Her eyes, his lies

Chapter 20

Ryder was stretched out on the field, his shirt once more missing. The hard angles of his body shone with sweat underneath the afternoon sun, and his football cleats had been taken off and placed next to him.

Jane could stare at the sight for hours. Indeed, she had, though through the monochrome eyes of the camera overlooking the football field.

Victoria had sent her a message, informing Jane that Ryder had been looking for her. The idea had sent Jane's heart beating for two very different reasons, the first of which being that she still hadn't returned his phone, and it was likely that he suspected her.

The second, on the other hand, was because of a sudden rush of warmth in her gut. An unconscious thrill that vaguely resembled the buzz she felt when hacking.

Despite herself, she found that she wanted to see Ryder again. Mysterious contents of SecretNoteZ aside, she had a sense that he had been partially truthful on their date. It hadn't been all lies, as she had suspected. Her thorough search of his phone had proven that.

And so she found herself striding across the field, laptop rhythmically bouncing against her hip, with one pale hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

She could see that Ryder's eyes were closed as she approached his prone form, an expression of peace on his face.

"Ryder?" she asked, crouching next to him.

His eyes opened slowly, the green of his irises complementing the trimmed grass around them. He smiled at her sheepishly.

"Hey, wait- before you say anything, I just-... I'm sorry, about last night. Whatever I did, I'm really sorry." His apologies rang with the peal of truth, a conviction that seemed to come from his heart. She almost felt bad for making him feel that way.

Jane exhaled as she glanced down at him, bemused. And here she was, preparing to apologize to Ryder instead. It seems he had gotten there first.

"Ryder, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong, I just panicked," she said. It was true for the most part.

He rose to a sitting position, the muscles on his abdomen growing taut from the motion. Jane found her eyes tracing the subtle lines between them, transfixed.

"Are you sure?" he asked, searching her face.

"Yeah. Promise," she replied.

Jane, hands on the grass, took a seat next to him. Their shoulders bumped as she lowered herself to the ground.

"Beatrice was going to look for you. My dad ordered her to interrogate the kids at school," Ryder said.

High above, the blue expanse of the sky was marred by a pair of contrails, like white streaks on a blank canvas.

Jane chewed her lower lip. "Why? What's wrong? Do they suspect how much I know?"

"You never explained how you found everything out," Ryder said, countering her questions. "In fact, how did you even find me? Victoria wouldn't say."

Jane was watching him closely, though the back of her mind was churning as it always did. She was in a minefield with clown shoes on. If she wasn't careful, things could go very wrong. If she misjudged Ryder, this could mean the end for her.

"Before I tell you that, give me the code to your SecretNoteZ," she said.

There. All the cards were on the table, it seemed. The lies between them. The shadows that separated Ryder from Jane, somehow felt incredibly vast, and yet so tiny. The obstacle to their feelings for each other.

Ryder's expression tightened somewhat, though one eyebrow raised in an amused half-grin. "I knew it. You did take my phone."

Jane nodded, tense. A bead of sweat ran down Ryder's forehead and into his eyes. He blinked it away.