The Dazzling Heights

Rylin took an involuntary step forward. “Cord. Do you think that we could ever—”

“No.” He flinched away before she could finish the question. The movement hit her like a blow to the stomach.

“Why?” she couldn’t help asking. She felt like she’d ripped her heart open, let its contents spill like sawdust all over the floor, and now Cord was walking carelessly all over it. She somehow held back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

Cord let out a breath. “Rylin, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to trust you. Where does that leave us?”

“I’m sorry,” she ventured, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did hurt me, Rylin.”

Someone cracked open the door, letting a flood of light into the room, then backed away hastily when they saw Cord. In the brief moment of illumination, Rylin caught sight of his face: distant, cold, closed-off. It terrified her. She would rather that he yell at her, seem angry or wounded, even cruel. This casual indifference was infinitely worse. He was retreating somewhere deep inside himself, where she could never reach him—where he would be lost to her forever.

“I wish I could rewind, do things differently,” she said uselessly.

“I wish that too. But that’s not how life works, is it?”

Cord took a step forward, as if he was about to leave. Rylin realized in an instant of clarity that she could not let him be the one to walk away from her, not if she were to maintain any semblance of pride. She moved quickly to the door and glanced back over her shoulder.

“I guess it isn’t. I’ll see you around, Cord,” she told him, which was, unfortunately, the truth. She would keep seeing the boy who didn’t want her, over and over again.

Later that day, Rylin moved mechanically through the lunch line, wondering how many total minutes she had left at this school. Already she wanted to start a ticking countdown in the corner of her tablet, the way some girls did for their birthdays.

Predictably, the school had launched her on a schedule of entirely base-level classes—including freshman biology, since biology was the one science she’d never taken at her old school. She was actually relieved that she’d shown up so late to her meeting with the registrar, Mrs. Lane, if only because it spared her a full half hour of that woman’s incredulous condescension. “It says here you were working at a store called Arrow?” Mrs. Lane had asked with a haughty sniff. Rylin half wished she’d bought a pair of the flashing Arrow rainboots and worn them around school, just to make some kind of point.

As she stepped up to the retinal scanner to check out, Rylin grabbed a shining red bottle of water from one of the dispensers. The scripted logo read MARSAQUA, in letters that looked like icicles against a bright red planet. The cartoon letters repeatedly melted, dripped to the bottom of the bottle, then floated back up to re-form ice crystals.

“Martian water,” she heard from behind her.

Rylin whirled around, only to see her worst nightmare standing there. Leda Cole.

“They chip away chunks of the Martian ice caps, then bring it back to Earth and bottle it. It’s fantastic for your metabolism,” Leda went on. Her voice was frighteningly sweet.

“That sounds harmful to Mars,” Rylin replied, proud of how unconcerned she sounded. Leda was like the vicious stray dog that used to lurk near their apartment—you couldn’t afford to reveal any weakness before her, or she would never lay off the attack.

“Come sit with me,” Leda commanded, and started off without waiting to see whether Rylin would follow.

Rylin didn’t bother hiding her sigh of irritation. Well, she might as well get all her shitty conversations over with on the first day. It could only go upward from here, right?

Leda had planted herself at a two-person table near a flexiglass window that overlooked an interior courtyard. Rylin saw kids out there playing with flying video-cams and chatting around an enormous fountain. There was so much real sunlight flooding in from the ceiling, filtered by mirrors from the roof, that it felt like they were outdoors—if outdoors was ever this clean and symmetrical and perfect.

She sank into the seat across from Leda and dunked one of her sweet potato fries in aioli. Leda obviously wanted her to feel intimidated, but Rylin wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“What the hell are you doing here, Rylin?” Leda demanded, without preamble.

“I go to this school now.” Rylin gestured down at her pleated skirt and lifted an eyebrow. “We’re wearing the same uniform, in case you didn’t notice.”

Leda didn’t seem to have heard. “Did the cops send you?”

“The cops? Do you realize how paranoid you sound?” The idea was ludicrous, that Rylin Myers would become some kind of undercover police spy.

“All I know is that you’re a walking reminder of a night I’d rather not think about.” That makes two of us, Rylin thought. “And now, for some inexplicable reason, you’re here at my school, instead of down on the twentieth floor where you belong!” Leda’s voice quavered, and Rylin realized with pleasure that she sounded just a little bit … afraid.

