Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

Andrew shrugged. ‘You seem to have a lot going on. Your sister’s home, right?’

Spencer leaned back in her chair and drew her bottom lip into her mouth. ‘Yeah, she just got home last night. How’d you know tha—’

She stopped. Wait a second. Andrew drove his Mini up and down her street all the time. She’d seen him just yesterday, when she was at the mailbox getting her test scores . . .

She swallowed hard. Now that she thought about it, she might have seen his black Mini drive by the day she and Wren were in the hot tub together. He must’ve been driving it up and down her street a lot to notice Melissa was home. What if... what if Andrew was the one skulking around spying on her? What if Andrew wrote that creepy ‘covet’ e-mail? Andrew was so competitive it seemed possible. Wouldn’t sending threatening messages be a good way to throw someone off her game and make it easier to be reelected as next year’s class president . . . or, even better, beat out his competition for valedictorian? And the long hair! Maybe she’d seen him in Ali’s old window?

Unbelievable! Spencer stared at Andrew incredulously.

‘Is something wrong?’ Andrew asked, looking concerned.

‘I have to go.’ She gathered up her books and walked out of the reading room.

‘Wait,’ Andrew called.

Spencer kept going. But as she pushed through the library doors, she realized that she didn’t feel enraged. Sure, it was bizarre that Andrew was spying on her, but if Andrew was A, Spencer was safe. Whatever Andrew thought he had on her, it was nothing . . . nothing . . . compared to what Alison knew.

She reached the door to the commons – coming in at the same time was Emily Fields.

‘Hey,’ Emily said. A nervous look crossed her face.

‘Hey,’ Spencer answered.

Emily readjusted her Nike backpack. Spencer pushed her bangs off her face. When was the last time she’d spoken to Emily?

‘It got cold out, huh?’ Emily asked.

Spencer nodded. ‘Yeah.’

Emily smiled in that I-don’t-know-what-to-say-to-you way. Then Tracey Reid, another swimmer, grabbed Emily’s arm. ‘When is our swimsuit money due?’ she asked.

As Emily answered, Spencer wiped some nonexistent dirt off her blazer and wondered if she could just walk away or if she had to say a formal good-bye. Then something on Emily’s wrist caught her eye. Emily was still wearing her blue string bracelet from sixth grade. Alison had made them for everyone right after the accident – The Jenna Thing – happened.

Initially, they’d just wanted to get Jenna’s brother, Toby; it was supposed to be a prank. After the five of them planned it, Ali went across the street to watch through Toby’s tree house window, and then when it happened, it did something . . . horrible . . . to Jenna.

After the ambulance pulled away from Jenna’s house, Spencer discovered something about the accident none of the other girls ever found out: Toby saw Ali, but Ali saw Toby doing something just as bad. He couldn’t tell on her, because then she’d tell on him.

Not long after, Ali made everyone the bracelets to remind them they were best friends forever and now that they shared a secret like this, they had to protect one another forever. Spencer waited for Ali to tell the others that someone saw her, but she never did.

When the cops questioned Spencer after Ali went missing, they asked if Ali had any enemies, anyone who hated her so much they might want to hurt her. Spencer said that Ali was a popular girl, and like any popular girl, there were some girls who didn’t like her, but it was just jealousy.

That, of course, was a bold-faced lie. There were people who hated Ali, and Spencer knew she should tell the police what Ali told her about The Jenna Thing . . . that maybe Toby wanted to hurt Ali . . . but how could she tell them that without telling them why? Spencer couldn’t get through a day without passing Toby and Jenna’s house on her street. But they’d been sent away to boarding school and hardly ever came home, so she thought their secret was safe. They were safe from Toby. And Spencer was safe from ever having to tell her best friends what she alone knew.

As Tracey Reid said good-bye, Emily turned around. She seemed surprised Spencer was still standing there. ‘I’ve got to get to class,’ she said. ‘Good to see you, though.’

‘Bye,’ Spencer answered, and she and Emily exchanged one last awkward smile.

‘You guys are looking lazy. I want to see better form!’ Coach Lauren yelled at them from the deck.

On Thursday afternoon, Emily bobbed with the other swimmers in the crystal blue water of Rosewood’s Anderson Memorial Natatorium, listening to their youngish, former-Olympian coach, Lauren Kinkaid, scream at them. The pool was twenty-five yards wide, fifty yards long, with a small diving well. Huge skylights mirrored the length of the pool, so when you did backstrokes in the evening, you could look up and see the stars.

Emily held on to the wall and pulled her cap over her ears. Okay, better form. She needed to really concentrate today.

Last night, after getting back from the creek with Maya, she’d lain on her bed for a long time, flip-flopping from feeling warm and happy about the fun she and Maya had had . . . to feeling uneasy and antsy about Maya’s confession. I’m not sure I like guys. I think I’d like someone more like me. Did Maya mean what Emily thought she meant?

Thinking about how giddy Maya had been at the waterfall – not to mention how much they’d tickled and touched each other – Emily felt nervous. After getting home last night, she’d rifled through her swimming bag for that note from A from the day before. She read it over and over again, picking apart every word until her eyes blurred.

By dinnertime, Emily decided she needed to throw herself back into swimming. No more skipped practices. No more slacking. From now on, she’d be the model swimmer girl.

Ben paddled over to her and put his hands on the wall. ‘I missed you yesterday.’

‘Mmmm.’ She should make a new start with Ben, too. With his freckles, piercing blue eyes, slightly stubbly jaw, and beautifully chiseled swimmer’s body, he was hot, right? She tried to imagine Ben jumping off the Marwyn trail bridge. Would he laugh or think it was immature?

