“Can we talk about this in private?” she asked, with all the dignity she could. She looked directly into Leda’s eyes. “Please. For the sake of all our years of friendship. Please don’t do this, not here.”
Something of the old Leda flashed in her eyes, and she sagged a little, as if she’d been strumming along through sheer outrage and now lacked the propulsion to keep herself upright. “Fine,” she conceded. “For a couple of minutes.”
Avery nodded. It was the best she was going to get right now. “Follow me,” she said, pasting a wooden smile on her face, nodding to everyone they passed as if all were well. As if she and her best friend were off to refresh their makeup together and exchange bits of gossip, not threaten each other with their darkest, most private secrets.
But everywhere she went there were people. Her and Atlas’s bedrooms, the library, the greenhouse: the party had sent its tendrils throughout the apartment. Every room had someone in it, passed out or making out or a combination thereof. Avery felt Leda growing restless next to her, a silent time bomb ticking down.
Then Avery got the idea that would change everything, forever.
“Here,” she said, pushing open the door to the pantry and reaching for the hidden handle. “No one will be up here. We can talk in total privacy.”
She grabbed the ladder and it retracted down, revealing a tiny square of midnight-blue sky above them. It was a sign of how upset Leda was that she didn’t even react to the existence of a hidden rooftop above Avery’s apartment. She just inclined her head a little and said, her voice cold as ice, “You first.”
Her Italian leather stilettos slipping a little on the rungs of the ladder, Avery started the climb up into the darkness.
LEDA
LEDA STEPPED FORWARD unsteadily into the wind. Her instincts should have been screaming at her to go back down the ladder, but those instincts were muffled under a powerful cocktail of xenperheidren and several other pills whose names she’d forgotten. Right now the xenperheidren was keeping her in check, if a little glazed over and tightly wound. But already there were starting to be strange distortions in her vision, shapes elongating and shadows brightening. It was all pleasant and bright, like a children’s carnival holo.
“Hooking up with your brother, a hidden rooftop.” She turned around to face Avery. “How many other secrets is perfect Avery Fuller hiding?”
“There’s no need to be cruel.” Avery stood there unmoving. The moonlight glimmered on the silver-blue of her dress, making her look like some ancient Greek statue of a goddess.
“There’s a need for whatever I say there is,” Leda said viciously. Up here on the roof, so close to the stars, she felt young and alive and hateful. “So, you and Atlas. What do you think your parents will say when they find out?”
“How did you find out?” Avery asked quietly.
“I have my ways.” Like hell Leda was going to tell Avery about Watt. Although there was a beautiful poetic justice to it: that the boy who’d fallen hopelessly for Avery was the one to spill her darkest secret.
She’d come to the party tonight for revenge, she reminded herself. What were they doing up here on the roof, talking? Leda gave her head a shake, trying to focus. She wasn’t on her game. Maybe she’d taken too many pills.
“Leda,” Avery said haltingly, “I’ve loved him forever. Since we were kids. But I never thought until now that we could possibly …” She trailed off. “I never meant for you to be hurt. I’m so sorry for everything that happened to you.”
“Is that why you’ve been a bitch to me all year? Because I liked Atlas?”
“I’m sorry,” Avery started to say, but Leda was talking over her, her voice straining.
“You made me apologize, at Eris’s party! You made me beg you for forgiveness! I assumed you didn’t think I was good enough for him!”
“Leda! Of course you’re good en—”
“And the whole time you just wanted him for yourself!”
Avery blanched. “I’m so sorry. It was really hard for me, seeing you two together.”
“You don’t think it was hard on me, losing the only guy I ever cared about and my best friend all at once, right when my family is falling apart?” Leda nearly shouted. She reached up to wipe angrily at the single tear that had escaped the corner of her eye. Stupid pills, making her lose her grip on her emotions. Hadn’t Leda promised herself never to let anyone see her cry?
Avery noticed the gesture and stepped forward—but Leda’s hand darted out, warning her to stay back. “Leda, what’s happening with your family?” Avery asked.
Leda didn’t answer. Fuck Avery and her false sympathy. She didn’t want to talk about it. Even high, she could only handle one crisis at a time.
Avery’s voice was gentle. “Why don’t we go back downstairs. We can get you help, whatever you’re on, and—”
“Just back off!” Leda shouted. Her entire body quivered with tension.
Avery fell silent. “What are you going to do?” she said carefully.
“I don’t know!”
Why was she on the rooftop anyway? It was all Avery’s fault—Avery had tricked her into coming, “for the sake of our friendship.” What friendship? Leda should have asked. She needed to get back to her plan—although what it was, she was struggling to remember … All she knew was that she wanted Avery to suffer as much as she had. Atlas too, though for some reason most of her anger was focused on Avery. But that made sense. It was a much greater betrayal.