“Last I checked, Leda, it didn’t say your name on the arch out front. So no, this isn’t your school. And I live on the thirty-second floor,” she corrected, “but I’m here on scholarship.”

Understanding flashed in Leda’s eyes. “The Eris scholarship,” she breathed.

“That’s the one,” Rylin said cheerfully, and took a bite of her enormous cheeseburger, relishing the look of disgust that flitted over Leda’s face. “Now, unless you have more threats for me, I’d suggest you back off and let me enjoy my lunch in peace. I’m not here to mess with your perfect life.” She put just a little emphasis on perfect, as if to indicate that she didn’t quite buy into the notion that Leda’s life was so perfect after all.

Leda stood up abruptly, scraping her chair across the dark walnut floor. She grabbed her uneaten spinach salad and tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Let me give you some free advice,” she said, a fake smile pasted on her face, and glanced again at Rylin’s burger. “Girls don’t ever eat the grill special.”

Rylin smiled back, just as wide. “That’s funny. Because I’m a girl, and I just did. Guess you don’t know everything after all.”

“Be careful, Myers. I’m watching you.”

What a great first day it was shaping up to be. Rylin leaned back in her chair and took an enormous sip of the overpriced Martian water, because why the hell not.

LEDA (#ulink_ec2df355-787c-5f38-afc4-d85ab52c2a27)

“WHERE’S MOM?” LEDA hesitated in the doorway of her family’s dining room, keeping the toes of her boots lined up with the ivory carpet of the hall. Her dad was sitting at the table alone, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on its ultramodern glass surface as he read something on his contacts.

He glanced up. “Hey, Leda. I think she’s running a little late.”

“Dad, what dates do we have the Barbados house in January?” Jamie asked without preamble as he sat down. Leda cautiously ventured inside and pulled out the chair across from him. The table had no legs: it floated unsupported in the air, the ultimate centerpiece of their home’s spare, minimalist décor. Leda thought it was tacky and impersonal, but then, it was fitting that their apartment should feel more like a hotel than a home. A home would imply that the people who lived there actually cared about one another.

Matt Cole cleared his throat. “Actually, we released the Barbados time-share.”

“What?” Leda was stunned. They’d had the time-share in Barbados for ages: a sprawling, serene house atop a hill, with a tiny cobblestone path directly to the beach. Leda had always loved how relaxed her parents were there, as though they became the best, purest versions of themselves, freed of the grime of New York.

“We thought we’d take a year off, maybe do something new,” her dad explained, but Leda wasn’t buying it. She wondered if he’d lost a lot of money recently. Maybe he’d spent too much on Calvadour scarves for his teenage mistress, she thought resentfully, thinking of the exorbitant present he’d given Eris before she died.

“That sucks. I wanted to see if I could bring friends,” Jamie said, and shrugged. “I’m starving. Can we eat?” Typical Jamie; he was never really bothered by anything for very long.

“Let’s wait for Mom,” Leda said quickly, but her dad was already pushing a discreet touch-screen pad at the center of the table. Their chef, Tiffany, appeared, pushing a wide cart laden with dishes.

“Mom said to start without her. She’s held up in a meeting,” their dad explained. Leda pursed her lips and reached for the bowl of pasta without comment. She saw that it was her favorite, a kale-noodle penne with crumbled soy protein and phenerols. Her mom had totally picked this menu to cheer Leda up. A stubborn, contrary part of her was determined not to like it.

“How was school, Leda?” her dad asked. That was his version of parenting: asking scripted questions that he’d gotten from some How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter book. Leda wondered if they shelved that one next to How to Hide Your Teenage Mistress.

“Fine,” she said curtly, and started to take a bite of the penne, only to put down her fork with a clatter. “Although, there was a new girl at school today. Isn’t that weird, that she was able to start mid-semester like that?”

“I think I saw her,” Jamie chimed in, for once. “The scholarship student?”

Leda glanced at him in surprise. Jamie usually never noticed anything, unless you could smoke it or drink it or had given it to him as a present. Then again, Rylin was pretty, if you could look past her disrespectful attitude.

“Exactly. She moved here from the twentieth floor,” Leda said dramatically, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Can you imagine?”

“Sort of like how you felt, when we moved here from midTower,” her father said, which shocked Leda into silence.