Page 45 of The Towering Sky

To her relief, Cord burst out laughing too. “You’re right. We’re probably test subjects in some experiment of hers!”

The laughter seemed to loosen something between them, and Rylin’s chest eased up a little. But she still hadn’t answered the question. The lab wouldn’t let them move on until she did.

“Two,” she heard herself say, her voice almost a whisper. Cord’s head whipped up in surprise.

She didn’t need to clarify what she meant. She had been in love twice—with Hiral, and with Cord.

“Rylin,” Cord said softly, and leaned forward to brush a hair back from her cheek.

She stayed very still. She knew she should pull away, should tell Cord to stop—

The door swung open with a violent clatter, and Rylin tore herself away, the air rushing into her chest. Her eyes darted guiltily to the doorway. It was only one of the cleaning bots.

“Look, Rylin,” Cord began again, with a bursting sort of desperation. “I wasn’t joking earlier, when I told Professor Wang that timing is everything. Our timing has never been right.”

“And you think it’s rightnow? Cord, I’m dating someone else!”

“I know that! Am I wrong, or is there something still between us?”

“You’re wrong,” Rylin said, her breath coming in fast, frantic bursts. “There’s nothing between us.”

Cord looked pointedly down at the tablet, where Rylin’s bio-lines were roiling and fluctuating, colored a bright, erratic red.

Rylin said nothing. She just ripped the patches from her body and ran toward the door. She didn’t need to be an expert in psychology to interpret those spiking, wild lines.

They meant that she had lied, when she said there was nothing between her and Cord.

Later that evening, Rylin sat at her kitchen table, her head in her hands. Chrissa had volleyball practice, which meant that Rylin was alone with an uneaten plate of spaghetti and herself-recriminatory thoughts. What the hell had she been thinking, acting that way with Cord, letting him almostkissher? And why had the tablet marked her words as a lie, when she felt certain that she meant them?

She wondered if she had been lying to herself. If, on some level, she believed that therewasstill something between her and Cord.

Rylin was so lost in thought that she almost didn’t hear the knocking at her front door.

“Hey,” Hiral said when she opened the door. “Are you busy?”

“Not really.” Rylin stepped inside, and he trailed along after her.

“I just wanted to say how great this morning was.”

“I know. It was great,” Rylin said quickly. She reached up to touch her necklace, the one Hiral had gotten her at Element 12 last week. It felt impossibly heavy on her skin, like a broken promise. This morning, when they’d been curled in bed—before that weird make-up lab and that heated moment with Cord—felt impossibly distant.

Hiral let out a breath. “I wanted to talk to you about next year.” From the way he said it, halting and uncertain, Rylin thought she could guess what this was about.

She took a step forward, closing her hands around his. “You’re worried about NYU, aren’t you? You think that if I get into this holography program, I’ll get all wrapped up in it and won’t have any time for you.” She winced, realizing that it was already close to the truth, now that she had to cutclassjust to see him. “Hiral, I promise that won’t happen.”

“I know, Ry. And I’m so proud of you for applying to college. But...” He paused. “I just wondered—you haven’t even submitted your NYU application yet, have you?”

“No.” Rylin wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Maybe we should go away instead, after you graduate high school. We could leave New York, like we used to talk about! Go to South America—or maybe Southeast Asia, somewhere far away and low-tech. Where we can be together with just the sunshine and the clean air and each other, like we always wanted.”

Was that really what she’d said she wanted? Rylin barely remembered the things she and Hiral used to talk about, years ago. She tried to imagine doing what Hiral said—leaving New York, getting out of the city and starting over—and drew a blank.

So much had happened this past year to change her. Rylin had discovered new depths within herself, new goals, because of Berkeley and holography... and Cord. She had learned to let herself actuallyhopefor things again, which she hadn’t done since before her mom died. Because if you didn’t hope, or care, you weren’t in danger of being hurt.

But hoping for things also magnified your joy when they actually came true.

“Hiral, I’m glad you’re thinking about the future—”