Eureka used to be a regular. Last year she’d even won the pool tournament—beginner’s luck. But she hadn’t been back since the accident. It made no sense that a ridiculous place like Neptune’s still existed and Diana had been swept away.
Eureka didn’t notice she was dripping wet until she walked in and heavy eyes fell on her. She wrung out her ponytail. She spotted Cat’s braids and moved toward the corner table where they always used to sit. The Wurlitzer was playing “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan as NASCARs circled on TV. Neptune’s was the same, but Eureka had changed so much it might as well have been McDonald’s—or Gallatoire’s in New Orleans.
She passed a table of arduously identical cheerleaders, waved to her friend Luke from Earth Science, who seemed to be under the impression that Neptune’s was a good place for a date, and smiled wanly at a table of freshman cross-country girls brave enough to be there. She heard somebody mutter, “Didn’t think she was allowed out of the ward,” but Eureka was here for business, not to care what some kid thought about her.
Cat wore a cropped purple sweater, ripped jeans, and the lighter-than-average makeup meant to impress college men. Her latest victim sat beside her on the torn red vinyl bench. He had long blond dreads and an angular profile as he slung back a swig of Jax beer. He smelled like maple syrup—the fake, sugary kind Dad didn’t use. His hand was on Cat’s knee.
“Hey.” Eureka slid into the opposite bench. “Rodney?”
He was only a few years older, but he looked so college with his nose ring and faded UL sweatshirt, it made Eureka feel like a little kid. He had blond eyelashes and sunken cheeks, nostrils like different-sized kidney beans.
He smiled. “Let’s see that crazy book.”
Eureka pulled the book from her backpack. She wiped the table with a napkin before she slid it to Rodney, whose mouth stretched into an intrigued, academic frown.
Cat leaned over, her chin on Rodney’s shoulder as he turned the pages. “We stared at the thing forever trying to make sense of it. Maybe it’s from outer space.”
“Inner space is more like it,” Rodney said.
Eureka watched him, the way he looked up at Cat and chuckled, the way he seemed to enjoy her every wacky remark. Eureka didn’t think Rodney was particularly attractive, so she was surprised by the twinge of jealousy that snuck into her chest.
His flirtation with Cat made what had just passed between her and Brooks feel like a Tower of Babel–scale mis-communication. She looked up at the cars circling the track on TV and imagined she was driving one of them, but instead of her car being covered in advertisements, it was covered in the inscrutable language of the book Rodney was pretending to read across the table.
She should never have kissed Brooks. It was a huge mistake. They knew each other too well to try to know each other any better. And they’d already broken up once before. If Eureka was ever going to get involved with someone romantically—which, since the accident, she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy—it should be someone who didn’t know anything about her, someone who came into the relationship ignorant of her complexities and flaws. She shouldn’t be with a critic ready to pull away from their first kiss and list everything about her that was wrong. She knew better than anyone that the list was endless.
She missed Brooks.
But Cat was right. He’d been a jerk. He should apologize. Eureka checked her phone discreetly. He hadn’t texted.
“What do you think?” Cat asked. “Should we do it?”
Eureka’s left ear rang. What had she missed?
“Sorry, I …” She turned her good ear toward the conversation.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rodney said. “You think I’m sending you to some New Age nut job. But I know classical and vulgar Latin, three dialects of early Greek, and a bit of Aramaic. And this writing”—he tapped a page of dense text—“isn’t like anything I’ve seen.”
“Isn’t he a genius?” Cat squeaked.