Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

‘Good.’ Her father took another sip of coffee and left the table.

Melissa made a small squeak and pushed back her chair. She sobbed the whole way up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

‘Wren left last night,’ Mr. Hastings said as he paused in the doorway. ‘We won’t be hearing from him, ever again. And if you know what’s best for you, you won’t talk about him ever again.’

‘Of course,’ Spencer mumbled, and set her head down on the cool oak table.

‘Good.’

Spencer kept her head firmly on the table, breathing yoga fire breaths and waiting for someone to come back and tell her that everything would be okay. Nobody did. Outside, she heard an ambulance siren screaming in the distance. It sounded like it was coming toward the house.

Spencer sat up. Oh God. What if Melissa had . . . hurt herself? She wouldn’t, would she? The sirens howled, coming closer. Spencer shoved back her chair.

Holy shit. What had she done?

‘Melissa!’ she yelled, running to the stairs.

‘You’re a whore!’ came a voice. ‘You’re a fucking whore!’

Spencer slumped back against the railing. Well, then. It seemed Melissa was just fine, after all.

Emily biked furiously away from Aria’s house, narrowly missing a jogger on the side of the road. ‘Watch it!’ he yelled.

As she passed a neighbor walking two huge Great Danes, Emily made a decision. She had to go to Maya’s. It was the only answer. Maybe Maya had meant it in a nice way, like she was just returning the note after Emily told her about Alison last night. Maybe Maya wanted to mention the letter last night but, for whatever reason, she didn’t. Maybe the A was really an M?

Besides, she and Maya had tons of other stuff to talk about – besides the note. Try everything that happened at the party. Emily closed her eyes, remembering. She could practically smell Maya’s banana gum and feel the soft contours of her mouth. Opening her eyes, she swerved away from the curb.

Okay, they definitely needed to work that out. But what did Emily want to say?

I loved it.

No. Of course she wouldn’t say that. She would say, We should just be friends. She was going back to Ben, after all.

If he’d have her. She wanted to rewind time, to go back to being the Emily who was happy with her life, who her parents were happy with. The Emily who only worried about her breaststroke reach and her algebra homework.

Emily pedaled past Myer Park, where she and Ali used to swing for hours. They tried to pump together in unison, and when they were completely even, Ali always called out, ‘We’re married!’ Then they’d squeal and jump off at the same time.

But what if Maya hadn’t put that note on her bike? When Emily asked Aria if Ali had told her Emily’s secret, Aria had replied, ‘What, recently?’ Why would Aria say that? Unless . . . unless Aria knew something. Unless Ali was back.

Was that possible?

Emily skidded through the gravel. No, that was crazy. Her mother still exchanged holiday cards with Mrs. DiLaurentis; she would’ve heard if Ali had returned. Back when Ali vanished, it was on the news 24/7. These days, her parents usually had on CNN while they ate breakfast. It would surely be a top story again.

Still, it was thrilling to consider. Every night for almost a year after Ali’s disappearance, Emily had asked her Magic 8 Ball if Alison would come back. Although it sometimes said, Wait and see, it never, ever said, No. She made bets with herself, too: If two kids get on the school bus today wearing red shirts, she would whisper to herself, Ali is okay. If they’re serving pizza at lunch, Ali’s not dead. If Coach makes us practice starts and turns, Ali will come back. Nine times out of ten, according to Emily’s little superstitions, Ali was on her way back to them.

Maybe she’d been right all along.

She pumped uphill and around a sharp turn, narrowly avoiding a stone Revolutionary War battle memorial sign. If Ali was back, what would that mean for Emily’s friendship with Maya? She sort of doubted she could have two best friends . . . two best friends she felt so similarly about. She wondered what Ali would even think of Maya. What if they hated each other?

I loved it.

We should just be friends.

She swept past the beautiful farmhouses, crumbling stone inns, and gardeners’ pickups parked on the road’s shoulder. She used to bike this exact route to Ali’s house; the last time, in fact, had been before the kiss. Emily hadn’t planned to kiss Ali before she came; something had come over her in the heat of the moment. She would never forget how soft Ali’s lips were or the stunned look on Ali’s face when she pulled back. ‘What did you do that for?’ she’d asked.

Suddenly, a siren wailed behind her. Emily barely had time to move to the edge of the road again before a Rosewood ambulance screamed past. A gust of wind kicked up, blowing dust into her face. She wiped her eyes and stared as the ambulance got to the top of the hill and paused at Alison’s street.

Now it was turning onto Alison’s street. Fear seized Emily. Ali’s street was . . . Maya’s street. She gripped the rubber handles of her bike.

