Four Truths and a Lie by Lauren Barnholdt

She’s twisting her hands nervously in her lap. “I don’t get to see him that much.”
    â€œThat sucks.” I can’t really relate. Having my dad shipped overseas sounds fine to me. We sit there for a second, which is kind of awkward. I mean, I don’t even know this girl, and she’s crying in front of me. I’m not exactly sure what to say, so I decide to try my hand at speaking Brookline-ese. Or, you know, whatever it would be called if Brookline had their own language. I hold up my science book. “Want to go to the library and study?”
    She looks surprised. “You’re studying now?”
    â€œWell, yeah,” I say. “Why not?”
    â€œWow, you must really want to get ahead on everything,” she says. She sounds impressed. “Usually people don’t start pulling all-nighters until at least the second week.”
    All-nighters? Who said anything about an all-nighter? And more importantly, why would someone stay up all night
studying?
I love staying up all night, but only to watch late movies, or to do something I can’t get away with during the day.
    â€œYeah, well,” I say, hoping I sound smart, and not like I just spent the afternoon sleeping in my bed.
    â€œLet me grab my stuff.” She scrambles out from under the steps, and returns two minutes later carrying the most enormous bookbag I’ve ever seen. It’s red and has wheels on the bottom—it looks kind of like the suitcase my dad takes when he goes on business trips.
    â€œWhat are all those books?” I ask her, hoping I don’t sound like I’m panicking.
    â€œSupplementals,” she says.
    â€œOh, right.” What are supplementals? Never heard of ’em. I roll my eyes like I just forgot what supplementals were for a second. A slip of the mind, la la la. “I just haven’t gotten mine yet.”
    She gives me a weird look. And that’s when I see it. The tip of
Match Me if You Can
sticking out of her bag. “Hey!” I say. “You like romance books.”
    â€œOh, not really.” Her face flushes and she pushes the book back down, but it’s too late.
    â€œAmber,” I say. “I know that flush. I’ve
had
that flush.” I reach into her bag and pull the book out, running my hand along the spine. “I love this one!”
    â€œOh, me too!” she says. “Have you read the sequel?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    She pulls another book out of her bag and hands it to me. “It’s really good.”
    â€œThanks.” I put it in my bag for later. Not that I’m going to have too much time for pleasure reading with all this homework, not to mention my nap schedule. But still. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
    â€œSure,” she says.
    â€œIs Crissa always so …” Hmm. What’s the right word? Mean? Stuck-up? Conceited?
    â€œType A?” Amber tries carefully.
    â€œYes!” I say. “Type A.” Type A is good. Very neutral-sounding.
    â€œWell,” she says, as we wheel through the dorm and out the door toward the library. “Not really. I mean, she’s always been super driven and all that, but this year it’s been worse.” She leans in close to me, her bag bumping me in the knee, and lowers her voice. “She had a breakup.”
    â€œA breakup?” I try to keep the interest out of my voiceas we walk across campus to McGinty Hall, where the library is. The air’s gotten a little cold, and I quicken my pace and keep my head down.
    â€œYeah.” Amber’s wheelie bag bumps over the pavement, the wheels screeching as it goes. “She was dating this guy James, from BAB, for like, all of last year. Their families are really good friends, she’s known him since she was a little kid. And then over the summer, she breaks up with him. Supposedly she was heartbroken.”
    â€œBAB?” What’s a BAB?
    â€œBrookline