Kody Keplinger - Lying Out Loud

Just when I started to think I’d wasted my nice sweater, an idea hit me.

Ryder and I may have had some communication problems of the face-to-face variety, but we were aces when it came to corresponding via text. Sure, he wasn’t aware of that fact, but I was. And he couldn’t interrupt me if my words were on paper.

I ripped a sheet from my notebook and pretended to take notes on Mr. Buckley’s lecture while secretly scribbling a note to Ryder. It took me a few tries to figure out the right words, but eventually, I had it.

Hey. So, I know we have our issues, but you’ve been talking to Amy, right? She’s my best friend, and as awful as you think I am, I do want her to be happy. So can we play nice? Call a truce? For her, at the least. — S

I’ll be honest — writing some of that made me nauseous. I had to fight the urge to rip up the paper and just write the truth, that it was me he’d been talking to. But I knew that would get me nowhere. He’d just think I was lying, ironically. Or that it had all been some mean joke.

Before I could second-guess my decision, I folded up the slip of paper, tapped Ryder on the shoulder, and tossed it into his lap. I watched him eye it for a minute, not touching the paper. Like he thought it might explode or contain anthrax or something.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” I whispered.

He sighed, just loud enough for me to hear, then picked up the note. Slowly, he unfolded it and began to read.

It took him forever. His eyes must have scanned over the words a thousand times. It was agonizing. But, at last, he picked up a pen and began to scribble his own response.

I held my breath as Ryder folded the paper back up, neater than I had, and quickly tossed it over his shoulder onto my desk.

I scooped it up and almost tore the paper as I scrambled to read.

Fine. For Amy’s sake — truce.

I grinned as every muscle in my body relaxed, relieved.

Only to then go rigid once more as Mr. Buckley’s lecture shifted away from some Henry or another and onto Ryder.

“Mr. Cross,” he said. “Did I just see you pass Ms. Ardmore a note?”

“Uh …”

“Because I don’t know how they did things at your old school in Washington, DC” — Mr. Buckley paused as some of our classmates chuckled — “but at Hamilton, we don’t condone note passing.”

“Mr. Buckley, I —” Ryder began.

“He wasn’t passing me a note,” I cut in.

Mr. Buckley and Ryder both turned to face me. But I was totally cool. Because while communicating with Ryder may have made me a nervous wreck, lying about it was something I could do in my sleep.

“Excuse me, Ms. Ardmore?”

“Ryder wasn’t passing me a note,” I said. I’d already swiped the paper off my desk and hidden it in my lap while Mr. Buckley was looking at Ryder. “He was … tossing me something else.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“I’m not sure if I should say, Mr. Buckley.”

“You can either say it to me or the principal, Ms. Ardmore. Your choice.”

“Oh, okay. Ryder was tossing me a … uh … sanitary napkin. It fell out of my purse and he was giving it back to me.”

“A … oh.” Mr. Buckley’s face had turned quite red.

Ryder, however, looked confused. I wondered if he’d ever heard a pad referred to as a sanitary napkin. Since he hadn’t grown up reading Judy Blume novels, I doubted it.

“Sorry about that, Ms. Ardmore,” Mr. Buckley choked out. “I didn’t mean to draw attention to … such a private matter.”

“No big deal,” I said. “It’s just a pad.”

Now Ryder had caught up. But, to his credit, he looked only slightly uncomfortable. Which was more than I could say for Mr. Buckley. While the class broke out into giggles, he looked totally mortified.

God, male teachers were so easy.

“Let’s get back to England, shall we?” He turned to the board.

I sat back in my chair, fighting a smirk. It paid to be shameless.

After another half hour of taking notes, the bell rang. I leaned forward as Ryder shoved papers into his neatly labeled history folder.

“Sorry if I embarrassed you,” I said.

“You didn’t.”

His voice was stiff, and he didn’t look at me as he got to his feet. I stood, too, and for a minute, I thought he was going to walk out of the classroom without another word. But to my surprise, he turned to face me.

“Thank you,” he said. “For the lie. The weird, slightly over-the-top lie that, nonetheless, kept me out of trouble.”

Did he just use nonetheless in casual conversation? Oh, I knew I liked him.

“Hey, what are non-enemies for?” I asked. “Besides, it was my note. I couldn’t let you take credit for my rule breaking. People might start thinking you were cool.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, like his lips wanted to smile but his brain refused to let them.

I saw it, though. And somehow, I knew I’d just succeeded at something.

“See you around, Ryder,” I said, my shoulder grazing his as I moved past him, heading for the classroom door.

I didn’t look back, but part of me, the part that had seen a thousand bad romantic comedies, hoped he was watching me walk away.

Amy was waiting for me outside of the classroom, and we headed toward second block together.

“How did it go?” she asked.

I smirked up at her, Ryder’s almost-smile flooding me with unexpected confidence. “He’ll be mine soon enough.”

Okay, so maybe I was a little overconfident. Just, like, a tiny bit.

But so far my plan was working pretty brilliantly. On Tuesday, I asked Ryder if I could borrow a pen, and he let me. And on Thursday, he helped me pick up my books after I accidentally-on-purpose knocked them off my desk.

Progress!

My plan had one fatal flaw, however, because while I was making Ryder not despise me, making him not adore Amy was proving to be impossible.

Ryder, obviously thinking he and Amy had a great cyber connection, kept trying to connect with her in real life. Over the next week, he walked up to her in the hallways at school, waved to her in the parking lot, and he continued asking her to sit with him at lunch.

