She wanted much more than that. Aria wanted hours, days to spend with Caleb. Time to tell him how sorry she was about Paisley and how much she missed spending every day with him. Caleb was there with other people now. Pixie sat beside him in silence, watching him sketch, her jet-black hair trimmed shorter than Aria remembered. Aria wondered how Soren felt seeing her. Less than a year ago, they’d been dating. Rune was there as well with the Tilted Green Bottles’ drummer, Jupiter. They were tangled in a passionate kiss, oblivious to anyone else.

Something about them—about all of them—seemed distant and desperate.

“Congratulations,” Soren said. “You’re officially nothing.”

She panned the empty space beside her. It was strange hearing his voice and not being able to see him. “Soren, this is eerie.”

“Try it for five months, then tell me how you feel.”

“Is this … is this really how you spend your time?”

“You think I like skulking around? My father banned me, Aria. You think you were the only one he sold out after that night?” He made a snorting sound, like he regretted his last words. “Anyway … whatever.” He sighed. “Check it out. Jupiter and Rune are, like, mega into each other. Saw that coming. Jup’s a good man. Decent pilot, too. We used to have fun racing D-Wings before … you know. Before. And Pixie, she and I were … I don’t know. I don’t know what we were. But Caleb, Aria. What do you see in him?”

She saw a thousand things. A thousand memories. Caleb used words like audacious and lethargic to describe colors. He loved sushi because it was beautiful. When he laughed, he covered his mouth. When he yawned, he didn’t. He was the first boy she’d ever kissed, and it’d been a disaster—nothing like the breathless thrill of kissing Perry. They’d been on a Ferris wheel in a carnival Realm. Caleb’s eyes had been open, which she hadn’t liked. She’d kissed his bottom lip, which he’d found odd. But the main problem, they’d decided, was that the kiss had lacked meaning. Or gravitas, as Caleb had called it.

Now when she looked at him, all she saw was meaning. All she felt was sadness. For him. For how they’d been. Things would never be the same.

Aria’s attention moved to his drawing, curious to see what absorbed him. The sketch was a side view of a skeletal figure in a tight crouch, knees and arms bent, head down. It reached to the very edge of the page, so the figure looked trapped in a box. The drawing was somber, menacing, and nothing like his usual loose sketches.