The Dazzling Heights

Rylin took a deep breath. “I’ve imagined this conversation at least a hundred different times, and in absolutely zero of those scenarios was I here, at your school.”

Cord’s teeth gleamed in a hollow smile. “Oh, yeah? Where did you imagine this conversation?”

In bed, but that was wishful thinking. “It doesn’t matter,” Rylin said quickly. “The point is, I owe you an apology.”

Cord stepped back, toward the top row of seats. Rylin forced herself to look directly at him as she spoke. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since that night.” She didn’t need to clarify; he would know what night she meant.

“I wanted to ping you, but I had no idea what to say. And it didn’t seem like it mattered anymore. You were up here, and I was down on thirty-two, and I figured it was just easier not to dig it all up.” And I’m a coward, she admitted to herself. I was afraid to see you again, knowing how much it would hurt.

“Anyway, now I apparently go to school with you—I mean, I’m here on scholarship—”

“The one Eris’s parents endowed,” Cord said, unnecessarily.

Rylin blinked. She hadn’t counted on the fact that so many people would talk to her about Eris. “Yes, that one. And since I’m going to keep seeing you around, I wanted to clear the air.”

“‘Clear the air,’” Cord repeated, his voice flat. “After you pretended to date me so that you could steal from me.”

“It wasn’t pretend! And I didn’t want to steal—at least, not after the first time,” Rylin protested. “Please, let me explain.”

Cord nodded but didn’t answer.

So she told him everything. She admitted the truth about her ex-boyfriend, Hiral, and about the Spokes—how she’d stolen the custom-made drugs from Cord that one time, the first week she worked for him, to keep her and Chrissa from being evicted. Rylin lifted her chin a little, trying not to falter as she explained how Hiral had blackmailed her into selling his drugs for bail money. How V threatened her, forcing her to steal from Cord again.

She told Cord everything except how his older brother, Brice, had confronted her, saying that unless she broke up with Cord—unless she acted like she’d only dated him for the money—he would send her to jail. She knew how close Cord was with his older brother and had no desire to get in the middle of that relationship. So she made it sound like Hiral did it all.

And she didn’t tell Cord how much she’d loved him. How much she still loved him.

Cord didn’t say anything until Rylin’s last words fell into the silence like stones, causing it to ripple in waves around them. By now it was well into first period; they’d both missed their meetings in the main office. Rylin didn’t care. This was more important. She wanted, desperately, to make things right with Cord. And if she was being honest with herself, she wanted so much more than that.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” he said slowly.

Rylin took an involuntary step forward. “Cord. Do you think that we could ever—”

“No.” He flinched away before she could finish the question. The movement hit her like a blow to the stomach.

“Why?” she couldn’t help asking. She felt like she’d ripped her heart open, let its contents spill like sawdust all over the floor, and now Cord was walking carelessly all over it. She somehow held back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

Cord let out a breath. “Rylin, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to trust you. Where does that leave us?”

“I’m sorry,” she ventured, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did hurt me, Rylin.”

Someone cracked open the door, letting a flood of light into the room, then backed away hastily when they saw Cord. In the brief moment of illumination, Rylin caught sight of his face: distant, cold, closed-off. It terrified her. She would rather that he yell at her, seem angry or wounded, even cruel. This casual indifference was infinitely worse. He was retreating somewhere deep inside himself, where she could never reach him—where he would be lost to her forever.

“I wish I could rewind, do things differently,” she said uselessly.

“I wish that too. But that’s not how life works, is it?”

Cord took a step forward, as if he was about to leave. Rylin realized in an instant of clarity that she could not let him be the one to walk away from her, not if she were to maintain any semblance of pride. She moved quickly to the door and glanced back over her shoulder.

“I guess it isn’t. I’ll see you around, Cord,” she told him, which was, unfortunately, the truth. She would keep seeing the boy who didn’t want her, over and over again.

Later that day, Rylin moved mechanically through the lunch line, wondering how many total minutes she had left at this school. Already she wanted to start a ticking countdown in the corner of her tablet, the way some girls did for their birthdays.

Predictably, the school had launched her on a schedule of entirely base-level classes—including freshman biology, since biology was the one science she’d never taken at her old school. She was actually relieved that she’d shown up so late to her meeting with the registrar, Mrs. Lane, if only because it spared her a full half hour of that woman’s incredulous condescension. “It says here you were working at a store called Arrow?” Mrs. Lane had asked with a haughty sniff. Rylin half wished she’d bought a pair of the flashing Arrow rainboots and worn them around school, just to make some kind of point.

As she stepped up to the retinal scanner to check out, Rylin grabbed a shining red bottle of water from one of the dispensers. The scripted logo read MARSAQUA, in letters that looked like icicles against a bright red planet. The cartoon letters repeatedly melted, dripped to the bottom of the bottle, then floated back up to re-form ice crystals.

“Martian water,” she heard from behind her.

Rylin whirled around, only to see her worst nightmare standing there. Leda Cole.

“They chip away chunks of the Martian ice caps, then bring it back to Earth and bottle it. It’s fantastic for your metabolism,” Leda went on. Her voice was frighteningly sweet.

“That sounds harmful to Mars,” Rylin replied, proud of how unconcerned she sounded. Leda was like the vicious stray dog that used to lurk near their apartment—you couldn’t afford to reveal any weakness before her, or she would never lay off the attack.

“Come sit with me,” Leda commanded, and started off without waiting to see whether Rylin would follow.

Rylin didn’t bother hiding her sigh of irritation. Well, she might as well get all her shitty conversations over with on the first day. It could only go upward from here, right?

Leda had planted herself at a two-person table near a flexiglass window that overlooked an interior courtyard. Rylin saw kids out there playing with flying video-cams and chatting around an enormous fountain. There was so much real sunlight flooding in from the ceiling, filtered by mirrors from the roof, that it felt like they were outdoors—if outdoors was ever this clean and symmetrical and perfect.

She sank into the seat across from Leda and dunked one of her sweet potato fries in aioli. Leda obviously wanted her to feel intimidated, but Rylin wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“What the hell are you doing here, Rylin?” Leda demanded, without preamble.

“I go to this school now.” Rylin gestured down at her pleated skirt and lifted an eyebrow. “We’re wearing the same uniform, in case you didn’t notice.”

Leda didn’t seem to have heard. “Did the cops send you?”

“The cops? Do you realize how paranoid you sound?” The idea was ludicrous, that Rylin Myers would become some kind of undercover police spy.

“All I know is that you’re a walking reminder of a night I’d rather not think about.” That makes two of us, Rylin thought. “And now, for some inexplicable reason, you’re here at my school, instead of down on the twentieth floor where you belong!” Leda’s voice quavered, and Rylin realized with pleasure that she sounded just a little bit … afraid.