The Towering Sky. Катарина Макги

her in a way that no one else ever could.

      Until Cord.

      Last fall Rylin had started working her mom’s old job, as maid for the Andertons on the 969th floor. In spite of her best intentions, she’d fallen headfirst for Cord Anderton. She tried to break up with Hiral, except by that point he was in jail, having been arrested for drug dealing. Things got messier and messier, until eventually Rylin ended up betraying Cord’s trust—and ruining things between them for good.

      Then, unexpectedly, Rylin won a scholarship to Cord’s upper-floor private school, and she started to wonder if they might have another shot. She’d even gone to a party all the way in Dubai, hoping to win him back: only to stand there like a fool as he kissed Avery Fuller, the richest, most flawlessly beautiful girl on earth.

      Rylin told herself that it was better this way. Cord belonged with someone like Avery, someone he’d known since childhood; someone who could join him on his life of lavish ski trips and black-tie parties and whatever else they did up there in the stratosphere.

      Several weeks later, Hiral had knocked on Rylin’s front door. And for some reason—maybe because she felt so alone, or because she’d learned one too many times that people don’t always get the second chances they deserve—she opened it.

      “Rylin. Hi.” Hiral had sounded shocked that she’d actually answered. Rylin felt the same way. “Can we talk?” he added, shifting his weight. He was wearing dark jeans and a crewneck sweater that Rylin didn’t recognize. And there was something else different about him, more than just the clothes. He looked softer, younger; the shadows erased from the hollows beneath his eyes.

      “Okay,” she decided, and opened the door wider.

      Hiral walked in tentatively, as if expecting some wild thing to jump out and attack him at any moment, which might have happened if Chrissa were home. As it was, Rylin followed him with slow steps to the kitchen table. The silence between them was so thick that she seemed to be wading through it.

      She saw Hiral’s eyes dart to the missing table leg—he’d been the one to break it, in a burst of anger, when he learned that Rylin had hooked up with Cord—and his expression darkened.

      “I owe you an apology,” he began clumsily. Rylin wanted to speak up, but some instinct bade her stay silent, let him say his piece. “The things I did and said to you, when I was in jail—”

      Hiral broke off and looked down, tracing an irregular pattern carved into the surface of the table. It was a series of half-moon indentations, like bite marks, from where Chrissa used to bang her spoon as a baby. If this were a holo, Rylin thought bizarrely, the markings would be important. They would mean something. But this was real life, where so many things had no meaning at all.

      “I’m sorry, Rylin. I was a complete asshole to you. The only thing I can say is that jail scared me shitless,” Hiral said baldly. “The other guys in there . . .”

      He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. Rylin remembered visiting Hiral in jail: an adult jail, not juvie, because Hiral was over eighteen. It had felt unbearably soulless, permeated by a cold sense of despair.

      “I know,” she said softly. “But that doesn’t excuse the things you said, and did.”

      Hiral looked pained at the memory. “That was the drugs talking,” he said quickly. “I know it’s not an excuse, but, Rylin—I was so terrified that I kept on using, anything that I could get my hands on in jail. I’m not proud of it, and I wish I could take it back. I’m sorry.”

      Rylin bit her lip. She knew plenty about doing things you wished you could undo.

      “I’m not sure if you heard, but the trial went well. I got my old job back.” Hiral worked as a liftie, one of the technicians who repaired the Tower’s massive elevator shafts from the inside, suspended by thin cables, miles above the earth. It was dangerous work.

      “I’m glad,” Rylin told him. She felt guilty that she hadn’t even shown up at his trial—she should have been there, if only for moral support, for the sake of their former friendship.

      “Anyway, I just wanted to come say that I’m sorry. I’ve changed, Ry. I’m not that guy anymore, who was so awful to you. I’m sorry that I was ever that guy at all.” Hiral kept his eyes steady on hers, and Rylin could see the regret burning there. She felt oddly proud of him for apologizing. It couldn’t have been easy.

      She thought, suddenly, of what Leda had said the other day in Dubai—that Rylin wasn’t the same girl who’d shown up at Berkeley, defensive and uncertain. Hiral might have changed, but she had changed too. They’d all changed. How could they not, after everything that had happened, after all they had lost?

      Maybe this was what growing up felt like. It hurt more than Rylin had expected.

      “I forgive you, Hiral.”

      She hadn’t expected to say that, but once she did, she was glad that she had.

      He looked up with an intake of breath. “Really?”

      Rylin knew that she should say something else, but she felt overwhelmed by a sudden flurry of memories—of how it had been with Hiral before. The little notes Hiral used to leave for her in the silliest places, like on the peel of a banana. The anniversary when he’d served her a picnic dinner in the park, complete with flameless candles. That time she had to go on a long road trip to visit her grandparents, when Hiral had made a playlist for her that was sprinkled with little audio clips of himself telling jokes, saying again and again how much he loved her.

      And when Rylin’s mom died, Hiral was the one who’d been there, steadying and certain, helping her make all the awful decisions that no daughter should ever have to make.

      He stood up. “Thanks for letting me come by. I know you’re with Cord now, and I won’t bother you again. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

      “I’m not,” Rylin said. “With Cord, I mean.”

      Hiral’s face broke into an incredulous smile. “You’re not?”

      She shook her head.

      “Rylin.” Hiral faltered, sounding hoarse. “Do you think that we could ever . . . try again?”

      “I don’t know.” A week earlier Rylin would have said absolutely not. But she was starting to learn that things were always changing, that nothing was ever quite what you thought it was, and that perhaps that was a good thing.

      “Maybe,” she clarified, and Hiral grinned.

      “Maybe sounds good to me.”

      Standing at the rec center now, watching Hiral run back and forth across the basketball court, Rylin was glad that she’d given him another chance.

      They’d been together for months, and Hiral had remained true to his word. He was different. He was totally clean: He didn’t smoke or drink anymore, not even around their old friends. When he wasn’t at work or spending time with Rylin, he was here at the rec center, playing basketball with these kids.

      “All right, team! Huddle up!” he cried out, and the boys all gathered in an eager cluster. They all put their arms toward the center and let out a yell.

      When he’d high-fived the last few boys and sent them on their way, Hiral hopped to Rylin’s side of the fence. He threw an arm around her and leaned in to plant a kiss on her forehead.

      “Hey, you’re all sweaty!” Rylin protested and pretended to duck from beneath his arm, though she didn’t really mind.

      “The price you pay for dating a star athlete,” Hiral teased.

      They turned along the path that edged the deck, lined with benches and sprays of foliage, a few burger and frozen fruit stands scattered along the way. Rylin saw a community yoga class clustered in one corner, tipping into salutations toward the sun. As always, the deck was crowded with people, all of them