“Miranda, it’s a video game,” he reminded her. “Your guy’s about seven feet tall and he was last year’s MVP. I think it’s a pretty fair matchup.”
She was about to confess that she didn’t actually understand the rules of basketball-a fatal weakness no matter how many all-stars her cyber-team was fielding-when her phone rang. She paused the game and checked the caller ID. Harper.
Adam caught the name on the screen and gave her a pained nod. “You take it. I’ll practice my free throws.”
Miranda flipped open the phone. “Hey, what’s up?” she asked, pretending it was no big deal that Harper had called, though Harper never called, not anymore.
“Nothing. I just… can you talk?”
“Of course.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing much. Just hanging out.” It wasn’t really a lie, Miranda told herself. And it was for a good cause-if she admitted she was busy, Harper would probably just use it as an excuse to hang up again. And if she admitted she was at Adams house, fraternizing with the enemy… she’d have to explain what she was doing there, and Adam had asked her to keep that quiet and, all in all, it was easier just to be vague. “How about you?” “Thinking.”
“You?” Miranda asked, automatically slipping into sarcasm before she remembered that the old days were over.
But Harper laughed. “Crazy, I know. I need to ask you something. Do you think-”
“Woo hoo! High score, baby!”
Miranda winced as Adam’s shouts echoed through the empty house.
“What was that?” Harper asked.
“What?” Miranda said. “I didn’t say anything.”
“The champion returns!”
“Is that Adam?” Harper asked, continuing on before Miranda had a chance to answer. “It is. What’s Adam doing there?”
Miranda sighed. It would have been easier to ignore the whole thing, but she wasn’t about to lie now, no matter what Adam had asked of her. It’s not like he had anything to be embarrassed about-it was just Harper. “Actually, I’m at his house,” she admitted.
Harper didn’t say anything, and for a moment Miranda worried that the line had gone dead.
“Hello? Harper?”
“You’re next door,” she finally said in a low monotone. She didn’t ask why.
Miranda laughed nervously. “It’s not like we’re hanging out, like we’re friends or something. I have to be here-I mean, I don’t
“Wild.”
She was babbling, the words spilling out before she had time to think better of it. Which was ridiculous, because there was no need to be nervous-it’s not like she had snuck over here behind Harper’s back. Yes, she’d walked thirty minutes instead of driving over, but not because she didn’t want Harper to spot her car, she reasoned. It was just a beautiful day, and she needed the exercise, and… it’s not like everything she did had to do with Harper, she insisted silently.
It’s not like Harper had any right to care.
“But, really, we’re supposed to be studying,” she tried again. “See, Adam-”
“Miranda.”
She stopped talking abruptly, as if Harper had flipped a switch.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Harper continued. “What do I care if the two of you want to hang out?”
“But we’re not hanging out, I’m-”
“I don’t want to bother you,” Harper said loudly, talking over her. “Sorry I called. Talk to you later.”
“Score!” Adam cried from the living room, just as the phone went dead. Miranda flipped it shut and pressed it against her forehead. However irrational it may have been, she felt like that was her one chance to fix things-and she’d blown it.
Reed hadn’t set out with a destination in mind; he’d just wanted to take the edge off his strangely unsettled mood. He felt like he’d forgotten something important, but his thoughts were too jumbled to pin down what it was. So he decided to ignore it and take a drive. He wasn’t too surprised to see where he’d ended up. He made a sharp right and pulled off onto the small access road that led straight to the glass monstrosity. He’d always hated this house, with its jutting corners and its smooth, shiny facade. It looked like a machine, some gruesome futuristic gadget blown up to unnatural size and dropped into the middle of the desert. It looked wrong, its sleek silver lines out of place in the rolling beiges of the desert landscape.
Kaia had always complained about the scenery-or, as she was quick to point out, lack thereof. They’d stood on her deck and looked out at the deserted space surrounding her house and she’d seen nothing but an ocean of beige. She’d called it a wasteland, but only because she didn’t see that what was sparse and clean could also be beautiful, precisely because it had nothing to hide. He hadn’t had the words to explain it to her, however, so he’d just shrugged, and then kissed her.
She hated the house, too, but for different reasons. It was her outpost of civilization, true, but it was also her prison, and she resented its cream-colored walls and architecturally avant-garde floor plan, and even its size. She’d explained to him that her mother’s penthouse apartment back home could fit into one wing of her father’s mansion, and that the giant empty house swallowed her up and made her feel small and alone. It was the same way Reed felt about the desert, except he liked it.
Now the house really was empty. The windows had been dark and the driveway empty for weeks, until one day, Reed arrived to discover that the windows had been boarded up and a large FOR SALE sign planted in the absurdly well-manicured front lawn. But Reed kept coming back. He didn’t have anything left of Kaia except his swiftly fading memories. He dreaded the day he forgot how her pale cheeks reddened when she laughed, or the hoarse sound in her voice when she’d just woken up; the house helped him remember.
