I want to ask her how she feels about me. But that old fear returns, that maybe she’s come all this way to tell me that we’re best as only friends. She’s about to move, I live in a different country, and neither of us is anything except busy.

I remember that I loved you, I want to tell her. I’m in love with you. I love you still. But the words don’t emerge from my lips. They stay buried, trembling in my throat.

For a moment, I think this may be as close as we allow ourselves to get.

Then June moves before I can say more. She leans toward me, stopping a hairsbreadth away from my lips.

I can’t hold back any longer. I close that remaining distance between us—and my lips touch hers.

And everything inside me breaks, every barrier and hesitation and insecurity, it all shatters as the feeling of her with me crashes through my chest. I wonder if it will be like this every time we touch. Everything in me wants to press us against the wall and kiss her harder, to make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want her arms to wrap around my neck, pulling me down to her. I want her so badly. All the questions unanswered between us—What do we do? Where do we go from here?—fade away, leaving only the sharp present, her body warm in my embrace.

But I force myself to stay in the present, our kiss suspended in this uncertain zone between us, part of it a reunion, part of it a possibility that maybe this is as far as we can ever take it.

A pending call appears in my view, interrupting the rush of this moment. It’s from AIS, followed by a message and a map.

Crime scene in the Undercity. Come immediately.

Could there ever be a worse time for my job to get in the way? It’s almost as if life wants to keep us apart. I sigh and send a quick message back.

Emergency? Did we find the drone race location?

Yes, it’s an emergency. And no, we haven’t yet.

I whisper a silent curse.

June senses the break in the moment and pulls away. We’re both breathing heavily, dizzy from the rush of being so close.

“You should go,” she says, even though she doesn’t know what the message had read. Like everything else about me, she can probably sense that it’s something significant.

I don’t want to. I want to stay here, watching a star-filled night sky with her. The ache of being away from her for so long, the twinge of fear that, if I leave her side, I won’t be able to make my way back to her again, swells up in me with an overwhelming force.

Maybe she’s waiting for me to make the first move, to reach out and keep us from stepping apart.

You should go.

Those are her words, not mine.

Maybe I am misreading everything from her, then. I feel myself tearing away, my feet taking a step backward from her and letting the distance between us cool. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or surprised. There’s so much that I’m unable to read about her now.

“Can I see you again?” I finally say.

She nods. The politeness has returned to her smile, the distance to her posture. But at least she doesn’t turn away and leave. At least she looks like she still wants to stay here and linger. That’s something, isn’t it?

“When are you free?” she asks.

When are you free? My heart lifts. “I’m attending the gala in honor of Anden’s arrival in a few nights,” I reply. “Will you be there?”

“I’ll be there,” she answers. My heart hangs on to her every word and gesture, every tiny step between us as I try to read her the way I once used to. She gives me a faint smile. “See you at the party.”

EDEN

 

I toss restlessly in a series of nightmares. My mother, getting shot over and over again. Me, locked in a glass cylinder in a forever-rocking train car, weeping and waiting for someone to let me out. The blurry haze that blankets my vision after the plague finishes with me. The man named Dominic steps out of that haze to talk to me. Drones zip by overhead as I run down strange streets, searching for a family that isn’t there. It all swirls together into one long, endless dream.

I wake in a panic, as I always do. I spend the rest of the night pacing in my room, scribbling down more engine ideas to distract myself, until the first light of dawn appears.

Then I head off to the university before Daniel’s even awake.

The final day of exams passes before me in a blur. I finish my tests early, even though I’m exhausted, and hurry out into the school’s halls as fast as I can in an attempt to avoid talking to anyone.

The halls are still pretty quiet, but some of the other classes have already let out, and a steady stream of students are making their way down the halls and out of the university. I walk down the path alone. My shoes echo against the tiles. Simulated afternoon light from outside the city’s biodome is streaming into the halls, painting everything in gold.

A few loud voices drift to me from somewhere up ahead. I stiffen, slow my walk, and listen more closely.

Damn. Emerson and his crew.

He’s laughing his head off at something that Jenna has said, and from the sound of it, they’re hanging out at the end of the hall, blocking the entrance of the university.

I stop in the middle of the sunbathed hall and try to figure out another way to leave the campus. On a normal afternoon, there would be two other entrances and exits in this building. But because of today’s finals, I know the back entrance is already locked. I think about trying the side entrance to see if it’s open, but it doesn’t connect to the elevators that lead back down to my floor. I’d have to take a long, meandering route down to the Mid Floors in order to get back home.

Maybe I’ll be lucky today. It’s the last day, and he must be in a good mood, too busy celebrating with his friends to notice me slipping out of the university.

I hesitate there for a moment too long. In that instant, I hear his voice suddenly turn in my direction, followed by a shout that echoes down the hall. “Well!” he shouts. “Looks like the Wing boy’s out early, as always!”

My palms break out in a cold sweat. Emerson chuckles, the same sound I always hear whenever he’s thought up some new way to mess with me. I curse under my breath, then whirl around and start walking toward the side entrance.

But I can hear him catching up, along with the laughter of his friends. My eyes dart to the timer floating in the corner of my virtual view. Other students won’t get out for another fifteen minutes.

I’m only halfway down the hall before an arm grabs the back of my shirt and forces me to turn around.

Emerson’s cheery brown eyes are staring straight at me. He grins. “What are you in such a hurry for, Wing?” he says.

My eyes dart to the two behind him. Jenna and Alan smile back at me.

It’s the last day you’ll ever have to deal with them, I tell myself over and over again. Just get through this.

So I shrug out of his grasp and mutter, “I’m late to meet up with my brother.”

Alan grunts in surprise. “I thought you and your brother weren’t talking much these days,” he says.

“Doesn’t he have another brother?” Jenna pipes up.

Emerson’s face lights up. “He did! But I think he died in front of a firing squad.” He shakes his head at me in mock sympathy. “I remember seeing the leaked video of that online.”