The Thousandth Floor

“You did graduate high school, you just didn’t walk with your class!” Avery’s dad exclaimed, at the same time her mom cried out, “Everyone knows you took a gap year! It’s very common to travel at your age! I did!”

Atlas ignored them and looked at Avery. “Hey, Aves, can you pass the pepper?” he asked.

Don’t think you can “Aves” me and everything will be back to normal, Avery thought, pursing her lips and sliding the auto-spicer across the table to him. Typical Atlas, trying to stir drama from their parents in an attempt to cheer her up. But it wouldn’t work this time.

She looked out the window to avoid making eye contact with him. It was a foggy night, moisture clinging in droplets to the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined three of their dining room walls, obstructing the views that normally looked out toward the East River.

Ever since Atlas came home, the Fullers had been eating meals as a family more often. They had dinner almost every night now; they’d even had brunch yesterday, on a Saturday, when her dad was usually out golfing and her mom neck-deep in spa treatments. Avery had loved it at first … until last weekend’s kiss. Now she just felt confused. Atlas had been the one person she could confide in, and she didn’t even know how to talk to him anymore. It seemed impossible that they could just go back to normal, yet Atlas was apparently doing it easily enough.

Avery almost wished the kiss had never happened. Almost, but not quite. Because at least now she had the memory of it, could replay it in her head as often as she wanted. It was torture sometimes, remembering the brush of his lips, the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the way his hands had rested on her waist. But Avery couldn’t bring herself to regret it. If she never kissed anyone again, she knew she could live on the memory of that kiss for the rest of her life.

“By the way, Atlas, I placed your new tux order today.” Elizabeth Fuller drew her perfectly lasered brows together into a frown. She clearly wanted to know what had happened to the last one but refused to broach the subject. Normally Avery would have been curious too, but right now she couldn’t make herself care. Probably Atlas had forgotten it at some stupid yacht party in Croatia. Avery made eye contact with her mom, and they exchanged a look.

It was often baffling to Avery that half her genes actually came from her mom. Of course, it was all the unexpressed recessive genes, the ones that her mom carried but didn’t demonstrate, that Dr. Shore had mined out and given to Avery. Because the two of them truly looked nothing alike.

Avery’s mom was far from beautiful. Her frame was too stout and her arms were too short, and her hair, no matter how much time and money she spent treating it, tended toward frizzy. But she attacked her appearance with the gritty determination of a full-time job, undergoing annual plastisurgeries and a grueling Pilates regimen. Still, Avery knew her mother was achingly self-conscious about the way she looked. It was the whole reason she’d insisted they pay so much, to ensure that Avery would never have to worry about it.

“Well, the tux will be ready for the University Club fall gala,” Elizabeth went on. “By the way, are you two taking anyone?”

“I’m going with Leda, but her family are members anyway, so you don’t need to get her a ticket,” Atlas answered.

That was news to Avery. She reached for her glass of merlot—thankfully her parents were laissez-faire enough to serve wine to their teenage children—and took a long sip, the light glinting on the ruby liquid in its unbreakable flexiglass. She was floored that Atlas was still talking about Leda, after kissing her.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Elizabeth said, clearly a little surprised. “Pierson, should we have the Coles at our table, then? I’d asked the Reeds and the Delmonds, but I think we can bump up the table size to ten …”

“Whatever you want,” Avery’s dad murmured, probably trying to read messages on his contacts.

Great, Avery thought, now the parents are involved. It felt more real that way, as if Leda had now officially become Atlas’s girlfriend.

“Are you going with anyone, Avery?” her father asked. Concern crept in at the edges of his tone. He was always asking Avery why she wasn’t dating anyone, as if Avery’s single status was the most confusing puzzle the world had ever presented him.

Avery hesitated. She hadn’t given much thought to the fall gala, but now that Atlas was going with Leda, she wanted to be there, and with a date, to prove that she was as unaffected by the kiss as he was. But Zay had gotten sick of waiting around for her and was officially with Daniela now, so she couldn’t ask him. She briefly considered Cord—he was always fun at these things—but Atlas knew she and Cord were just friends, so it wouldn’t make him jealous.

Avery’s eyes darted to the flowers that Watt had given her, still in their hammered metal pot on the kitchen counter. A few of the baby’s breath had died, but the white rose at the center was in full bloom, its velvet-soft petals beautifully unfurled. Why not? she thought. Watt had seemed to know a few people at Eris’s birthday—which she hadn’t really expected him to come to, though now she was glad he had. Actually, hadn’t she seen him talking to Atlas at one point?

“I’m bringing Watt Bakradi. The guy who sent me those.” Avery gestured to the flowers. She looked at Atlas’s face as she said it, watching for some kind of reaction, but he seemed as nonchalant as ever.