Still, she and Cord had spent more time together since Paris; in the afternoons when he got home from school, or wherever it was that he mysteriously disappeared to. They stayed mainly at his place, just hanging out, watching holovids, laughing—and kissing. There was a lot more kissing. They hadn’t gone further yet, though, mainly because Rylin felt guilty. She needed to break up with Hiral before anything else happened. Which she was desperate to do: she felt twisted up inside, living a lie.
A knock sounded on the door. Rylin looked up, startled, and went to answer it.
“Lux!” she exclaimed, giving her friend a hug. Lux was wearing silky gray drawstring pants and a tank top, the same candy-apple green as her ponytail. “Your hair this week would look fantastic with my eyes,” Rylin added, with a nod to the new color.
Lux gave a halfhearted smile at the observation. She was still in school, but worked afternoons at a hair salon up on the 90th floor, cleaning the dye-cones and sweeping cut locks of hair off the floor. The stylists didn’t care when Lux used the dye on herself, and as a result her hair was now a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of color. “You’ve barely answered my texts this week. I was getting worried,” Lux said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just been kind of crazy.” Rylin felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t meant to ignore her friend; she just hadn’t known how to respond. Lux had been texting her constantly since Hiral was arrested, probably assuming that Rylin needed cheering up. If only she knew the truth, Rylin thought, that she was trying to break up with Hiral but hadn’t been able to yet. And oh, by the way, she was starting to have feelings for the upper-floor guy she worked for.
“That’s why I’ve been trying to reach out, Ry,” Lux said softly. She lifted her hand in an exasperated gesture, and Rylin saw that she was holding a brown recyclable grocery bag. “I brought over stuff to make chocolate-nambo pancakes. Thought you could use a little breakfast comfort food. But it looks like you’re busy.” She glanced from the cooler to Rylin’s brushed-out hair and cute blue dress.
Rylin smiled, remembering all the times her mom had made those pancakes when they were kids. They were nothing special, just banana mix pancakes with chocolate flakes thrown in. Chrissa loved them and always tried to ask for them, but she couldn’t pronounce banana yet, so she’d run around the kitchen exclaiming “Nambo! Nambo!” until Rylin and Lux produced the pancake mix box, and her toddler face would break out in a grin of recognition.
“Chocolate-nambo pancakes sound amazing,” Rylin said truthfully. “But I was just heading to Chrissa’s tournament. Want to come with me? And then we could all do breakfast for dinner later?”
Lux hesitated, then nodded. “Sure,” she said, still watching Rylin, clearly confused by something in her expression.
“How is everyone?” Rylin asked as they left the apartment, realizing how little she’d seen of her friends since she’d started working for Cord. “Have you seen Andrés or V lately?” V in particular she wondered about—she still didn’t understand how Hiral had gotten caught, while V, who handled a much higher volume, was still dealing like normal.
“We went to the steel forest last night. The DJ was kind of lame, so we ducked out and just did halluci-lighters in that back corner by the Seventieth Street exit.” Rylin knew that corner. It was where they’d all smoked up for the first time, several years ago, and she’d felt so hungry suddenly that she thought she might puke. It’ll pass, Lux had assured her, giggling, and when it does it’ll suddenly feel amazing. She’d been right.
“It’s not the same without you and Hiral, though,” Lux added.
“Yeah. I’m worried about him. I just want to talk to him, but they won’t let me.” Rylin sighed as they stepped out of the Ifty stop near school, the cooler rolling gently along after her. Lux eyed it, but didn’t say anything.
They reached the wide double doors of the Irving Middle School gymnasium. Rylin felt a strange twitch of apprehension, being back here. It had been a while since she had set foot in a school.
They filed into the gym as the tournament was starting. It was just the way Rylin remembered, musty and faintly smelling of sweat, with a scratched-up polyresin floor. Rylin didn’t understand how the gym, which like everything in the Tower was only twenty years old, already looked like something out of the last century. Probably because no one maintained or cleaned it, ever.
The gym was crowded; Rylin knew this was a district tournament, but she hadn’t quite realized what a big deal it was. There was Chrissa and the rest of the Irving team, huddled on their side of the net, their heads bent together. Their school’s holographic mascot, an enormous gray wolf, prowled around the stands, eliciting squeals from a few of the younger spectators. Rylin even saw a few of those mini hovercams that flew around behind the star players, projecting their perspective onto the giant screens overhead.
She and Lux slid onto one of the rows of benches. Chrissa was about to serve, weighing the ball in her hand and rocking back onto her heels. Her dark ponytail swayed back and forth. Rylin watched, a little awed, as she tossed the ball into the air and slammed it across the net.
“She’s really good,” Lux whispered.
Rylin nodded. “Yeah.” She loved watching Chrissa, the way her body would be crouched utterly still, then slam into sudden action with all the ruthlessness of a machine. She moved gracefully, like a dancer, like she was in one of those fancy low-grav chambers and her feet barely touched the ground. Rylin’s heart clenched in pride. At times like this, everything she had given up seemed worth it.