Page 19 of The Towering Sky

“Don’t do costumes? Where’s the fun in that?”

“It doesn’t always have to be about ‘fun,’ you know,” Rylin snapped, more curtly than she’d meant to. She knew she wasn’t really being fair. But Cord needed to stop andthinksometimes before just saying whatever popped into his mind.

And there wasn’t anyone else in Cord’s life who was about to call him out like that.

She picked up the virtual reality headpiece and settled it clunkily over her brow, shutting out the whole world, including Cord. “I’ll go first,” she said into the silence. Illuminated before her on the goggles was a blank white background.

After a moment, Cord tapped at something to begin the lab. “Tell me what color you see.”

The wordhelloappeared 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 readpurple.

“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.”

Wewerebecoming 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’swords. 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.