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working, not even glancing back at me.
    Okay, so maybe this would be harder than I’d thought.
    “So, uh … I need to talk to you about something. The other night —”
    Suddenly, Ryder spun around in his seat, facing me. But the look on his face was less than kind. His eyes were narrowed and cold. Even in all our bickering, he’d never looked this pissed. I was so surprised that I sat up straight.
    “The other night,” he said. “You mean that e-mail I received?”
    “Um …”
    “Because I know that wasn’t all Amy,” he said.
    “No, it wasn’t. But, Ryder —”
    “For the life of me, I can’t understand why she’d be friends with someone like you, Sonny.”
    No, this definitely wasn’t going as planned. I gritted my teeth. “Will you just shut up and listen to me for a second?”
    “I’m done listening to you,” he snapped. “Despite everything you’ve said, Amy and I have a connection. We chatted online all night after that ridiculous e-mail.”
    “I’m aware,” I muttered.
    “She’s funny and smart and beautiful …”
    I rolled my eyes. Because of course. Of course he mentioned how beautiful she is.
    “And you,” he said, glaring at me. “You’re just a …”
    I waited, knowing what he was going to say. A bitch. Amy was funny and smart and beautiful, and I, Sonny, was just a bitch.
    But he didn’t say it. He just shook his head, turned back around in his seat, and mumbled something. I don’t think he meant me to hear it, but I did.
    “And you’re not good enough for her.”
    My fists clenched beneath my desk. “Yeah?” I said. “Well, neither are you.”
    Just then, Mr. Buckley walked in the room, putting a stop to any snappy retort Ryder might have thrown at me next.
    Fuck it, I thought. I’d been wrong. Ryder was an asshole. That all-night chat had clearly been a fluke, and there was no point telling him the truth about it. Even if he let me get a word out, he wouldn’t believe me. Or it would just piss him off even more.
    So I got my textbook and went right back to hating Ryder Cross.

I don’t know how I met Amy Rush. I’d love to tell you this charming story about how we bonded over a shared box of crayons in preschool or something — and who knows, maybe we did — but I can’t remember. That’s how long ago it was.
    I know we were young, three or four, maybe. It was before my dad was arrested for the first time. He used to drive me to her house for playdates on the weekends. Dad told me I could invite Amy over, too, if I wanted, but I never did.
    Because even as a little kid, I was embarrassed. At that point, my parents and I were living in a trailer out on the edge of Hamilton. And Amy lived in a mansion. Plus, there was my mom, who, I was convinced, would forget to make us dinner or something. I didn’t want Amy to see where I lived. I guess there have always been parts of my life I kept hidden, even from her.
    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