Then suddenly Cord was sitting back, making another teasing comment about how her singing sucked, and Avery wasn’t sure what had happened, or if anything had even happened at all.
Her eyes lit on the candle, which still flickered there on the table. Little pockets of happiness melted out to drift blissfully upward, beads of wax sliding down the sides to gather in golden pools at the bottom.
Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing.
Avery’s eyes fluttered open and she shut them again, shifting in her bed. Except that she wasn’t in her bed at all. She was lying on the Andertons’ couch.
She sat up quickly, reaching up to touch the matted knot of her hair. Her eyes frantically skimmed the room. The candle was still on the table, its flame long since guttered out. Early morning light streamed through Cord’s enormous floor-to-ceiling windows.
She couldn’t even remember falling asleep. She and Cord had been talking about Eris, and he’d lit the candle to help her relax … that must have been when she drifted off.
Her gown was right where she’d left it, draped over the back of a chair. Avery stumbled to the hallway closet where the Andertons kept self-steaming garment bags; she quickly grabbed one and tossed her dress in it, then slipped on her satin heels and muttered under her breath for a hover, already halfway out the door. At the last minute, an unbidden impulse caused her to turn back and grab the melted remains of the candle. There was still a good hour left to burn, and she had a feeling she might need it.
Safe inside the hover, Avery leaned back and closed her eyes, struggling to sort through the events of the last twelve hours. She still felt hurt by her stupid fight with Atlas; but also ashamed of her immature reaction, setting out to flirt with another boy in order to irritate him. No wonder he hadn’t flickered her. He must have seen her laughing and dancing, taking all those shots with Cord, then stumbling home with him at the end of the night.
Her cheeks colored. What did Atlas think of her? For all she knew he might assume that something had actually happened between her and Cord.
Had it, almost?
Avery kept replaying that moment, trying to parse out what it was and what it meant. Had Cord almost kissed her, or was it just the product of her alcohol-soaked, IntoxiCandled mind? Well, she thought firmly, thank god nothing had happened in the end.
The hover raced upstairs, getting ever closer to the thousandth floor. Avery leaned forward, her head in her hands, trying to shut out the world. What would she do when she saw Atlas—storm past him, ignore him, talk to him?
Kiss him and tell him it’ll be okay, no matter what, her mind whispered to her, and she knew that it was true. She’d hated seeing him flirt with Calliope, but in the cold light of day, she knew he was right: it didn’t mean anything, and if it helped divert their parents’ suspicions, then so be it. She loved Atlas, and nothing else really mattered. They would figure it out, she told herself, like they always did.
The hover pulled up to their front door and Avery walked inside, the dress floating alongside her in the garment bag. She started to turn left toward Atlas’s room, but she heard the sound of clanging of pans, and broke into an involuntary smile. She knew she looked like the definition of a walk of shame, wearing a boy’s clothes and holding her silver micro-clutch, but she would explain everything the moment she saw him.
“Atlas?” she called out, walking into the kitchen. “I hope you’re making chili eggs—”
Avery’s words cut off abruptly when she saw who was there, because it wasn’t Atlas at all.
Calliope stood at the stovetop, wearing Atlas’s boxers and T-shirt—a shirt Avery had bought for him, she realized, stunned. Her feet were bare, and her riotous dark waves were piled atop her head, pinned with one of Avery’s favorite clips.
Calliope caught sight of Avery in the refrigerator’s reflective surface and grinned. “Good morning, sunshine. Sorry it’s not Atlas’s chili eggs, but I’m making toast and bacon if you want some.”
Avery couldn’t speak. The world was spinning again and the pain was back; far, far worse than before.
Calliope turned around, holding her hands beneath the UV-cleanser. Her eyes traveled up and down Avery’s attire, and she winked. “Nice outfit. Makes me feel a little less shameful, knowing I’m not the only one.”
“Is that my hair clip?” Avery heard herself ask. She started to walk toward Calliope. Was she really going to pull it out of her hair? she thought wildly, watching her actions as if another person were performing them. Calliope beat her to the punch, tossing the clip on the counter.
“Sorry,” Calliope said carefully, clearly aware she’d done something wrong. “I knocked on your door, but you weren’t there, so I just grabbed it from your counter. I didn’t have any hair bands in my purse.”
Avery grabbed the clip. She had become an enormous well of grief, as if someone had shaved off the edges of her nerve endings and they were dripping raw, liquid pain into her body. Somehow—though it took every last shred of her self-control, though she knew she would pay for it all day long—she managed a tight smile, and nodded at the sizzling bacon.
“It’s fine. And thank you for the offer, but I’m not really hungry.”
RYLIN
THE FOLLOWING WEEK at school, Rylin sat perched on a bench at lunch, her tray balanced precariously on her lap as she took a bite of her truffled chicken sandwich.
Sometimes Rylin ate with a couple of other girls from her English class. They’d asked her once, a few weeks ago, and she’d come to enjoy their company; they spoke in soft voices, and didn’t make any demands of her outside the cafeteria. But today she’d wanted a moment to herself. She picked idly at her sandwich’s orange citrus loaf, letting her mind wander.
School had definitely gotten better. There were still awful parts, of course: Rylin didn’t think she would ever enjoy calculus, with its convoluted equations and funny-looking Greek letters; and she kept getting odd looks on the morning express lift, when she stepped on board in her preppy pleated uniform. Still, she’d grown accustomed to her routine, and at least now she could find her way around campus without help from Cord.