Kody Keplinger: Lying Out Loud

“Hey.” His voice was flat and he kept on working, not even glancing back at me.

Okay, so maybe this would be harder than I’d thought.

“So, uh … I need to talk to you about something. The other night —”

Suddenly, Ryder spun around in his seat, facing me. But the look on his face was less than kind. His eyes were narrowed and cold. Even in all our bickering, he’d never looked this pissed. I was so surprised that I sat up straight.

“The other night,” he said. “You mean that e-mail I received?”

“Um …”

“Because I know that wasn’t all Amy,” he said.

“No, it wasn’t. But, Ryder —”

“For the life of me, I can’t understand why she’d be friends with someone like you, Sonny.”

No, this definitely wasn’t going as planned. I gritted my teeth. “Will you just shut up and listen to me for a second?”

“I’m done listening to you,” he snapped. “Despite everything you’ve said, Amy and I have a connection. We chatted online all night after that ridiculous e-mail.”

“I’m aware,” I muttered.

“She’s funny and smart and beautiful …”

I rolled my eyes. Because of course. Of course he mentioned how beautiful she is.

“And you,” he said, glaring at me. “You’re just a …”

I waited, knowing what he was going to say. A bitch. Amy was funny and smart and beautiful, and I, Sonny, was just a bitch.

But he didn’t say it. He just shook his head, turned back around in his seat, and mumbled something. I don’t think he meant me to hear it, but I did.

“And you’re not good enough for her.”

My fists clenched beneath my desk. “Yeah?” I said. “Well, neither are you.”

Just then, Mr. Buckley walked in the room, putting a stop to any snappy retort Ryder might have thrown at me next.

Fuck it, I thought. I’d been wrong. Ryder was an asshole. That all-night chat had clearly been a fluke, and there was no point telling him the truth about it. Even if he let me get a word out, he wouldn’t believe me. Or it would just piss him off even more.

So I got my textbook and went right back to hating Ryder Cross.

I don’t know how I met Amy Rush. I’d love to tell you this charming story about how we bonded over a shared box of crayons in preschool or something — and who knows, maybe we did — but I can’t remember. That’s how long ago it was.

I know we were young, three or four, maybe. It was before my dad was arrested for the first time. He used to drive me to her house for playdates on the weekends. Dad told me I could invite Amy over, too, if I wanted, but I never did.

Because even as a little kid, I was embarrassed. At that point, my parents and I were living in a trailer out on the edge of Hamilton. And Amy lived in a mansion. Plus, there was my mom, who, I was convinced, would forget to make us dinner or something. I didn’t want Amy to see where I lived. I guess there have always been parts of my life I kept hidden, even from her.

But that didn’t stop us from becoming insanely, maybe unhealthily close. We were two halves of a whole. We needed each other for balance.

She kept me calm, put me at ease when I was freaking out.

Like when we were seven and I accidentally broke the arm off my favorite doll. My dad had just been arrested, and Ramona was the last gift he’d given me. As I sat there, on the verge of an all-out tantrum, Amy gently removed Ramona from my arms, retrieved some glue from her dad’s desk, and put the doll back together. Sure, her arm was a little crooked after that, but that was okay. Amy had, for the most part, solved the problem.

Meanwhile, I spoke up for her, got angry for her, when she was too scared or embarrassed to. Like when we were freshmen and this gross upperclassman named Randy smacked her ass in the hallway.

Amy was so upset and humiliated, and I was pissed on her behalf. So the next time I saw Randy, I threw him up against the wall and gave him a swift knee to the groin. Who cared if I was half his size? Hell hath no fury like a girl defending her bestie. I got two weeks in detention for that, but he never bothered Amy again, so it was worth it.

Amy and I needed each other. Neither of us really had other close friends. We were the type who were friendly with everyone — excluding Ryder Cross, of course — but I think most people felt sort of left out when they spent time with Amy and me. There was too much history, too many inside jokes, and, yeah, maybe our closeness was a little bit weird to some.

But we were okay with that. It was just us. Sonny and Amy. Amy and Sonny. Where she went, I went.

Which was why I got a little panicked when I saw the stack of college applications sitting on her desk.

“Is it already time for these?” I asked, picking up a Cornell application.

“Yep. I got those from the guidance office today.” She’d just let me into the house after her parents had gone off to bed, so we had to keep our voices low.

“Wow.” I flipped through the stack. “Dartmouth, Stanford, Columbia … Very ambitious, Ms. Rush.”

“There are a few safety schools in there,” she said as she changed into her pajamas. “Have you thought about where you’re applying?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I figured I’d follow you wherever you were accepted and live under your bed in your dorm room.”

She laughed.

But I hadn’t exactly been kidding.

“You better start thinking about it,” she said. “These next few months are going to go fast. I know you get overwhelmed with paperwork —”

“False.”

She rolled her eyes. “You take three days to fill out a one-page job application.”

“I … like to be thorough.”

“Anyway,” she said. “I’d be glad to help you fill them out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll see.”

The truth was, I was sort of deliberately avoiding thoughts of college. Sure, I had decent grades (I was an AP student, after all), but I wasn’t going to be able to afford tuition. Especially not to the schools Amy was applying to. In just a few months, we’d be separated.

She’d be off at some Ivy League university, and I’d be stuck here.

And that terrified me.

I’d been avoiding it, pretending college was a long way away and I had no reason to worry about it yet, but we were seniors now, which meant it was time to start figuring my shit out.

I wasn’t ready to deal with it yet, though.

Maybe that’s why I got so enraged when Ryder hated on Hamilton, because I knew this place was going to be my home for a very, very long time. Whether I liked it or not.

Amy finished running a comb through her hair. “Okay. You ready for bed?”

I shook my head. All the college talk had gotten me too worked up to sleep. “I need to work on a paper. Mind if I use your computer?”

“Of course not. It’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the laptop and stepped out into the hallway. “Sleep tight.”

“See you in the morning.”

I’d barely gotten the laptop set up in the rec room when I heard a ping from the e-mail tab. I rolled my eyes, knowing before I even looked who was messaging me. Or Amy, rather.

“Not now, Ryder,” I mumbled. “Not in the mood.”

A minute later, there was another ping .

RYDER:How was your day?

RYDER:Are you done with that English paper yet?

I was determined to ignore him. After the way he’d talked to me in class that morning, he didn’t deserve my time. But five minutes later, there was another ping , and this time, I couldn’t ignore his message.

RYDER:So Pearl Jam is going to have a concert in Oak Hill.