Amy always gave an excuse, but that was the problem. Amy was so sweet, so polite, that no one would realize she was trying to avoid them.

“We’ve got to do something about this,” I said. “Steering clear of him isn’t going to be enough.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. We’d met in the parking lot before school that morning and were walking into the building together. “And he keeps texting me the sushi emoji.”

I laughed.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“It’s an inside joke. We had an emoji war once. It ended over emoji sushi.”

“Well, I don’t know how to respond to it.”

“Don’t,” I said. “In fact … let me do it. You might be too nice to scare him off, but I’m not. Here. Give me your phone.”

She pulled it from her purse and handed it over. “You can hold on to it,” she said. “Like I told you before — the only people who ever call or text me are you and my brother. Well, and Ryder now, I guess, but he’s actually texting you, so …”

I pocketed the phone and gave her a one-armed hug. “Thank you. Have I told you lately that you’re the best, most generous, prettiest friend I have?”

“Yes. Last night when I let you borrow my nail polish.”

“Right.”

“And again five minutes ago when I let you have the last sip of my coffee.”

“Noted. I’m a very appreciative person. You’re lucky to have me.”

“And you’re so modest, too.” She elbowed me with a grin. “But what are we going to do about Ryder? If me avoiding him isn’t going to work, then —”

But before Amy had even gotten the question out, we found ourselves face-to-face with the devil himself. Ryder had just rounded the corner, and he was heading our way.

Amy only had time to mutter a nervous “Crap” before he was standing right in front of us.

“Amy,” he said with a bright smile.

A smile that should’ve been for me. But I shook off the sudden, irrational pang of jealousy.

“Hi,” Amy said, fidgeting next to me.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Okay.” She glanced at me, her eyes begging for help. Only then did Ryder actually seem to notice that I was standing there.

“Oh, Sonny,” he said. “Hi to you, too.”

“Hey. Did you read the chapters for Mr. Buckley’s class?”

“I always read the chapters.” His voice was flat and obvious, without a trace of humor.

“Right,” I said, feeling like an idiot for asking. Because of course he had. He was Ryder Cross. And despite the progress we’d made, apparently we weren’t quite at small talk level yet. “Really interesting stuff we’ve been reading about. England and beheadings and all.”

But his eyes were already back on Amy.

“Listen,” he said. “I know you’ve been busy lately, but I was thinking maybe we could get together this weekend. There’s an Iranian film that just came out, and I thought we could go see it together.”

“Um … well.” Amy looked at me again, as if I could somehow help her out of this one.

When I just shrugged, her eyes began searching elsewhere, and after a second she grabbed my arm.

“I have to pee,” she announced. “Be right back.”

And she promptly began dragging me toward the bathroom, leaving Ryder with a look of pronounced confusion etched on his face.

“Well, that’s one way to make him stop worshipping you,” I said once we were standing in front of the row of sinks. “Talking about your bodily functions.”

“He keeps asking me out,” she said. “And he’s just going to ask again if I tell him I’m busy this weekend.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ve gotta come up with another way to … Wait.”

“What?”

“I have an idea. Avoiding him isn’t going to work, right? You’re too nice and he just keeps trying. So maybe when you do have to talk to him, you could do things like what you just did.”

“Talk about my bodily functions?”

“Among other things,” I said. “Be weird. Be all the things he can’t stand.”

“I don’t know what he can’t stand,” she said.

“Well … I know he doesn’t like people who are flaky. Or people who are late for things. He hates when people are irresponsible and he’s kind of a snob, so pop culture references get on his nerves.”

“So … I should act like you?” she offered.

“Hey now.”

“I’m kidding.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “But … I don’t know. I don’t want to be rude.”

“Yes,” I said. “You do. For once in your life you do.”

“Sonny …”

“It won’t kill you,” I assured her. “Come on. Please. Just be a little weird. And not cute, adorkable weird. He’d probably be into that.”

“I don’t —”

“No time,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I dragged her back out of the bathroom. As expected, Ryder was still waiting right where we’d left him. He smiled at Amy.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Oh, ye —” She stopped, glanced at me, and then cleared her throat. “No. I’m a little bloated, so …”

Ryder raised an eyebrow. “Okay … anyway. So about that date?”

“Can’t,” Amy said. “I, uh … There’s a Real Housewives marathon on this weekend. I have to watch it.”

“You watch reality TV?” As expected, he appeared to be disgusted by this revelation.

“She’s obsessed,” I said, chiming in. “Deeply obsessed. She’s seen every season of The Real World, too. Even the old ones that came on back in the nineties.”

Amy nodded. “Yep. So I’ll be busy this weekend.”

“Can’t you record it?” Ryder asked. “The marathon?”

“I … um … No. I can’t. I have to, uh, live-tweet it.” But she couldn’t resist adding, “Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Maybe another time. Next Saturday —”

“Amy, don’t you need to get to class?” I asked. “The bell’s about to ring. You’ll be late. Again.”

“Huh? Oh.” She nodded. “Right. Late. I’m always late. Late Amy. That’s what my teachers call me, so … Okay. Bye.”

She took off down the hallway. Ryder frowned after her, then he turned to me. “That was … different. Is she okay?”

“What? No. She’s always like that,” I lied.

“She is?” Ryder looked skeptical. “That didn’t seem like the Amy I know.”

“You don’t know her as well as you think.”

“Hmm.”

“Come on,” I said, eager to change the subject. “We should get to class, too.”