Leda and Avery had barely spoken since that weird interaction the next morning, when Leda had shown up with Atlas’s jacket. They didn’t even sit next to each other at lunch anymore. One day Avery had just walked up and taken the seat on the end, next to Eris, leaving Leda to slide in between Risha and Jess. No one said anything about the shift, yet Leda felt they were all watching her, waiting for a reaction that she refused to give.
And then there was Atlas. Nadia insisted that he hadn’t seen anyone else that night: she’d even hacked the centralized hover records, found the one that picked him up, and proved that he went straight home after dropping off Leda. She saw it herself, right there in the hover’s tracked itinerary. He didn’t go back to the party, or to any other girl’s house. And yet … Leda still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on, if she could only figure it out.
Leda wished she could stop obsessing about the Fullers. But they were everywhere—hell, just now when she’d headed to the Altitude juice bar after yoga, she’d almost run into Avery and her family leaving brunch. She’d ducked instinctively into a corner as they passed, just to avoid talking with them. She knew she was acting insane, but she couldn’t face Avery or Atlas. At least not until she felt a little more in control of everything.
“Leda?” Her mom’s voice came from her office. “What do you need, hon?”
Leda went into the kitchen and began punching buttons on the liquifuser, making herself the cashew smoothie that she’d wanted before she had to flee the juice bar. What did she need? To fix things between her and Avery. To have sex with Atlas again. Anything except what she was doing right now, because her current strategy clearly sucked.
“Nothing, I guess,” she replied, not really sure why she’d yelled for her mom. The smoothie poured itself into a chilled glass. Leda sprinkled it with cinnamon before taking a sip. She couldn’t shake the image of Avery and Atlas and their parents walking through Altitude all together, something proud and fierce and tawny about all of them.
“How was the workout class?” Ilara Cole appeared in the doorway.
“It was fine,” Leda said impatiently.
“Your father and I have the Hollenbrands’ party tonight,” her mom reminded her. “I’m not sure what Jamie’s doing. Do you and Avery have plans?”
“I think I’m staying in tonight. I’m kind of tired, actually,” Leda hurried to say.
She was annoyed by the flash of relief in her mom’s eyes. Ilara hadn’t been too pleased that Leda had gone to Eris’s birthday last weekend, but Leda had promised she would be fine, that she wouldn’t drink. She hadn’t really broken the promise all that much, she told herself. Though it was hard to keep track of, drinking from those absurd bubbles.
“Why don’t you have Avery over? I can have Haley stay and make homemade pizza for you girls,” her mom offered. She reached up to tuck a loose curl behind Leda’s ear, but Leda jerked her head away.
“I told you, I’m fine!”
“Leda.” Her mom’s voice lowered in concern. “Is everything okay? Do you want me to schedule an appointment with Dr. Vanderstein?”
Leda was spared from answering by the front door’s beep. Her dad must be home. Thank god, because the last thing she wanted was an appointment with her mom’s shrink. “Hey, you two,” he said, walking into the kitchen. He sounded exhausted. “How’s it going?”
“Where’ve you been?” Leda asked. Her dad was usually home on Saturdays, falling asleep on the living room sofa. Or if he had to work, taking calls in his office.
“I golfed with Pierson and a new client, at Links.” He spoke into the fridge as he grabbed a lemon spritzer.
“Mr. Fuller?” Leda repeated. An internal alarm sounded.
“Yes, Mr. Fuller,” her dad said shortly, as if she were being ridiculous to even ask. She held her breath to keep from saying anything. She’d seen the Fullers at brunch just twenty minutes ago; Mr. Fuller couldn’t have been golfing all morning. Why had her dad lied?
“How was the game?” Ilara walked around the counter to give Leda’s dad a quick kiss.
“Well, we let the client win, which is the most important thing.” Her dad laughed at his own joke, but it rang a little false, as if his mind were elsewhere. Was he hiding something? But her mom just smiled and nodded, oblivious.
“I’m going to shower,” Leda said shortly, grabbing the remains of her smoothie.
She stormed down the hall and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her. Quickly she began to peel off her damp exercise clothes, tossing them into the hamper in the corner, which fed directly to the laundry room. Hugging herself, she stepped into the shower and turned her rain ceiling on, setting the steam at full blast. But for some reason she couldn’t stop shivering.
Leda lowered herself to sit on the shower floor, made of red tiles that had been reclaimed from a villa on Capri. Leda had picked them out herself, on vacation two summers ago. Her hair curled into wiry tendrils in the aromatherapy steam. She pulled her knees to her chest and tried to think. Her mind felt scattered, spinning wildly from one subject to another. Kissing Atlas at the party. Who else he was seeing. Why her dad was lying about where he’d been. The expression on Avery’s face lately, when she saw Leda in the hallways at school. The way Leda pretended it didn’t bother her at all.
Everything was wearing on her. Weighing on her. The water stung like a million tiny needles pricking at her raw skin.
She needed a hit.
She still had the flick-link for her old dealer, Ross. It had been Cord who connected them; she’d had a few too-close calls, stealing her mom’s xenperheidren, and one night at a party she decided to ask him for help. She didn’t know who else to turn to. Leda knew it was risky, putting her secret in Cord’s hands like that, yet she sensed that under all his bluster, he had his own sort of loyalty.
“Sure,” he’d said when she asked, and sent her a flick-link labeled simply Ross.
Ross gave her xenperheidren, all right, as much as she wanted. But he gave her other stuff too, stuff she didn’t even pay for. “I have all these extra relaxants,” he’d said once, when she bought several xenperheidrens before the PSATs. “Why don’t you take a couple? You’ll probably need them, after your test.” And so she did.
It wasn’t long afterward that Leda started smoking up occasionally with Cord and his friends, sometimes Brice. A couple of times she tried harder stuff, for no real reason except that she was curious about it; but she refused to let herself do it too often. It was just kind of nice every now and then, loosening her grip on herself, which was normally twisted so very tight.
And she was totally fine until last winter—until Catyan, and Atlas’s disappearance. That was when Leda had really started to lose it.
Hey. How’s it going?
Leda’s head shot up at Atlas’s message. Hey, she replied cautiously, trying to ignore the excitement shooting through her veins. I’m good. What’s up?
I was wondering, do you want to go to the University Club thing with me?
Leda closed her eyes, flooded with a giddy relief. Yes, she replied. I’d love to.
She relaxed for what felt like the first time in weeks, taking deep, rose-scented breaths, letting the skin of her hands wither into prunes. It didn’t matter how much water she used; it was all being collected and filtered for some other use anyway. So she stayed, letting the tension seep out of her tired body.
Eventually Leda stood and began to thread soap beads into her hair, feeling almost settled again. The way she used to feel, back in the safety of the Silver Cove meditation tent.
AVERY
SUNDAY EVENING, AVERY sat at her family’s massive hand-carved dining table, trying to focus on her asparagus and not the infuriating boy across from her.
“Atlas, I spoke with James today and he said you’re doing very well. That you’ve stayed late every night this week?” Pierson Fuller nodded at Atlas across the table, scraping his fork as he took a bite of almond-baked salmon.
“Yeah. I’m trying to learn everything as fast as I can, prove that I can do the work even if I didn’t—you know. Graduate high school.”