“Who?”
I gave her a disappointed stare. “You should really listen to that nineties playlist I made you. You’d understand so many more of my references.”
Amy decided to ignore this and returned to the more important conversation. “I’m still not sure what you expect me to do,” she said. “How do we make Ryder think I’m wrong for him?”
“Well, first, I won’t IM him on your account again. And if he IMs you, you ignore him. Or say something rude.”
Amy grimaced, as if the idea of being rude, even to someone she disliked, was physically painful.
“Or you can ask me to say something rude. Whatever.”
“And what about in person?” she asked. “We go to school together. He thinks we’ve been talking this whole time — he’s already trying to hang out with me.”
“You blow him off,” I say. “Act flaky. Or self-absorbed.”
Even as I said it, I knew this was going to prove to be a challenge for Amy.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “You guys don’t have any classes together, anyway. But when he does come up to you, I’ll be your director. We’re pretty much together all the time as it is, and I know exactly what it takes to piss off Ryder Cross. I might as well have a PhD in it.”
“I’m still not sure …”
“Please, Amy.” I clasped my hands together and gave her the biggest, saddest eyes I could manage. “Please. I need this.”
“You really like him that much?” she asked.
“Yeah. I think I do.”
I was not a particularly romantic person. Up until now, I’d only ever had two crushes in my life. The first was my childish obsession with Amy’s brother. The second equally as unattainable crush was on Greg Johnson, the news anchor. A celebrity crush, if you will.
But Ryder was different. The fluttery feeling I got in my stomach wasn’t based on how he looked (though staring at him in history class was not entirely unpleasant) or just because he was nice to me (because he wasn’t always). My feelings for him had formed over the course of our instant message conversations — all of which had lasted hours. I’d never talked to anyone for hours before, aside from Amy. We’d just clicked. He was smart and surprisingly funny.
Even if he was also a pretentious hipster.
“You hated him a couple of weeks ago,” Amy said. “What if you change your mind about him again?”
“I won’t,” I assured her. “Believe me, Amy. He’s not the asshole we thought. I mean, he sort of is, but not exactly. Ugh. I know I sound crazy. Just tell me you’ll help. You have to.”
She looked down at her half-eaten lunch. “I guess I will. As long as it doesn’t go on too long —”
“Eee! Thank you!” I sprang across the table to throw my arms around her, my chest landing right in her plate of french fries. “I love you, I love you, I love you! You are my favorite human being, Amy Rush.” And with that, I planted a kiss right on her cheek.
She blushed, either pleased or embarrassed. Then she said, “Um … Mr. Buckley just walked into the cafeteria, and he’s giving us a very strange look. Probably because you’re on top of the table, so …”
I laughed and pushed myself up and away from her, easing back into my seat. “I’ve done weirder things in class. He’s used to it.”
“I don’t know if that’s something to brag about,” she said. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, no! Your shirt.”
“What?” I looked down.
Ketchup.
On my white shirt.
All over my boobs.
“Fan-freaking-tastic,” I said, even though I was laughing.
“Sorry,” Amy moaned. As if it was her fault I’d launched myself across the lunch table.
“It’s cool,” I said. “I’ll just tell everyone I’m dressed as a murder victim. I mean, we’re only a few days from Halloween. No one will think twice.”
The bell rang and we threw our trash out before heading to our third block classes.
“I have my gym clothes in my locker,” Amy said. “You could borrow that T-shirt. It might be a little stinky, but there’s no ketchup on it.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Maybe I’ll start a new trend.”
But my mind changed when I spotted Ryder heading down the hallway toward us. The reality of what I must look like hit me, and I was suddenly far less comfortable with it. I was supposed to be making a good impression, after all, and perhaps it wasn’t best to start off with a giant red splotch across my breasts.
I ducked into an alcove, dragging Amy with me. We pressed against the wall and stayed quiet as he walked by, alone.
He was always alone.
My heart ached for him a little, almost overriding my embarrassment.
Once he’d turned the next corner, heading toward the library, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Amy gave me a small, knowing smile.
“So …,” I said. “Yeah. About that stinky T-shirt.”
“How do I look?”
Amy squinted two very sleepy eyes at me. She wasn’t really supposed to be awake yet, but I was about to sneak out before her parents got up, and I needed her opinion on this crucial matter. So, with great effort, I’d shaken her out of sleep to show her the outfit I’d chosen. Jeans, newly clean and a little snug, and a hunter-green cowl-neck sweater with elbow-length sleeves.
It was the only nice top I’d brought to Amy’s with me, and I’d been saving it for special occasions or, now that I was unemployed, job interviews. Interviews that, to my intense distress, had not yet occurred. It was my good-impression top, and today I needed to make a damn good impression.
“I don’t think you’ve ever asked me that question before,” Amy said.
“Well, I’m asking you now.” I glanced at the full-length mirror that hung on the back of her bedroom door. My curls, despite my best efforts, were still a little wild, but they weren’t too outrageous. “I’ve got to be friendly with Ryder today, and Snobby McSnobberson won’t be so willing if I look like the homeless ruffian that I am.”
“It’s too early for you to use words like ‘ruffian,’” Amy mumbled. She stretched her arms over her head and let out a huge yawn. “And if he’s so snobby, why are you doing this?”
“Because he’s cute and I want to kiss his face.”
“Right.”
“The problem is, he wants to kiss your face. So today is the beginning of our master plan to change that. Which means I need to look decent, so … how do I look?”
“Like a back-to-school clothing commercial.”
“Perfect.” I picked up my backpack, gave my hair one last check, and grinned at Amy. “Today, it begins.”
“Mm-hm.” She flopped back on the bed, eyes already closed.
I hurried out of the Rushes’ house and down the street to where Gert waited. And, to my relief, she decided to run that morning.
I arrived at school with enough time to pop into the bathroom and give myself one more once-over before heading to Mr. Buckley’s class. I was feeling uncharacteristically nervous.
I might have had a major crush on Ryder, but he still couldn’t stand me. Which meant I had to ease him into it. If I could get him to tolerate me, it would only be a matter of time before he realized that I, not Amy, was the person he wanted to make out with.
This was the most crucial step of the plan, and I couldn’t afford to screw it up.
The classroom was almost full by the time I slid into my seat behind Ryder. He didn’t even look up as I walked past.
“Good morning,” I said.
No response. But that wasn’t a surprise.
I’d gone over and over the words I wanted to say to him, the phrasing I’d use to convince him to hear me out. But staring at the back of his head, at the hunched muscles in his shoulders, I felt myself start to panic. What if it just went down like last time? What if he didn’t let me get a word out? What if I made him hate me even more?
What if this was all just a waste o
f time?
Before I could climb out of the doom spiral I’d begun to sink into, the bell rang and Mr. Buckley appeared.
“So,” he said, walking to the whiteboard. “Who wants to talk about the Tudors?”
I sank back into my seat, the moment lost. I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Ryder again until the end of class, and that was only if he didn’t rush out, in a hurry to get to his next class. The boy did put a lot of emphasis on punctuality.
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.
Lying Out Loud Page 6