Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Pulse
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY–ONE
- TWENTY–TWO
- TWENTY–THREE
- TWENTY–FOUR
- TWENTY–FIVE
- TWENTY–SIX
- TWENTY–SEVEN
- TWENTY–EIGHT
- TWENTY–NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY–ONE
- THIRTY–TWO
- THIRTY–THREE
- THIRTY–FOUR
- THIRTY–FIVE
- THIRTY–SIX
- THIRTY–SEVEN
- THIRTY–EIGHT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- RESOURCES
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
In the past week, Lucy had begun to understand the differences in Delia’s silences. There was the head down, immersed in code silence Lucy wouldn’t dare interrupt. The texting with a certain coder who was a hottie haven all unto himself silence. And this, the nonconfrontational confrontational silence.
“Sorry,” Lucy said. “I love Madeline, you know that.”
Delia silence.
“Fine. Maddie. But Lit—”
“Is behind. We’re lagging behind where the other teams are.” Delia hugged her arms against her chest, knocking her necklace to the side. “It’s my fault. That real-time reaction is our core, and all week I’ve been following what should work, it’s just . . .”
“I know.” Lucy centered Delia’s computer chip. “And I’m confident you’ll get us there.”
She patted Delia’s shoulder, but truthfully, she was concerned about their progress. Delia cared too much about the other teams, and Maddie didn’t seem to care enough about theirs. While Lucy didn’t exactly regret their decision to stick together, she did feel the burden of being the glue.
“I was more talking about Maddie. Pieces of Lit do look stellar . . .” Lucy tipped her head toward the designs for the Lit logo and site icons wallpapering the back of their door. “But they’re scattered.” Like everything of hers, Lucy restrained herself from adding, despite the tees, jeans, computer cords, charging cables, and who knew what else—dirty or clean, alive or dead—piled on the floor and lining the wall of Maddie’s bunk like a body pillow. “And she hasn’t entirely abandoned communicating with me via grunting. Sometimes, doesn’t it feel like . . . like she’s only half here?”
Delia remained silent. But she nodded. Then, she put her hand around Lucy’s wrist and yanked.
“Sorry,” Delia said. “I’ll be right back.”
Lucy sighed, rested the straightener on the edge of the desk, and sat down on her feathery comforter. Maddie’s distance worried Lucy. Because Lit needed all three of them to not just be here but to be here, to eat, sleep, dream, walk, run, think, breathe here here, every minute of every day. It was the only way to win.
On the desk, her phone lit up with a text.
ValleyStart: Week 2, we are in. Go ahead and grin. But don’t forget: the beta test approaches like a shark fin!
Every day ValleyStart sent a pithy rhyme—whether to psych them up or out, Lucy still wasn’t sure.