Kody Keplinger - Lying Out Loud

“I’m fine. Just surprised to find you here.”

Lie.

Confession Time: Ryder, not Amy or Wesley, was the reason I was at Tech Plus that morning.

It had been a couple of weeks since our little texting tryst (which still made me feel icky when I thought about it) and Ryder had been sending messages almost every day since. I’d ignored most of them, knowing that responding was counterproductive. That last conversation had, apparently, given him the confidence to approach Amy in person again. Luckily, I was with Amy pretty much any time she wasn’t in class, which meant I was able to shut down the conversation and hurry her away before she found out about the texting.

I knew I shouldn’t risk giving him more encouragement to pursue Amy, no matter how temping it was to reply to his messages. We were making some progress in person, but not as quickly as I’d hoped, and texting was the only way I really got to talk to him.

I’d been holding on to my last shred of willpower, fighting my self-destructive urges, but Thanksgiving break meant not even seeing him at school, and when he sent a text about needing a new iPod, I couldn’t help suggesting he go to Tech Plus on Black Friday. I knew Amy would be going, and it would make perfect sense for me to join her.

So here I was, in the middle of Black Friday madness, all so I could run into a guy who didn’t even know he liked me.

“I’m surprised to find me here, too,” he admitted. “But my iPod broke and Amy said this place would have them on sale, so … Hey, if you’re here, is she?”

“Um, yeah. Somewhere. I’ve lost her.”

And I sort of hoped she stayed lost. At least until Ryder and I had had a few minutes together.

Not that this was the most romantic setting, but I’d take what I could get.

“Oh. Do you think we should go look for her?”

“No, no. She had some shopping to do. I’m sure I’ll find her soon.” I cleared my throat. “So. A new iPod? What sort of music do you listen to?”

“If I told you, you’d probably call me a pretentious hipster.”

“Yeah … probably. But I already do that.”

He laughed. “At least you’re honest.”

Not something I heard often.

“So indie stuff no one else has heard of, then? Like Goats Vote for Melons, maybe?”

Ryder’s eyes widened, shocked. “You know Goats Vote for Melons?”

“I’ve heard a song or two.”

I’d checked out some of their stuff after Ryder had raved about them. As expected, it was pretty terrible for the most part. All acoustic, no catchy hook. Yes, I was part of the masses. I admit it. I loved bad pop music, especially if it was released in the nineties, and grunge, of course, but that was awesome. GVM just went way over my head.

They did have one decent love song, though, inexplicably titled “Of Lions and Robots,” which I’d been listening to a lot lately.

“Well, I’m also trying to broaden my musical horizons.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He nodded. “I’ve been exploring some other genres. Kind of getting into nineties grunge, actually.”

The grin that split my face was almost painful. Grunge! He was broadening his musical horizons because of me! I wanted to squeal. To hug him. And then to make out with him, right here, in the middle of this crowded electronics store.

But I couldn’t.

Because, in Ryder’s mind, we were little more than acquaintances.

Sometimes I had to remind myself of that.

“Grunge is great,” I said. “What albums have you tried? Anything you really like?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but his answer was drowned out by another voice.

“Sonny!”

I groaned, and then felt awful for it.

Amy had found us. She was coming up behind me, a box tucked under her arm. “There you are,” she said. “I’m so sorry we got separated. I didn’t mean to lose you. I looked —” She stopped midsentence when she noticed Ryder. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hey, Amy,” he said, his face totally lighting up.

And now I wanted to shake him.

Even if his continuing affection for her was sort of my fault.

“You play video games?” he asked, gesturing to the box under her arm.

“Huh? Oh. No. This is for my brother.”

“Hey, speaking of shopping,” I said, my voice louder than I’d intended. “You should probably get that iPod, Ryder. You don’t want them all to be taken.”

“Good point. I’ll be right back.”

He walked a few feet away, disappearing into a crowd of desperate people clambering to get their hands on Apple products.

I grabbed Amy’s arm. “When he comes back, do something.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know. Something weird. Something he won’t like.”

“Sonny, you know I’m bad at this.”

“You’re not. You’d be a great actress if you tried.”

“But I don’t have a script here,” she pointed out. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be weird.”

“You’re the only teenager with that problem.” I glanced around, searching for inspiration, and found it standing a few feet away. There was a guy — blond, early twenties, built like a Ken doll — on the other side of the aisle. And he was totally trying to catch Amy’s eye. “Perfect,” I said.

“What?”

I jerked my head toward the stranger. “Him.”

“What about him?”

“When Ryder comes back, go flirt with him. Right in front of Ryder,” I whispered. “It’ll make him think you’re super flaky and kind of mean.”

“Sonny, I don’t want to do that,” Amy whispered back. “That’s too much. It’s cruel to Ryder and to that guy.”

“Please. You’ll be making the other guy’s day. Plus, he’s cute. So it could be worse.”

“But —”

“Here he comes. Get ready.”

“I don’t —”

“Got the iPod,” Ryder announced as he moved toward us. “Some guy with a mullet tried to take it right out of my hands, but I managed to hold on to it.”

“Glad you survived,” I said.

“Me, too.” He glanced over at Amy, as if waiting for her to say something.

And I elbowed her. Hard.

She let out a tiny squeak. “I, um …” She looked at me, her eyes desperate.

Go, I thought, staring back at her. Just do it already.

