Page 46 of The Dazzling Heights
The space between them pulsed with anger and something else that Watt couldn’t identify. “I don’t care what you think of me,” she said at last. “But I’m done letting other peopleuseme. Especially the ones I care about.”
Watt knew she was thinking of Atlas, who had halfheartedly attempted to date Leda earlier this year in an attempt to hide—or overcome—his feelings for Avery.
“Come on.” He held out a hand. “We’re at a party. I refuse to let you sulk like this.”
“I’m not sulking,” Leda argued, but she moved toward the dance floor with more alacrity than he would have guessed.
They swayed there for a while, neither of them speaking. Watt was surprised at how little resistance Leda offered as he led her through the dance, how easily she fit into his arms. It felt like the tension was seeping slowly from her like poison from a wound. She curled her arms around his back and leaned her head on his chest, closing her eyes as if to momentarily shut out the world.
Watt wondered how many of Leda’s issues were a direct result of everything that had happened with the Fullers—the combined pain of losing her best friend, and of finding out that Atlas had never actually cared about her—and how much was her own innate restlessness. Clearly, she’d suffered a lot, and at the hands of people she trusted. Yet Watt suspected that no matter how perfect her life was, part of Leda would always be stirring up trouble, searching for something without quite knowing what it was.
He had a terrifying suspicion that if it weren’t for Nadia’s voice in his head, he might be the same.
“There are other schools besides MIT, you know,” Leda said after a moment, interrupting his thoughts.
“Not for what I want to study.”
Leda tipped her face up to his, her hands clasped behind his head. “I’m shocked at your lack of confidence in yourself. You can build Nadia, yet you’re worried about something as prosaic as college applications?”
You’re just going to let her talk about me?Nadia asked huffily.
“As you’re well aware, I can’t exactly write about Nadia in my essays.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t having Nadia write the essaysforyou,” Leda countered, and now she was unmistakably smiling. Watt felt himself smiling back, for the sake of the mirroring effect Nadia always talked about.
“Oh, I’ve tried to have her write them, but they always come out too perfect.”
“Too perfect. Nowthere’san underused phrase if I’ve ever heard one. If only more things in the world were too perfect.” Leda’s dark eyes glimmered.
“I know, I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me.”
The music changed, and Leda stepped back, breaking their strange truce. “I’m thirsty,” she declared.
Watt recognized that cue from all his years of hitting on girls at bars. “Let me get you a drink,” he offered quickly.
The bartender was a Hispanic girl who looked about their age, with bangs and sharp eyes. Watt asked her for two whiskey sodas. She raised an eyebrow at the double order, but didn’t question it.
When he found Leda, she was leaning forward on a high-top table, one foot tucked behind the other. Watt stopped in his tracks, hesitating at the sight of something in her expression—something frail, and tentatively hopeful. It was as shocking and unexpected as seeing her in her underwear.
He’d thought he knew her so well, but he was starting to wonder if he understood Leda Cole at all.
When he handed her the drink, Leda gave it a slow stir, holding up the glass for inspection as if to check the amber liquid’s color. “How much alcohol do you think it would take to make us forget all the things we’ve done that we regret?” she said darkly.
Watt wondered what had prompted this change of mood. “I typically drink to make new, fun memories, not erase the ones I already have. You should try it—you might enjoy it,” he said lightly.
He’d hoped to shift the tone, make her laugh a little, but Leda just looked at him sidelong. “What about the night I came over to your place? You were definitely drinking to forget something then.”
Watt reddened at the thought of that night. He’d been drinking to forget something, all right—the fact that Avery was in love with her brother. A fact that Leda had wormed out of him when she showed up at his apartment, still in her school uniform, only to drug him and seduce him into telling her everything. “I don’t remember,” he mumbled, suddenly unable to stop replaying that moment in his head, when Leda had planted herself on his lap and kissed him.
This might be a good time, Watt, Nadia prompted.
She was right. If Leda was dwelling on the past, maybe she could be tricked into referencing Eris’s death.
He stepped forward a little so Nadia could get perfect footage, in case this worked. “I’ve been thinking lately about the roof,” he said.
Leda looked at him in sudden horror. “Why would you bring that up?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“I just wanted to—”
