Lying Out Loud

But that didn’t stop us from becoming insanely, maybe unhealthily close. We were two halves of a whole. We needed each other for balance.

She kept me calm, put me at ease when I was freaking out.

Like when we were seven and I accidentally broke the arm off my favorite doll. My dad had just been arrested, and Ramona was the last gift he’d given me. As I sat there, on the verge of an all-out tantrum, Amy gently removed Ramona from my arms, retrieved some glue from her dad’s desk, and put the doll back together. Sure, her arm was a little crooked after that, but that was okay. Amy had, for the most part, solved the problem.

Meanwhile, I spoke up for her, got angry for her, when she was too scared or embarrassed to. Like when we were freshmen and this gross upperclassman named Randy smacked her ass in the hallway.

Amy was so upset and humiliated, and I was pissed on her behalf. So the next time I saw Randy, I threw him up against the wall and gave him a swift knee to the groin. Who cared if I was half his size? Hell hath no fury like a girl defending her bestie. I got two weeks in detention for that, but he never bothered Amy again, so it was worth it.

Amy and I needed each other. Neither of us really had other close friends. We were the type who were friendly with everyone — excluding Ryder Cross, of course — but I think most people felt sort of left out when they spent time with Amy and me. There was too much history, too many inside jokes, and, yeah, maybe our closeness was a little bit weird to some.

But we were okay with that. It was just us. So

Which was why I got a little panicked when I saw the stack of college applications sitting on her desk.

“Is it already time for these?” I asked, picking up a Cornell application.

“Yep. I got those from the guidance office today.” She’d just let me into the house after her parents had gone off to bed, so we had to keep our voices low.

“Wow.” I flipped through the stack. “Dartmouth, Stanford, Columbia … Very ambitious, Ms. Rush.”

“There are a few safety schools in there,” she said as she changed into her pajamas. “Have you thought about where you’re applying?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I figured I’d follow you wherever you were accepted and live under your bed in your dorm room.”

She laughed.

But I hadn’t exactly been kidding.

“You better start thinking about it,” she said. “These next few months are going to go fast. I know you get overwhelmed with paperwork —”

“False.”

She rolled her eyes. “You take three days to fill out a one-page job application.”

“I … like to be thorough.”

“Anyway,” she said. “I’d be glad to help you fill them out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll see.”

The truth was, I was sort of deliberately avoiding thoughts of college. Sure, I had decent grades (I was an AP student, after all), but I wasn’t going to be able to afford tuition. Especially not to the schools Amy was applying to. In just a few months, we’d be separated.

She’d be off at some Ivy League university, and I’d be stuck here.

And that terrified me.

I’d been avoiding it, pretending college was a long way away and I had no reason to worry about it yet, but we were seniors now, which meant it was time to start figuring my shit out.

I wasn’t ready to deal with it yet, though.

Maybe that’s why I got so enraged when Ryder hated on Hamilton, because I knew this place was going to be my home for a very, very long time. Whether I liked it or not.

Amy finished ru

I shook my head. All the college talk had gotten me too worked up to sleep. “I need to work on a paper. Mind if I use your computer?”

“Of course not. It’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the laptop and stepped out into the hallway. “Sleep tight.”

“See you in the morning.”

I’d barely gotten the laptop set up in the rec room when I heard a ping from the e-mail tab. I rolled my eyes, knowing before I even looked who was messaging me. Or Amy, rather.

“Not now, Ryder,” I mumbled. “Not in the mood.”

A minute later, there was another ping.

RYDER: How was your day?

RYDER: Are you done with that English paper yet?

I was determined to ignore him. After the way he’d talked to me in class that morning, he didn’t deserve my time. But five minutes later, there was another ping, and this time, I couldn’t ignore his message.

RYDER: So Pearl Jam is going to have a concert in Oak Hill.

ME: WHAT?!?! When? Where? Link????

RYDER: Ha. I knew that would get your attention.

I sighed, disappointed.

ME: Not cool.

RYDER: Sorry. I had to try.

ME: How did you know I like Pearl Jam?

RYDER: You love grunge, so I just thought of the most cliché grunge band I could. Other than Nirvana, of course.

ME: Wow. So now you’re calling me a cliché. Nice.

RYDER: You call me a hipster. It only seems fair.

He signed that one off with a smiley face.

ME: I’m a cliché, but you are the King of the Emoticons. Tell me, Ryder, how many selfies have you taken today?

RYDER: None. I don’t even have an Instagram.

ME: Hipster.

RYDER: I can’t win with you.

ME: This is probably true.

RYDER: That’s not going to stop me from trying.

Despite my better judgment, this made me smile.

And that was how I ended up chatting with Ryder — again — for most of the night.

RYDER: My mom is driving me insane.

ME: Welcome to adolescence. You’ll fit in well here.

RYDER: She won’t even let me watch the coverage of Dad’s campaign. It’s hard enough to find it anyway since he doesn’t represent this district, but if she hears one of his ads on my computer, she shouts at me to turn it off.

ME: Wow. Harsh.

RYDER: Hopefully I can get to DC for Thanksgiving next month. I’m desperate to get out of this stupid boring town.

ME: Again. Harsh.

RYDER: Sorry. I’m working on it.

ME: But I hope you are able to go back to DC. I’m sure your dad and your friends will be glad to see you.

I hated myself for keeping up the conversation. But as much as I wanted to despise him, Ryder was kind of being tolerable.

ME: So, you had a girlfriend in DC?

RYDER: Yeah. Eugenia.

ME: Whoa. Terrible name.

RYDER: It really, really is.

ME: So what happened?

RYDER: Nothing. We broke up when I moved and she’s already dating someone else. My best friend, actually.

ME: Oh. Ouch.

RYDER: I’m honestly not that upset about it. We dated for over a year, but it never really felt serious. More convenient than anything.

ME: So romantic.

RYDER: I don’t care that she started dating Aaron (my friend). That’s fine. I’m more upset that she and Aaron and everyone seem to have moved on without me so fast. They were the reasons I was upset to leave DC. They’ve been my friends since elementary school. And now, just a few months after leaving, I hardly hear from them. I get the occasional comment on my Facebook posts, but that’s it.

ME: Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, they suck.

RYDER: Ha.

RYDER: They don’t, really. That’s the worst part. I get it. It’s easy to drift apart. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if I’d actually managed to make friends here. If I’d moved on, too.

ME: Not to harp on this, but if you’d just ease up on the constant Hamilton bashing, you might be surprised how many friends you’d make.

RYDER: I know. I really am trying.