‘So where were you?’ Ben asked, blowing on his goggles to defog them.

‘Tutoring for Spanish.’

‘Wanna come over to my house after practice? My parents won’t be home till eight.’

‘I . . . I’m not sure if I can.’ Emily pushed away from the wall and started to tread water. She stared down at her blurrily pumping legs and feet.

‘Why not?’ Ben pushed off the wall to join her.

‘Because . . .’ She couldn’t come up with an excuse.

‘You know you want to,’ Ben whispered. He took some water into his hands and began splashing her. Maya had done the same thing yesterday, but this time Emily jerked away.

Ben stopped splashing. ‘What?’

‘Don’t.’

Ben put his hands around her waist. ‘No? You don’t like to get splashed?’ he asked in a baby voice.

She took his hands off her. ‘Don’t.’

He backed away. ‘Fine.’

Sighing, Emily floated over to the other side of the lane. She liked Ben, she really did. Maybe she should just go over to Ben’s after swimming. They’d watch TiVo’ed episodes of American Chopper, eat pizza delivered from DiSilvio’s, and he’d feel underneath her unsexy sports bra. Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes. She really didn’t want to sit on Ben’s itchy blue basement couch, picking oregano spices out of her teeth and rolling her tongue around the inside of his mouth. She just didn’t.

She wasn’t the kind of girl who could fake things. But did that mean she wanted to break up? It was hard to make up your mind about a boy when he was right in your swimming lane, four feet away.

Her sister Carolyn, who was practicing in the lane next to her, tapped Emily on the shoulder. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yeah,’ Emily mumbled, grabbing a blue kickboard.

‘Okay.’ Carolyn looked as if she wanted to say more. After her trip with Maya to the creek yesterday, Emily had skidded the Volvo into the parking lot just in time to see Carolyn exiting the natatorium’s double doors. When Carolyn asked where Emily had been, Emily had told her she had to tutor for Spanish. It seemed like Carolyn believed her, despite Emily’s damp hair and the funny ticky noise the car was making – something it did only when it was cooling down from a drive.

Even though the sisters looked alike – both had broad freckles over their noses, chlorine-bleached reddish brown hair, and had to wear a lot of Maybelline Great Lash to lengthen their stubby lashes – and even though they shared a room, they weren’t close. Carolyn was a quiet, demure, and obedient girl, and although Emily was all those things too, Carolyn seemed really satisfied to be that way.

Coach Lauren blew the whistle. ‘Kicking time! Line up!’

The swimmers lined up from fastest to slowest, kick-boards in front of them. Ben was in front of Emily. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

‘I can’t come over tonight,’ she said quietly, so the other boy swimmers – who were crowded around behind her and laughing at Gemma Curran’s fake tan gone wrong – couldn’t hear. ‘Sorry.’

Ben’s mouth flattened into a straight line. ‘Yeah. As if that’s a surprise.’ Then, as Lauren blew the whistle, he pushed off the wall and began dolphin-kicking. Uneasy, Emily waited until Lauren blew the whistle again, and pushed off behind him.

As she swam, Emily stared at Ben’s pumping legs. It was so dorky how he wore a cap over his already-short hair. He got so OCD before races, too, shaving off every hair on his body, including the ones on his arms and legs. Now, his feet made exaggeratedly huge splashes, which sprayed right into Emily’s face. She glared at his head bobbing in front of her and pumped her legs harder.

Even though she’d left five seconds behind him, Emily reached the opposite wall at almost the same time Ben did. He turned to her, pissed. Swim team etiquette dictated that no matter how big a swimming star you were, if someone caught your feet on a set, you let them go ahead of you. But Ben just pushed back off the wall.

‘Ben!’ Emily called, the irritation in her voice showing.

He stood up in the shallow end and turned around. ‘What?’

‘Let me go in front of you.’

Ben rolled his eyes and ducked back underwater.

Emily shoved off the wall and kicked crazily until she caught up to him. He reached the wall and turned to face her.

‘Would you stay off my ass?’ he practically yelled.

Emily burst out laughing. ‘You’re supposed to let me go!’

‘Maybe if you didn’t leave right on top of me you would-n’t be on top of me.’

She snorted. ‘I can’t help it if I’m faster than you.’

Ben’s mouth fell open. Oops.

Emily licked her lips. ‘Ben . . .’

‘No.’ He held up his hand. ‘Just go swim really fast, okay?’ He tossed his goggles onto the deck. They bounced awkwardly and landed back in the water, narrowly missing Gemma’s fake-tanned shoulder.

‘Ben . . .’

He glared at her, then turned and got out of the pool. ‘Whatever.’

Emily watched him angrily push open the boys’ locker room door.

She shook her head, watching the door slowly swing back and forth. Then she remembered the thing Maya said yesterday.

‘Fuck a moose,’ she tried out quietly, and smiled.

‘So are you coming over tonight?’ Hanna switched her BlackBerry to her other ear and waited for Sean’s answer.

It was Thursday after school. She and Mona had just met for a quick cappuccino on campus, but Mona had to leave early to practice her drive for the mother/daughter golf tournament she was competing in this weekend. Now, Hanna sat on her front porch, talking to Sean and watching the six-year-old twins next door draw surprisingly anatomically correct naked boys in chalk all over their driveway.

‘I can’t,’ Sean answered. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘But Thursday is Nerve night; you know that!’

Hanna and Sean were hooked on this reality show Nerve, which documented the lives of four couples who’d met online. Tonight’s episode was extremely important, because their favorite two characters, Nate and Fiona, were about to do it. Hanna thought it might at least start a conversation.