Their eyes met, and Rylin felt herself flush a bright agonized red. Telling Cord the truth meant admitting how she’d felt about him last year: that she’d gone all the way to Dubai chasing him. Yet some part of her insisted that she owed Cord an explanation, no matter how much it stung her pride.
“I saw you with Avery. In Dubai,” she said quietly.
Rylin watched as he sorted through the implications of her words. “You saw Avery kiss me?” he demanded at last.
Rylin gave a miserable nod, not trusting herself to speak. Even though it was months ago—even though she was with Hiral now, and it shouldn’t matter—Rylin felt the shame of that night stealing over her, as sticky and suffocating as ever.
She’d gone to Dubai buoyed by a ridiculous hope that she could find Cord and tell him how she felt. That they could start over. She’d looked for him that whole night, but when she’d finally found him, it was too late. He was with Avery. Kissing her.
“Nothing ever happened again between me and Avery,” Cord said slowly. “We’re just friends.”
Rylin had figured that out eventually, once Avery left for Europe and started dating that Belgian guy or whoever he was. She felt a little foolish. “You don’t owe me an explanation,” she said quickly. “It was all so long ago, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Except that it clearly does matter.” Cord’s eyes were unreadable. “I wish you’d said something,” he added softly.
Rylin felt her blood hammering underneath her skin. “Hiral and I got back together,” she felt a sudden need to say.
“Hiral?”
Rylin knew what Cord must be thinking. He was remembering what Hiral had done last year when she’d been working for Cord. “It’s different this time,” she added, not sure why she was explaining herself to Cord anyway.
“If you’re happy, Rylin, then I’m happy for you.”
“I am happy,” she agreed, and she meant it; she was happy with Hiral. Yet somehow the statement had come out a bit defensive.
Cord nodded. “Look, Rylin, can’t we start over?”
Start over. Was that even possible after everything they’d been through? Perhaps it wasn’t a start-over as much as a start-from-here. It sounded nice, actually.
“I’d like that,” Rylin decided.
Cord held out his hand toward her. For a moment Rylin was startled at the gesture, but then she tentatively reached out and shook his hand.
“Friends,” Cord declared. Then he reached for the VR goggles to begin his section of the lab.
Rylin glanced over at him, curious at something she thought she’d heard in his tone, but his expression was already hidden behind the bulky mask of the goggles.
LEDA
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Leda turned down the hallway toward the main entrance of the Berkeley School. The other students moved in coordinated flocks around her like uniformed birds, all wearing the same navy pants or plaid pleated skirts. Leda watched as they formed into groups, only to exchange a few snitches of gossip before breaking off again. The halls were thick with that frantic back-to-school hum, everyone rapidly recalibrating their relationships after three months apart.
Thank god some relationships didn’t change, she thought gratefully as Avery emerged from a classroom across the hall. Avery had no idea just how much Leda had needed her.
She was oddly glad that Avery had insisted she come to Cord’s the other night. Leda hadn’t exactly been the life of the party—it all felt so garishly loud and bright, and she kept worrying that the darkness would open up within her again, like an earthquake that might erupt at any moment. But nothing all that bad had happened. Actually, Leda realized, it had felt good, doing something almost normal again.
“Come with me to Altitude?” Avery asked, falling into step alongside her. “There’s a new thermo-shock yoga class I want to try. Super hot for the stretch, freezing for the cooldown.”
“I have some studying to do tonight,” Leda said, adjusting her crossbody bag over her shoulder.
“Our first day back? We don’t even have any homework yet!”
“It’s my SAT tutor. I need to push my score above a three thousand.” Leda was applying to Princeton. Her mom had gone there, and lately, Leda had found herself trying to be more and more like her. It was a new impulse, given that she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life trying to be the opposite of her mom.
“You’re welcome to come with me, if you want the extra practice,” she added, but Avery shook her head.
“I’m not taking the SAT. Oxford doesn’t recognize it.”
“Oh, right. Because of Max,” Leda said lightly as they walked through the school’s massive stone gates and out into the fabricated sunshine. Though Leda had to admit that she’d been pleasantly surprised by Max. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She couldn’t imagine being attracted to him herself, with his shaggy hair and eclectic Euro style; the way his attention flitted between distraction and sudden, intense focus. But she sensed something fundamentally warm and sturdy about him. He was the type of boy you could trust with your best friend’s heart.
“I wanted to go to Oxford before Max, remember?” Avery insisted, though a goofy smile played around her lips at the mention of him.