and her arms fell back down. Cord didn’t miss a beat, just began twirling her in an easy, friendly way.
“Besides,” he added, “I’ve been your friend since we were in preschool. I know you wouldn’t command our whole class out on a weeknight without good reason.”
“I didn’t command them, they just showed up!” Avery protested, realizing a beat later that he’d used the word friend. A sense of relief flooded through her. They swayed back and forth for a while, the electric lights above them flashing drunkenly from one color to another.
Avery felt suddenly exhausted. Too much had happened lately—her world falling apart, all the tears she’d shed, the knowledge that Atlas really was leaving, going halfway across the world. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the luxury of resting her head on Cord’s chest.
“Thank you, Cord. For all of it,” she murmured, knowing he would understand.
He didn’t say anything, but she felt him nod.
And so it begins, Avery thought, as if she were squaring her shoulders to pick up an impossibly heavy load. She needed to start putting herself back together, piece by piece, because this was the start of her life without Atlas in it.