Amy turned to Ryder, a forced smile on her pretty pink lips. “Just a second,” she said. Then she walked over to the Ken doll, who was checking out some tablets now, just down the aisle. His face brightened when he saw Amy approaching. And even though her greeting of “Hey … you” was super awkward, he didn’t stop smiling.

“Hi,” Ken Doll said.

The rest of their conversation was drowned out by a pack of women nearby, shouting at a Tech Plus employee about a guy who had taken one of their items before they could check out. But we could still see what was happening. The guy leaned toward Amy; she giggled, batted his arm. All the typical obvious flirting moves. Actually, it was probably more convincing this way, with Amy’s inevitably embarrassing words on mute.

“Does she know that guy?” Ryder asked, frowning as Ken Doll took a step closer to Amy.

“No,” I said. “That’s just Amy. She’s always flirting with someone.”

“Oh.”

We both watched the scene for a minute longer, then Ryder, face fallen, took a step back. “I should go pay,” he said. “I’m pretty exhausted.”

Even though I knew this was in both of our best interests, I felt bad for him. He thought he had a connection with Amy, and here she was, seemingly apathetic to that and hitting on other dudes right in front of him. It had to sting.

It was supposed to sting.

“It was nice running into you,” I said. “Literally.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Anyway … tell Amy I said good-bye.”

“Okay.”

He gave Amy one last glance before turning away, disappearing into the crowd.

As soon as he was gone, I ran over to Amy, interrupting her conversation with the Ken doll.

“Hey,” I said. “He’s gone. We’re good.”

“Excuse me?” Ken Doll asked.

“Hey. Sorry. She’s seventeen, so this isn’t gonna happen for you. Thanks for playing.” I grabbed Amy’s arm and dragged her away, toward the checkout counter. Though I made sure to take a different route than Ryder had so as not to risk crossing paths.

I fully expected Amy to scold me for how I’d talked to Ken Doll. To point out how rude it was.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t say anything.

In fact, she was silent the rest of the time we were in the store and the whole way back to her house.

Her parents still weren’t home from their own Black Friday adventure by the time we pulled into the driveway. Amy grabbed the console and carried it into the house, me trailing behind her.

“Do you want me to help you wrap that?” I asked.

“No. I can do it,” she mumbled.

“Okay … Hey, thanks for your help. I think it may have worked. Ryder seemed pretty upset.”

“I didn’t want to do that, Sonny,” Amy said. She put the game console down on the coffee table. “It was awkward and embarrassing. And gross. You made me flirt with a guy I didn’t know and didn’t like.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, but —”

“I don’t think you do know,” she said. After a pause, she shook her head. “I’m tired. I’m gonna go take a nap.”

She went upstairs to her room, and for once, I had the strong sense that I wasn’t supposed to follow her.

She just needs her space, I thought. She needs some time to herself, and it’ll be fine.

But I knew, deep down, that it was more than that. That, without me realizing it, I’d crossed a line that day.

And for the first time ever, in over a decade of visiting the Rushes’ house, I didn’t sleep in Amy’s bedroom when I got home from work that night.

Or the night after that.

The next time I ran into Ryder outside of class wasn’t the result of any scheming — for once. This time, on a chilly Saturday in the beginning of December, we both ended up at the Hamilton Public Library by sheer coincidence.

I was walking around the first floor, scanning the shelves, when a familiar voice called my name. I looked up and saw him sitting at one of the wooden tables in the corner, a legal pad and a huge, leather-bound book in front of him. He was wearing giant retro-style headphones. When he raised a hand to wave me over, my heart began pounding just a little too hard.

“Hey,” I said, approaching the desk. “What are you doing here?”

“Research,” he said, tugging his headphones down so they hung around his neck. “For the history essay, actually.” He tapped the leather-bound book next to him. “Taking some notes on the French Revolution.”

“Yay guillotines.”

“A sentence that has oft been uttered.”

I smiled and picked up the book. It was massive and heavy. “Are you actually reading this whole thing?” I asked. “You know, they have this new invention. It’s called the Internet. It contains all of this and more — without the paper cuts.”

“Paper cuts are like battle scars for the academic,” he said, smiling back. “I guess I’m old school. I like to get my information from a real book, and I take my notes by hand.”

“I, on the other hand, am best friends with Wikipedia.”

“You know that site is woefully inaccurate a lot of the time, right? Because anyone can change the information.”

“Yep. I’m the girl changing the information to make it woefully inaccurate.”

“So half the high schoolers around the country have you to thank for their failing grades on research papers.”

“Yes, sir. I’m practically a celebrity. Or, I would be if it wasn’t anonymous.”

He laughed, and even though there were still butterflies in my stomach, I felt relaxed. This felt natural. It felt like it had when we were instant messaging all those weeks ago. Like it did in our text messages, which, admittedly, I’d been sending again.

I hadn’t slept in Amy’s room since the Black Friday debacle, and the silence of the guest room had contributed to my insomnia. And to my recurring nightmare, which I’d had at least three times in the past two weeks. When I woke up, panicked and alone, it was easy to text him. To reach out and know someone else would answer.

I kept telling myself I would stop soon. Or that it wasn’t actually detrimental for the plan — that maybe, somehow, it made Amy seem even flakier to be texting him when she was so weird in person.

I’d told myself so many lies, I didn’t even know what to believe anymore. I just knew that I liked him. A lot.