“SO THERE I was, standing alone on a rainy cobblestone street—and I couldn’t get any kind of signal because, you know, Florence is a tech-dark mess—and this group of midTower kids comes up!” Avery was telling the story on autopilot, talking without fully registering what she was saying, a skill she’d picked up from her mom. She couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had settled over her when she saw Leda and Atlas together. It doesn’t mean anything, she kept telling herself, but part of her knew that wasn’t true. It meant something to Leda.
When she’d first seen them across the grill, Avery had smiled and waved, only to lower her hand self-consciously. They were too absorbed in their conversation to notice her. For a brief instant, she wondered what they were talking about—and then she saw the look on Leda’s face, and the realization hit her like a punch to the stomach.
Leda liked Atlas.
Why hadn’t Leda ever told her? Because he’s your brother, the rational part of her mind supplied, but Avery was too shocked and hurt to think rationally. There aren’t supposed to be any secrets between me and Leda, she thought bitterly, momentarily forgetting that she was keeping the same secret.
Not to mention Leda’s defensive, overwrought reaction when Avery caught her in a lie about the summer. Why can’t you just let it go? Leda had exclaimed—and Avery wanted to let it go, except Leda’s reaction had worried her. She felt a sudden flash of anger. She’d been so concerned about her friend that she’d been planning to stop by Leda’s on the way home from yoga. And the whole time Leda had been eating nachos and flirting with Atlas.
When had she and Leda started hiding so much from each other?
“Then what happened?” Atlas prompted.
Avery turned in her seat to answer; she’d selfishly, and strategically, taken the hover’s middle spot. “They offered to help me find my dorm! Because I was wearing your old hockey sweatshirt and they apparently played us last year. Can you believe it? Mile-high kids, all the way in Italy! What are the chances?”
“That’s crazy,” Leda said flatly, and Avery felt a burst of shame for the way she’d told the story. “Mile-high” was the term upTower kids used for the suburban wasteland of the middle floors, since it was literally a mile above ground level. Leda had been a mile-higher, once upon a time.
“I just can’t believe you were wearing that old sweatshirt abroad,” Atlas teased.
“Yeah, it looked ridiculous.” Avery shrugged and fell silent, suddenly embarrassed that she’d snuck into Atlas’s room and grabbed the sweatshirt. Even though he’d been gone for months by then, it had still smelled like him.
The hover turned out of the vertical corridor onto floor 962, toward Treadwell, the gated luxury community where the Coles lived. “Hey, Avery,” Leda began. The hover pulled up to the gate and she leaned out, letting the scanner review her retina and confirm that she was a resident. “Are you doing antigrav yoga again tomorrow? Want to go together?”
“Maybe.” Avery shrugged noncommittally. “I’m kind of sore from today.”
The hover turned onto Treadwell’s wide, tree-lined boulevard, which felt even bigger thanks to the elevated ceiling that stretched five stories overhead. Treadwell was modeled after the old Upper East Side brownstones. Some of its homes had actually been salvaged from the old neighborhood, then reconstructed stone by stone inside the Tower.
Avery liked it down here, the way the buildings all felt unique, with their own scrolling ironwork and their own facades. Each structure caught the afternoon light in a different way. It reminded her of Istanbul, or Florence, anywhere that people still injected personality into their homes—a far cry from most neighborhoods upTower, where the streets were lined with bright white doors like fat, frosted slices of wedding cake.
Finally they pulled up to the Coles’. Leda pressed a button overhead, releasing the safety magnetron that held her in her seat. “Well, see you soon.” Her gaze turned to Atlas and her smile softened by an imperceptible degree. “Thanks for the ride, guys.”
The hover started up the remaining thirty-eight levels to the Fullers’ place. “Did you and Leda have fun?” Avery asked, hating herself for prying but unable to stop.
“We had a great time. Actually,” Atlas said, “Leda sort of asked me out.”
Avery stared out the window. She knew she would lose control if she so much as looked at Atlas.
“Is that weird?” he asked. She was being completely awkward, Avery realized; she needed to say something or she’d give herself away.
“No, of course not! I mean, you should definitely go out with her,” she managed.
“Right.” Atlas looked at her curiously. Funny how without Leda here, there was more space in the hover, yet now it felt small.
“It’s a great idea,” Avery added. It’s a terrible idea. Please don’t do it.
“Okay, then.”
Avery pinched her forearm to keep from tearing up. Her best friend and the boy she could never admit to loving. It was like the universe was playing a cruel joke on her.
Silence fell over the hover. Avery tried to say something, anything, but she was at a loss. Every time Atlas had pinged her during the past year, she’d felt like she had too much to tell him, stories tumbling out breathlessly, disorganized, until Atlas invariably had to go.
Now he was here in person, and Avery had nothing to say.
“Hey.” Atlas turned to her as if getting an idea. “Are you still dating that Zay guy? Would you two want to come?”
“We were never dating,” Avery said automatically. Zay hadn’t spoken to her since the party at the Aquarium, and besides, she’d seen him with Daniela last night. Whatever. She had no desire to double-date with Atlas and Leda.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.
“I could invite other people, though,” she said quickly.
“Who were you thinking?”
“Eris, of course. Risha and Ming and Jess. Ty, Maxton, Andrew, even Cord.”
“I’m not sure a big group thing is the best idea,” Atlas protested, but Avery had nodded as she said all the names, already composing a flicker.
“Leda won’t care, trust me. Come on,” Avery said. “It’ll be fun! We can all go out to dinner, or a movie—whatever you want!”
“That does sound fun,” Atlas admitted. “You know Leda better than anyone, I guess. If you say it’s fine, then you’re right.”
Avery ignored the guilt that reared its head at that comment. Really she was just doing her best friend a favor, helping Leda see that she and Atlas didn’t belong together before Leda got too invested and ended up hurt. She wished she could just talk to Leda about all of this. But Leda had shifted things between them, with all her secrets—about this summer, about liking Atlas. Avery wasn’t sure how she would even begin the conversation.
“Of course I’m right,” she said lightly. “Aren’t I always?”
ERIS
ERIS LAY ON her stomach, head tilted to one side, eyes firmly shut as a children’s cartoon played across the back of her eyelids. This was the absolute laziest way to watch something, but right now she didn’t particularly care. She wasn’t even sure what time of day it was. She’d been lying there for hours, ever since her mom had knocked on her door that morning asking if she was okay. Eris had ignored her.
“Eris?” It was her mom again. Eris burrowed deeper into the covers like an animal hiding in its nest, pumping up the volume on her eartennas. She refused to see her mom right now. Much better to stay here, in bed, where last night seemed like nothing but a bad dream.
“Please, Eris. I need to talk to you.” The pounding persisted. Something in her mom’s tone made Eris lean over and, gritting her teeth, type into the touch screen by her bed to unlock her bedroom door.