Answer: Really freaking far.

What the hell was I going to do? I hadn’t heard back from any of the jobs I’d applied for, I had no money, and when Amy left for college, I’d essentially be homeless. It wasn’t as if I could keep sneaking into her parents’ house.

Needless to say, I was already feeling a bit depressed and a little lonely when I heard the ping.

“Not falling for it this time, Ryder,” I mumbled.

Ping.

Nope.

Ping.

“Damn it.”

I told myself I was just going to log out of Amy’s e-mail. I told myself I wasn’t going to look at the message. But, as we’ve established, I am a liar, even when I’m talking to myself.

RYDER: Hey, Amy, are you there?

RYDER: I’m sorry. It’s late, and you’re probably not even near your computer. But I just found something out and I need to talk to someone. You were the only person I could think of.

RYDER: Sorry. Never mind.

As much as I wanted to ignore him, I couldn’t. There was something sort of desperate in those messages that I couldn’t just walk away from.

To my surprise, I was … concerned. About Ryder Cross.

ME: Hey, I’m here. What’s going on? Are you okay?

RYDER: Not really.

RYDER: Do you have a few minutes?

I should’ve said no. I should’ve logged off.

But my own loneliness — mixed with my concern and curiosity — got the better of me.

ME: I’ve got all night.

I closed out the other Internet tabs, almost glad for the distraction. I couldn’t keep thinking about Amy leaving me for college. I wanted to go back to covering my ears and pretending it wasn’t happening. And if my only distraction was Ryder, so be it.

RYDER: My friend Aaron called me tonight. I knew something was up when I saw his name on my phone. He hasn’t called me in over a month.

ME: This is the one who’s dating your ex-girlfriend, right? The girl with the terrible name?

RYDER: Right, but it wasn’t about that.

RYDER: He was calling because he saw my dad, and he wanted to warn me.

ME: Warn you about what?

RYDER: He saw my dad leaving our house (Aaron lives next door) with this woman.

RYDER: This model.

He sent a link to a Google Images page, and I clicked it. My screen filled with dozens of shots of a beautiful brunette — Annalise Stone. She was a runway model from New York and only a few years older than Ryder and me.

ME: Wow. She’s pretty.

ME: Wait. Do you think he’s seeing her?

RYDER: Why else would she be leaving our house?

I wanted to make some sort of joke in response to this question, but I got the sense that this wasn’t the appropriate time.

ME: I don’t understand. I thought he didn’t want to divorce your mom.

RYDER: That’s what I thought, too. So I asked her.

RYDER: She didn’t want to tell me, but apparently that’s why she left. Because he’s been seeing this woman for a while.

ME: He’s been cheating?

RYDER: Yeah.

RYDER: But he refuses to give Mom a divorce because he thinks it’ll hurt his chances in the election in a couple of weeks.

ME: Well, so will sneaking around with a model half his age.

RYDER: I’m guessing he’s trying to keep that secret. But if Aaron could find out, the other candidates could, too.

ME: I’m sorry, Ryder.

And I was. I knew just how fraught with disappointment parental relationships could be. And how fucking much it could hurt when the people who raised you let you down.

RYDER: I feel like an idiot.

ME: Why???

RYDER: This whole time I’ve been blaming my mom. I’ve thought of her as selfish and cold. In reality, she was trying to keep me from hating Dad. No matter how much he hurt her.

ME: That doesn’t make you an idiot.

RYDER: Maybe not, but worshipping Dad does. I’ve been thinking he was this saint. Even when I couldn’t get him on the phone, I made excuses for him.

ME: He’s your dad. No one blames you for loving him.

RYDER: Maybe they should.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I hadn’t spoken to my own father in years, and my mom … well, I was hardly the person to give advice on the subject.

Luckily, Ryder saved me from having to come up with a reply.

RYDER: Sorry. This conversation got incredibly emo incredibly fast. Quick, say something funny.

ME: Something funny.

RYDER: Ha.

RYDER: You’re such a riot.

ME: I know. I should really do stand-up.

RYDER: I’d pay to see that.

ME: I bet you would. Getting tickets to my shows will be nearly impossible. The critics will love me. I’ll be known as the funniest comedian to ever come out of Hamilton.

RYDER: Do you really have any competition in that regard?

ME: Probably not.

RYDER: I didn’t think so.

ME: … You’re not an idiot, Ryder. You don’t have anything to feel bad about. Your dad does.

RYDER: Thank you.

RYDER: For listening, I mean. Or reading? Anyway, I mean it. When I found out, you were the only person I actually wanted to talk to.

RYDER: That probably sounds ridiculous.

ME: No, it doesn’t. I’m flattered, actually.

ME: And the feeling’s mutual.

I hated admitting it, but I’d been thinking about our other IM conversations a lot, too. When I noticed The Parent Trap was on TV, I’d wanted to message him. When I got an old Nirvana song stuck in my head, I’d wanted to send him the link to the video.

It was absurd, especially considering the fact that I’d wanted little more than to strangle him less than a week ago. But I couldn’t deny it. Something about Ryder Cross had gotten to me, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling of not hating him.

Of maybe sort of liking him.

RYDER: I’m glad to hear that, Amy.

Amy.

Damn it. I’d done it again. I’d actually let myself forget. He thought I was Amy. He wasn’t opening up to me but to her. Because while I maybe sort of liked Ryder, he maybe sort of hated me.

I should have told him the truth right then. I know I should have. I should’ve typed out something like, Yeah, about that. This is actually Sonny. Sorry for the confusion. But I didn’t want to make him feel weird or embarrassed after opening up about his parents.

So I decided to wait.

RYDER: By the way, I watched The Parent Trap.

ME: YOU DID?!?!

RYDER: Don’t start with the shouting again. Ha-ha.

RYDER: It was on TV on Saturday, and since I have yet to develop a social life here …

ME: And?

ME: AND???

RYDER: It was okay.

ME: Just okay?

RYDER: Just okay.

ME: Our friendship is over. Done. Kaput. I can’t associate with anyone who doesn’t love The Parent Trap.

RYDER: So we’re friends, then?

I chewed on my lower lip, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Were we friends? No. No, we couldn’t be. Not when we’d only really had two pleasant conversations before tonight. Not when he thought I was someone else.

But it felt like we were.

ME: Well, we were until you expressed your incorrect opinion of a film classic.

RYDER: It was the Lindsay Lohan version.

ME: Still a classic!

RYDER: I take it back, then. The film was brilliant.

RYDER: So we can be friends now?

I hesitated before replying. Because what I was about to say wasn’t the right answer.

ME: Yes.

RYDER: Good.

ME: Good.

But the closer Ryder and I got online, the more we seemed to argue in real life. Every day, he said something entirely asshole-ish, which, of course, I had to call him out on. It was so commonplace now that Mr. Buckley seemed resigned to letting us fight it out.

But whenever anyone else said something rude to or about Ryder, I felt a little defensive on his behalf. Like, it was okay for me to mock him, but no one else. Because unlike them, I knew the other side of Ryder.

Even if he didn’t realize it.

Not that I hadn’t tried to tell the truth. Twice I’d attempted to IM him from my account to explain, and both times he’d logged off immediately. So that was a bust.

But pretty much any time I was on Amy’s account, he’d message me. And a couple of times, I was the one who started the conversation.

ME: Do you watch the local news?