“For starters, Reed dumped me.”
“Oh, Lux.” Rylin stepped forward to give her friend a hug. The other girl was stiff for a moment, but allowed it. “It’s his loss, you know,” Rylin murmured.
“Thanks. But that wasn’t why I pinged you.”
“What was it?”
Lux stepped back to look at her, and now the accusation was clear in her expression. “Hiral’s trial was the other day. I pinged to see if you were planning on going.” She shrugged casually, but Rylin could see that she was bothered—for Hiral’s sake as much as her own. “I ended up going with Indigo and Andrés.”
Rylin had totally forgotten that the trial was this week. She hadn’t exactly been counting down the days on her calendar, but she still felt guilty for not at least thinking about it. “What happened?”
“You don’t even know? You dated him for three years and you couldn’t be bothered to look up whether he went to prison?”
“I was in LA,” Rylin started to say, but Lux was talking over her.
“Not that you give a shit, but he got off.”
Rylin felt a pang of relief at the news. Even though she still resented Hiral, for everything he’d put her through, she’d never hoped that his life would end at age eighteen.
She realized suddenly how Lux had seen her recently—absent, careless, too involved in her new highlier school to pay attention to her friends. It wasn’t a very flattering picture.
But Lux didn’t know the whole story, and that was Rylin’s fault for not telling her.
She exhaled slowly. “Would you please come talk with me?”
Lux opened her mouth, and Rylin saw at once that she was going to say no; there was something cold and distant about her, as if she weren’t actually here, like an insubstantial character in a holo. She reached for Lux’s hand. It was reassuringly solid.
Recognition flickered in Lux’s eyes, and she nodded. “Fine.”
Rylin kept holding tight to her friend’s hand, the way they used to when they were kids. She led her down the street and around the corner, to a tiny ViewBox that lay tucked away between two of the apartments.
ViewBoxes were like tiny, half-forgotten parks: little slices of real estate with metallic benches and imitation-window view screens, which only existed in spots where the Tower’s architects hadn’t known what else to do with the square footage. This particular one had its view screen set to depict a dramatic sunrise over the New York skyline, though of course they were much closer to the center of the Tower; real windows, with real views, were far away. Technically, ViewBoxes were public spaces, though they were too small to be of much use to anyone. Most of the time they were just spots for teenagers to go smoke up or stick their hands up each other’s shirts.
Rylin and Lux sat on the empty bench, staring at the funny, fake-looking sunrise in bright Technicolor. “Oh, I almost forgot this,” Rylin said, passing over the shopping bag she’d been holding.
Lux broke out in a reluctant smile when she saw the contents. “You got every flavor?”
Inside was a dazzling array of Popper Chips—xtra cheddar, salted caramel, cilantro lime, even spicy plantain. She and Lux used to always walk past the gourmet snack store and wonder what it would be like to try them, but they’d never been able to afford even a single bag.
“All twelve. A well-balanced dinner, right?” Rylin said, and sighed. “I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible friend lately.”
“I’ve just missed you,” Lux said, with less resentment than before. She opened the bag of salted caramel chips. “I feel like I’ve been losing you ever since you started working for that highlier kid.”
Because Rylin had been hooking up with him, and hadn’t told anyone, she thought guiltily. “There’s something I kept from you, about Cord,” Rylin admitted, her heart hammering. “I didn’t want you to judge me—it’s not exactly my proudest moment.”
Lux silently passed the enormous bag of chips, and Rylin took a handful of the xtra cheddar. The chips crumbled deliciously on her tongue. She felt suddenly very far away from the shifting holos and MarsAqua and gourmet fruits of the upper-floor cafeteria. This was so much more real.
She started at the beginning, telling Lux how she fell for Cord while she was working for him; how she’d tried to break up with Hiral, but he got arrested, then forced her to sell his drugs so that he could get out on bail. How she’d been with Cord while Hiral was still technically her boyfriend, even though she wished he wasn’t. How Cord’s older brother had found out and forced her to break up with Cord, to tell him that she’d been using him the whole time just for the money.
By the time Rylin had finished, they’d worked their way through almost every bag of chips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you here so long,” Rylin said.
“I had no idea, Ry.” Lux leaned forward, her uneven bangs sweeping across her brow. The light from the view screen gleamed in her eyes, making her pupils seem impossibly dark. “I mean, especially about Hiral and V. They’re in way deeper than I realized. And the way they treated you was not okay.” She shook her head angrily and brushed her hands on her sweatpants, leaving little half-moons of pink-orange-blue powder on them. “Show me a picture of this Anderton kid,” she commanded, changing tack.
Rylin pulled up the link to Cord’s profile on the feeds and passed her tablet to Lux, who gave a sharp intake of breath.
“Damn, Ry. He’s hot! Is he hiring another maid? Maybe I’ll apply,” she declared, and Rylin gave her a playful shove. Lux giggled, the air between them clear now. Rylin’s whole body felt worlds lighter, as if she were one of those rain balloons they tethered to the earth, then cut loose.
“So what’s the update? Now that you’re a highlier, hasn’t he realized he wants you back?”
“I’m not a highlier,” Rylin protested, and Lux laughed.
“That’s true. No self-respecting highlier would be caught dead in a dirty makeout ViewBox, eating a week’s worth of Popper Chips,” she agreed. But she wasn’t done asking about Cord. “Seriously, though, Ry. You’ll never learn the truth if you don’t ask. Why haven’t you?”
Lux had a point, Rylin realized. She needed to stop guessing at Cord’s feelings and just act. She thought of what Leda had said this afternoon, about the party, and gave a reluctant smile. “You’re right,” she admitted, and got out her tablet, pronouncing a phrase she never thought she would say.
“Ping to Leda Cole.”
WATT
“TAKE NOTES. AND be careful. We’re so proud of you,” said Watt’s dad, Rashid, giving Watt a rough slap on the back.