Kody Keplinger: Lying Out Loud

I, Sonny Elizabeth Ardmore, do hereby confess that I am an excellent liar.

It was never something I aspired to be, but rather a talent that I couldn’t avoid. It started with lies about my homework — I could actually convince teachers that my dog ate it, with fake tears and everything if needed — and then I told lies about my family — my father was an international businessman, not a deadbeat thief who’d been tossed in jail when I was seven — and, eventually, I was lying about everything else, too.

But as excellent a liar as I may be, lying hasn’t led me to much excellence lately. So let the record show that this time I am telling the truth. All of it. The whole shebang. Even if it kills me.

I tell the most lies on bad days, and the Friday my cell phone — one of those old, clunky, pay-as-you-go bricks that only played polyphonic ringtones — decided to stop working after six long years of use, was a particularly bad day .

It had flatlined sometime in the night, a peaceful, quiet sort of death, and left me without my usual five a.m. alarm. Instead, I awoke when Amy’s phone (the newest, most expensive model of smartphone, naturally) began blaring an all-too-realistic fire truck — style siren.

I bolted upright, my heart jackhammering, while next to me, on her side of the bed, my best friend snoozed on.

“Amy.” I shoved her arm. “Amy, shut that thing off.”

She groaned and rolled over. The siren kept wailing as she fumbled with the phone. Finally, it went silent.

“Why in God’s name would you want to wake up to that sound?” I asked her as she stretched her long, thin arms over her head.

“It’s the only alarm loud enough to wake me up.”

“And it barely accomplishes that.”

It wasn’t until then that I realized what Amy’s horrible wake-up call meant. I was supposed to be up before her. I was supposed to get ready and sneak out of her house before her parents woke up at six. But my phone wasn’t working and it was six-fifteen and I, to put it bluntly, was fucking screwed.

“Why don’t you just tell my parents you fell asleep here last night?” Amy asked as I scrambled around the room, dragging out the duffel bag of wrinkled clothes I kept hidden under her bed. “They won’t care.”

“Because then they’ll want to go reassuring my mom about where I was,” I said, pulling a green T-shirt on over my incredibly impressive bedhead. “And that’ll open up a whole new set of questions, and just no.”

“I still don’t see why you can’t just tell them she kicked you out.” Amy stood up and started combing her dark curls, which, despite all the laws of physics, still looked perfect after a night’s sleep. Amy was one of those rare people who looked gorgeous first thing in the morning. It brought a whole new meaning to “beauty rest.” I would have hated her for it if I didn’t love her so much.

“It’s just too complicated, okay?”

I took the comb from her and began to work out the knots in my hair. That was the only thing Amy and I had in common — we both had insanely curly hair. Like corkscrew curls. The kind that everyone thinks they want but, in reality, you can’t do a damn thing with. But where Amy’s were long, dark brown, and perfect, mine were shoulder length, blond, and slowly destroying my sanity. It took forever to pick out the tangles each morning, and today, I didn’t have forever.

“Well, I hope you and your mom get it worked out soon,” she said, “because I love having you stay here, but this is getting a little too complicated.”

“You’re telling me.” She wasn’t the one who was about to make a two-story drop out of a window.

In the hall, I could hear Mr. Rush moving around, getting ready for work. Now, with my teeth unbrushed and without a speck of deodorant to cover up my glorious natural odor, was the time to make my escape.

I ran over to Amy’s window and shoved it open. “If I die doing this, please deliver a somewhat humorous but overall heartbreaking eulogy at my funeral, okay?”

“Sonny!” Amy grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the window. “No way. You’re not doing that.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, it’s not safe,” she said. When she realized that wasn’t enough to deter me, she added, “And also you’d be dropping right past the kitchen window. If Mom’s down there eating breakfast and sees a girl falling from the sky …”

“Good point. Damn it. What do I do?”

“Just wait until everyone leaves,” she said. “You can sneak out and lock the door with the spare key. It’s under the —”

“Flowerpot next to the door. Yeah. I know.”

And while this was a more practical plan, to be sure, it wasn’t the most suited for punctuality. Amy’s parents didn’t leave until seven-thirty, only fifteen minutes before I had to be at school. The minute the front door slammed, I scrambled down the hall and into the bathroom to finish my necessary hygiene rituals before bolting downstairs and out the door myself.

I locked up, then cut across their backyard and down Milton Street to the Grayson’s Groceries parking lot, where I had left my car the night before.

“Hello, Gert,” I said, tapping the hood of the old silver station wagon. She was one ugly beast of a car. But she was mine. I climbed into the front seat. “Hope you slept well, but I’m in a hurry, so please don’t be in a shitty mood today.”

I turned the key in the ignition. It revved, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. I groaned.

“Not today, Gert. Have some mercy.”

I tried again and, as if she’d heard me, Gert’s motor finally started to hum. And, just like that, we were off.

The bell had already rung by the time I pulled into the senior parking lot, which meant the main door had locked and Mrs. Garrison, the perpetually grumpy front desk lady, had to buzz me in.

“Sonya,” she said, greeting me when I got to the main office.

I cringed. I hated — hated — my full first name.

“You’re late,” she announced, as if I somehow wasn’t aware.

“I know. I’m sorry, I just …”

Showtime.

My lip started to quiver and, on cue, my eyes began to well up with tears. I looked down at my shoes and took a dramatic, raspy breath.

“My hamster, Lancelot, died this morning. I woke up and he was just … in his wheel … lying so still….” I covered my face with my hands and began to sob. “I’m sorry. You probably think it’s stupid, but I loved him so much.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

“I know it’s not an excuse, but … I just … I’m sorry, Lancelot.”

I was worried I might be playing it up too much, but then she shoved a tissue into my hand and patted my arm sympathetically.

“Let it out,” she said. “I know it can be hard. When I lost Whiskers last year … Listen, I’ll write you a note for first block. I’ll say you had a family emergency. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure this is excused.”

“Thank you,” I sniffed.

The tears had dried up by the time I reached my AP European history class. Mr. Buckley was in the middle of his lecture when I slipped into the room. Unfortunately, he never missed anything, so there was no chance of me sneaking back to my chair without him noticing.

“Ms. Ardmore,” he said. “You finally decided to join us.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “I have a note.”

I handed him the slip of paper I’d been given at the front desk. He read it quickly and nodded. “Fine. Take your seat. I suggest you borrow notes on the first part of the lecture from one of your classmates.”