Lying Out Loud

Maybe getting away from it all, taking this trip with Wesley and Bianca, would be good for us.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m coming.”

Bianca smiled at me.

“Excellent,” Wesley said, a twinkle in his eyes. “Someone will have to keep Amy occupied while Bianca and I sneak off to —”

“Ew!” Amy and I both shrieked.

“Perv,” Bianca said, but she was laughing.

“I was going to say to go hiking,” Wesley said, all mock i

“Sure. Whatever you say.” Bianca popped the last fry into her mouth. “Now can we go? I’m almost twenty-one. I feel like a creepy old lady in here.”

On our way out, I risked a glance over at Amy. She caught me and gave a small smile. It wasn’t fake, but it wasn’t quite real either.

I told myself I would fix it. That a few days in the mountains would bring us closer again.

Unfortunately, things got worse before they got better.

“Hey, So

I looked up from the suitcase I was packing to find Amy standing in the doorway of the guest room. There was a sweater slung over her shoulder and a pair of boots in her hand, and I knew she must’ve been packing, too. We were set to leave for Te

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering if I could get my phone back from you?” she asked. “Now that you have one, I figure you don’t need mine anymore.”

“Oh, right.” I stood up and glanced around, trying to remember where I’d left it. “I’m sorry. I completely forgot to give that back.”

“No big deal. It’s not like I missed any calls.”

I found it in the pocket of some dirty jeans, wadded up on the floor. I held the phone out to her and she took it with her free hand.

“Thanks,” she said. “Are you almost done packing?”

“Yep. Got everything but my toothbrush.”

“Definitely don’t forget that.”

“Amy, are you saying I have bad morning breath?” I asked, feigning insult. “I’m devastated.”

She gave a little giggle, but I noticed she didn’t deny my accusation either. “I’m looking forward to this,” she said. “This trip, I mean. I think it’ll be good to get out of Hamilton for a few days. Just the four of us, you know? No school. No distractions.”

No Ryder.

She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. I knew what she was thinking.

“Me, too,” I said.

“Well, I should finish packing. Thanks for the phone.”

“Yeah. No problem.”

When she was gone, I went back to my suitcase and began to zip it shut. I’d only moved the zipper a couple inches when I heard the little trill from down the hall. The familiar sound of a text message coming through on Amy’s phone.

Amy’s phone.

Amy never got text messages.

Except from Ryder.

Then I realized with horror that I hadn’t deleted the last few text messages we’d sent. They were from a few days ago — before Christmas, before our almost-kiss in his car — and, to make matters worse, they were of the sexier variety.

“Oh, shit!”

I jumped to my feet and sprinted down the hall, flinging open Amy’s bedroom door.

But it was too late.

She was holding the phone, staring down at the screen with wide eyes.

“Amy,” I said slowly, my heart racing.

She looked up at me, her shock melting into an expression I’d rarely seen her wear.

Fury.

“You’ve been texting him?” she asked. “You’ve been texting him these messages and pretending to be me?”

“I can explain,” I said. Because that’s what everyone said in a situation like this. In reality, though, I didn’t even have a good lie to cover my ass.

“I don’t think you can,” she said. Her voice was so calm, so quiet, that it sent chills up my spine. The sharp contrast between her tone and her blazing eyes was terrifying. “You were supposed to be making him not like me. You were supposed to be scaring him off so he’d like you. So we could be done with this. But all this time you’ve been …” She looked down at the phone again. “He thinks I sent these?”

“Amy …”

She threw the phone on the bed and turned away from me. “I have to finish packing.”

“Amy, I’m —”

“Just go, So

It was the first time she’d ever kicked me out of her room. Before it had been my choice, my decision to give her space. But this time …

This time she was telling me to leave.

And she had every right to.

Because I’d really fucked up this time.

Chapter 19

It was an almost-seven-hour drive from Hamilton to Bianca’s grandfather’s cabin in Te

And it was possibly the most painful seven hours of my life.

Though I would say the feeling was mutual for everyone in the car, for one reason or another.

To start with, Wesley insisted on taking the Porsche.

“There are four of us,” Bianca argued. We were standing outside the Rushes’ house the next morning, ready to go.

Amy hadn’t said a word to me since she’d kicked me out of her room the night before.

“There are four seats,” Wesley said.

“Are you actually counting that backseat as a seat?” Bianca asked. “Because, having sat back there before, I’d beg to differ.”

“Well, we can’t take your car,” he said, picking up her duffel bag and tossing it into the trunk. Although, is it called a trunk when it’s at the front of the car? I was really confused about this, but it didn’t seem like the appropriate time to ask. “You still haven’t gotten that heater fixed. And I know So

“What about Amy’s car?” Bianca asked.

Wesley put the last bag into the trunk and, with what seemed like great effort, shut the hood. “Too late,” he said. “We’re already packed.”

Bianca groaned. “You’re such an ass.”

“An ass with a nice car.”

“A nice, impractical car.”

“And having a broken heater for three years is practical?”

“I’m hardly ever home to drive the thing!”

I glanced over at Amy, who — rather pointedly, if I may say so — did not look at me.

Since Bianca and I were the vertically challenged members of this foursome, we were placed in the, as previously noted, tiny-as-hell backseat. My knees were cramping within ten minutes, and we had a long way to go.

And in a car that small, there was no hiding the tension between two best friends who were not on speaking terms. Particularly when the other two passengers were of a bantering nature.

“Oh my God, Wesley,” Bianca said. “We are not listening to this shit all the way to Te

“Billy Joel is hardly ‘shit,’ thank you.”

“I like Billy Joel, but not seven hours of Billy Joel.” Bianca turned to me. “He’s been obsessed with ‘New York State of Mind’ for months. I can’t anymore. So

But Amy just shrugged, and I felt too weird arguing with either Bianca or Wesley, even if it was in jest. My gut was telling me to keep my mouth shut for once. At least around Amy. My foolish hope was that if I was quiet long enough, she’d cool down about last night’s little discovery. I didn’t want to fan the flames by saying something unintentionally infuriating.

“Silence?” Wesley asked. “Really? From you two?”

“Seriously,” Bianca said. “Are you guys okay?”

“I’m fine,” Amy said. But there was that little inflection, that slightly clipped tone, that told me she definitely wasn’t.