Page 43 of The Dazzling Heights
“Rylin? What are you doing in here?” Xiayne stepped inside, and the door shut automatically behind him to block the light. He was wearing a white T-shirt again, the inktats on his chest almost visible through the thin material.
She slammed her console’s central button, and the holo went dark. “Just working on something.”
“Wait—pull that back up, will you?” Xiayne’s voice was eager, curious.
Rylin crossed her arms. For some reason she felt defensive. “Do you need me to leave? Last I checked, this room wasn’t reserved.”
“No, by all means, stay. I’m not here to kick you out.” Xiayne sounded amused by her reaction. “I’m glad that someone is finally using this space. God knows the school spent enough money on it, and it’s always empty.”
“Professor—” Rylin began, but he interrupted her.
“Xiayne,” he corrected.
“Xiayne,” she forged on, a little exasperated. “What was wrong with my video of the sunset?”
“Nothing. It was a beautiful video,” he said evenly.
“Then why did you give it a bad grade?”
Xiayne gestured to the chair next to her as if to say,May I?When Rylin didn’t shake her head, he sat down. “I marked your video down because I know you can do better.”
You don’t evenknowme, Rylin wanted to protest, but it sounded petulant, and she didn’t feel as angry anymore.
“I’m sorry if I was hard on you,” Xiayne went on, studying her. “I know firsthand that it isn’t an easy transition, coming to a place like this from downTower.”
Rylin let out a sigh. “I just don’t think I fit in up here.” It was nice to say this out loud.
“Of course you don’t,” Xiayne agreed, which shocked her into momentary silence. He grinned. “But I don’t think you really want to fit in, do you?”
“I guess not,” Rylin admitted.
“Now, can I please see what you were working on?”
She hesitated before pushingPLAY.
The pool flared to life around them, glimmering with a wild, almost frantic energy. The neon lights of the glow-lamps danced against the darkness. Music and gossip echoed sharply over the water, mingled with the sounds of laughter and drunken splashing. A couple was pressed up against the corner, another curled beneath the diving board. Rylin could see it all in perfect detail, as if she were diving into her own memory except better, everything brighter and more starkly drawn than her flawed human recollections. She could practically taste the chilled shots of atomic, could smell the chlorine and sweat.
She risked a glance at Xiayne. He was watching, his eyes wide open, as if he didn’t even want to blink for fear of missing something.
When V grabbed the camera and dunked it beneath the surface of the pool, the room seemed to spin wildly, the entire world turning to water. Rylin let out a gasp of panic and shut off the holo.
“No! Don’t stop!” Xiayne cried out.
“You aren’t angry about the camera?” Let alone the fact that she’d recorded an illegal party in a public space, with underage drinking.
“No, it’s fine, the camera’s waterproof!Rylin”—he scooted closer and put his hand on top of hers, lacing their fingers and waving, so that she waved along with him to continue the playback—“this is incredible.”
Rylin blinked, startled by the physical contact, but Xiayne had already let go; he didn’t even seem fully aware that he’d touched her. He was walking in a circle, the light from the holo falling in startling patterns across his features. “You did it.”
“Did what?”
“I asked you to show me how you see the world, and you did it. This footage—it’s visually arresting, it’s narratively compelling, it’s colorful and vibrant. It’s …” He shook his head. “It’s fucking great, okay?”
“All I did was bring the camera to a party that was already happening,” Rylin protested, uncertain.
Xiayne waved his arms so the holo shut off. “Lights on!” he croaked, and blinked at her in the sudden brightness. “That’s the whole point of this class—to be a careful observer, to re-learn how toseethe world. What I see from this”—he threw out his arms to encompass the room, which now felt strangely empty without all the chaos of the party—“is that you have a natural eye.”
She was still confused. “You didn’t evenlikemy sunset vid. And that’s when I was actually trying.”
