a moment, Cord tapped at something to begin the lab. “Tell me what color you see.”
The word hello appeared before her in vibrant green. Rylin blinked at it for a moment, disconcerted, before remembering that she was supposed to say the color. “Green.”
The word disappeared, to be replaced by a dark red block letters that read purple.
“Purple,” she said automatically and felt herself flush again. “No, wait, I mean, red—”
Cord laughed. She tried not to wonder what his expression looked like beyond her blocked-out field of vision.
“Don’t you see how easily your brain can be tricked!” Professor Wang’s voice crowed nearby.
Rylin flicked a switch on the side of the VR headset and its screen evaporated into transparency. She glanced through her now clear goggles to see the professor hovering near their lab station. “I just read the word automatically,” she tried to explain.
“Exactly!” the professor cried out. “Your analytical and visual identification neurons were firing at cross-purposes, and chaos broke out! Your own brain betrayed you!” She tapped one finger to her head before swishing off to another lab station.
It only betrays me when Cord is around, Rylin thought with some resentment.
She reached up to flick the side of her headset, letting the view screen repopulate with the lab program. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Rylin . . .” Cord reached over as if to lift the VR headset from the crown of her head, but Rylin instinctively jerked back. He didn’t get to touch her hair as if it meant nothing. He’d forfeited that right a long time ago.
Cord seemed to realize that he’d crossed a line. “Sorry,” he mumbled, chastened. “But—I’m confused. What’s going on? I thought we were becoming friends again last year, and now I feel like you’re attacking me.”
We were becoming friends, until I wanted to be more, and then I saw you with Avery. “Don’t worry about it,” she said stiffly. “It’s fine.”
“It’s clearly not fine,” Cord protested.
“Look, can we just get this lab done with, and—”
“Forget the lab, Rylin.”
She was startled by the flash of anger that ran through Cord’s words. Reluctantly she took off the VR headset and set it on the table.
“What is it?”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Rylin protested weakly—because she knew exactly what he meant, and felt suddenly ashamed of herself. She fiddled awkwardly with the strap on the headset.
“Did I do something to upset you?” Cord pressed.
Their eyes met, and Rylin felt herself flush a bright agonized red. Telling Cord the truth meant admitting how she’d felt about him last year: that she’d gone all the way to Dubai chasing him. Yet some part of her insisted that she owed Cord an explanation, no matter how much it stung her pride.
“I saw you with Avery. In Dubai,” she said quietly.
Rylin watched as he sorted through the implications of her words. “You saw Avery kiss me?” he demanded at last.
Rylin gave a miserable nod, not trusting herself to speak. Even though it was months ago—even though she was with Hiral now, and it shouldn’t matter—Rylin felt the shame of that night stealing over her, as sticky and suffocating as ever.
She’d gone to Dubai buoyed by a ridiculous hope that she could find Cord and tell him how she felt. That they could start over. She’d looked for him that whole night, but when she’d finally found him, it was too late. He was with Avery. Kissing her.
“Nothing ever happened again between me and Avery,” Cord said slowly. “We’re just friends.”
Rylin had figured that out eventually, once Avery left for Europe and started dating that Belgian guy or whoever he was. She felt a little foolish. “You don’t owe me an explanation,” she said quickly. “It was all so long ago, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Except that it clearly does matter.” Cord’s eyes were unreadable. “I wish you’d said something,” he added softly.
Rylin felt her blood hammering underneath her skin. “Hiral and I got back together,” she felt a sudden need to say.
“Hiral?”
Rylin knew what Cord must be thinking. He was remembering what Hiral had done last year when she’d been working for Cord. “It’s different this time,” she added, not sure why she was explaining herself to Cord anyway.
“If you’re happy, Rylin, then I’m happy for you.”
“I am happy,” she agreed, and she meant it; she was happy with Hiral. Yet somehow the statement had come out a bit defensive.
Cord nodded. “Look, Rylin, can’t we start over?”
Start over. Was that even possible after everything they’d been through? Perhaps it wasn’t a start-over as much as a start-from-here. It sounded nice, actually.
“I’d like that,” Rylin decided.
Cord held out his hand toward her. For a moment Rylin was startled at the gesture, but then she tentatively reached out and shook his hand.
“Friends,” Cord declared. Then he reached for the VR goggles to begin his section of the lab.
Rylin glanced over at him, curious at something she thought she’d heard in his tone, but his expression was already hidden behind the bulky mask of the goggles.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Leda turned down the hallway toward the main entrance of the Berkeley School. The other students moved in coordinated flocks around her like uniformed birds, all wearing the same navy pants or plaid pleated skirts. Leda watched as they formed into groups, only to exchange a few snitches of gossip before breaking off again. The halls were thick with that frantic back-to-school hum, everyone rapidly recalibrating their relationships after three months apart.
Thank god some relationships didn’t change, she thought gratefully as Avery emerged from a classroom across the hall. Avery had no idea just how much Leda had needed her.
She was oddly glad that Avery had insisted she come to Cord’s the other night. Leda hadn’t exactly been the life of the party—it all felt so garishly loud and bright, and she kept worrying that the darkness would open up within her again, like an earthquake that might erupt at any moment. But nothing all that bad had happened. Actually, Leda realized, it had felt good, doing something almost normal again.
“Come with me to Altitude?” Avery asked, falling into step alongside her. “There’s a new
