Page 53 of The Dazzling Heights
Cord nodded, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for Avery to refuse to go back to her own apartment. He didn’t ask another question, and Avery didn’t answer. She just pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders. She felt like she might vomit.
When they reached the 969th floor, Avery followed Cord into his massive living room. Her whole body was still shaking with shock, or maybe regret. Her skin felt hot and stretched tight over her body, as if her very flesh were expanding. She sank wordlessly onto the couch, her head in her hands.
“Do you want a T-shirt or anything?” Cord asked, with a nod toward her heavy dress.
His words broke through the stupor suffocating Avery, and she glanced around, truly seeing her surroundings for the first time. What was she doing at Cord’s apartment late at night? She stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, I should go,” she said—only to stop in defeat.
There was a reason she hadn’t gone home. She didn’t want to see Atlas. She couldn’t face him, not yet.
Cord stood there watching it all. “Avery. What’s going on?” he asked carefully.
“I can’t go home. It’s—I’m—” she fumbled to speak, but there were no words to express her feelings. “I just can’t,” she finished, helplessly.
Cord was too understanding, or too polite, to press her. “Do you want to stay here?” he offered. “You know we have plenty of guest rooms.”
“Actually, yeah.” Avery was surprised to hear her voice crack. She swallowed anxiously and rubbed her hands over her arms. “And I’d love a T-shirt, if the offer still stands.”
“Of course.” Cord disappeared down the hallway.
Avery glanced curiously around the living room. She hadn’t been to Cord’s in a while, except for parties, when the space was packed with people. Of course, there was a time when she and Eris and Leda had been here constantly, with Cord and his friends—it was easiest here, with no adults to watch over them. Except for Brice, she supposed, but he didn’t really count. She remembered all the stupid things they’d done: like the time Cord pulled their gelatin shots from the rapid-freezer too early, and one of them exploded up onto the ceiling in a firework of gloppy green. Or the time that they’d set up a slip-and-slide down Cord’s enormous staircase, and they all ricocheted down from the second floor screaming and laughing. That had been Eris’s idea, Avery remembered; she’d seen it on some holo and wanted to re-create it, and of course they all joined in, caught up in her ineffable enthusiasm.
It all seemed childish and giddy, and very long ago.
“Here,” Cord said, returning with a neatly folded stack of clothes. Avery quickly ducked into the bathroom to change. It was funny, she thought; the shirt smelled like the normal UV-wand fresh scent but also somehow like Cord.
Moments later she emerged from the bathroom in an old school shirt and mesh shorts, her bare feet padding on the heated kitchen tiles; her hair still set in its elaborate twist, diamond studs in each ear. She knew she looked absurd, but she couldn’t find it in her to care.
“I got you all set up in the blue room, the one at the base of the stairs,” Cord told her as she returned. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Wait,” Avery blurted out as he started toward his room. Cord turned to look at her. She glanced hopefully at the couch. “Any chance you want to stay up for a while?” Just until her mind stopped whirling so frantically, until she could wipe her stupid fight with Atlas—all the pettiness between them—from her brain.
“Sure, yeah,” he said, still watching her.
Avery nestled into her old favorite corner of the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest. Cord sank down next to her, an arm’s length of space between them. His bow tie was loosened, his vest unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It all cast his profile in a slightly rakish air.
“Do you want to talk about what’s going on,” he asked, “or should we watch a loud, dumb holo instead?”
“Loud, dumb holo. The more explosions, the better,” Avery said, with an attempt at a smile.
She couldn’t believe Atlas hadn’t pinged her or flickered her even once. What was he doing? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about him, since it hurt her so damned much?
“Loud, dumb holo it is.” Cord waved his hands in the air to call up the on-demand menu, then turned to her, his clear blue eyes lit up with a quiet intensity. The full weight of it was almost too much for Avery to bear. “Whatever’s going on, Avery, you know I’m always here if you want to talk about it.”
“Thanks.” For some reason she had to look away from Cord or she might cry. The holoscreen lit up with a hoverchase scene, and she stared at it gratefully, trying to lose herself in the mindless glowing action sequence. Maybe if she focused on the confusion on the screen, she could ignore the tangled, tender mess that her life had become.
Avery realized that the last time she’d been alone with Cord was months ago, when he’d told her that he and Eris had broken up—and she’d figured out that he liked someone new.
“Hey,” she said, eager to think about something else, “what ended up happening with you and that girl?”
Cord blinked, clearly startled. “You mean Rylin? It didn’t work out.”
“Wait—Rylin Myers, who now goes to our school? You were datingher?” The girl from the roof? How had she become so entwined in all of their lives?
“I was, until she lied to me.” Cord looked as if he wanted to be angry, but all he could call up was a wounded sort of regret. Avery knew the feeling. “It’s just hard to get past. I’m not sure how to trust her again, you know?”
“I do know.” She looked away.
“Hang on.” Cord vanished down the hallway, only to return holding a tapered gold candle, covered in flecks of glitter that caught and refracted the light.