With all the craziness, she’d forgotten the secret Maya had told her last night. The cutting. The hospital. That huge, jagged scar. Sometimes I just feel like I need to, Maya had said.

‘Oh my God,’ Emily whispered.

She pedaled furiously and skidded around the corner. If the ambulance sirens stop by the time I get around the corner, she thought, Maya will be okay.

But then the ambulance pulled to a stop in front of Maya’s house. The sirens were still roaring. Police cars were everywhere.

‘No,’ Emily whispered. White-coated medics got out of the vehicle and ran for the house. A ton of people littered Maya’s yard, some with cameras. Emily threw her bike at the curb and ran crookedly toward the house.

‘Emily!’

Maya burst through the crowd. Emily gasped, then ran into Maya’s arms, tears messily running down her face.

‘You’re okay.’ Emily sobbed. ‘I was afraid—’

‘I’m fine,’ Maya said.

But there was something in her voice that was clearly not fine. Emily stood back. Maya’s eyes were red and watery. Her mouth was drawn down nervously.

‘What is it?’ Emily asked. ‘What’s going on?’

Maya swallowed. ‘They found your friend.’

‘What?’ Emily stared at her, then at the scene on Maya’s lawn. It was all so eerily familiar: the ambulance, the cop cars, the crowds of people, the long-lensed cameras. A news helicopter hovered overhead. This was exactly the same scene as three years ago, when Ali went missing.

Emily stepped back out of Maya’s arms, grinning in disbelief. She had been right!

Alison was back at her house, like nothing had ever happened. ‘I knew it!’ she whispered.

Maya took Emily’s hand. ‘They were digging for our tennis court. My mom was there. She . . . saw her. I heard her scream from my bedroom.’

Emily dropped her hand. ‘Wait. What?’

‘I tried to call you,’ Maya added.

Emily wrinkled her brow and stared back at Maya. Then she looked at the twenty-strong team of cops. At Mrs. St. Germain sobbing by the tire swing. At the POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS tape loops around the backyard. And then at the van parked in the driveway. It said, ROSEWOOD PD MORGUE. She had to read it six times for it to make sense. Her heart sped up and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

‘I don’t... understand,’ Emily sputtered, taking another step back. ‘Who did they find?’

Maya looked at her sympathetically, her eyes shiny with tears. ‘Your friend Alison,’ she whispered. ‘They just found her body.’

Byron Montgomery took a big sip of coffee and shakily lit his pipe. ‘They found her when they were excavating the concrete slab in the DiLaurentises’ old backyard to put in a tennis court.’

‘She was under the concrete,’ Ella jumped in. ‘They knew it was her from the ring she was wearing. But they’re doing DNA tests to make sure.’

It felt like a fist was pummeling Aria’s stomach. She remembered Ali’s white-gold initialed ring. Ali’s parents had gotten it for her at Tiffany’s when she was ten after she got her tonsils out. Ali liked to wear it on her pinkie.

‘Why did they have to do DNA tests?’ Mike asked. ‘Was she all decomposed?’

‘Michelangelo!’ Byron frowned. ‘That’s not a very sensitive thing to say in front of your sister.’

Mike shrugged and jammed a piece of sour green-apple Bubble Tape into his mouth. Aria sat opposite him, tears quietly running down her cheeks, absentmindedly unraveling the edge of a rattan place mat. It was 2 P.M., and they were sitting around the kitchen table.

‘I can handle it.’ Aria’s throat constricted. ‘Was she decomposed?’

Her parents looked at each other. ‘Well, yes,’ her father said, scratching his chest through a little hole in his shirt. ‘Bodies break down pretty fast.’

‘Sick,’ Mike whispered.

Aria shut her eyes. Alison was dead. Her body was rotted. Someone had probably killed her.

‘Sweetheart?’ Ella asked quietly, cupping her hand over Aria’s. ‘Honey, are you all right?’

‘I don’t know,’ Aria murmured, trying not to start bawling all over again.

‘Would you like a Xanax?’ Byron asked.

Aria shook her head.

‘I’ll take a Xanax,’ Mike said quickly.

Aria nervously picked at the side of her thumb. Her body felt hot and then cold. She didn’t know what to do or think. The only person who she thought might make her feel better was Ezra; she thought she could explain all of her feelings to him. At the very least, he would let her curl up on his denim futon and cry.

Scraping back her chair, she started for her room. Byron and Ella exchanged glances and followed her to the spiral staircase.

‘Sweetie?’ Ella asked. ‘What can we do?’

But Aria ignored them and pushed through her bedroom door. Her room was a disaster. Aria hadn’t cleaned since she’d moved back from Iceland, and she wasn’t the neatest girl in the world to start with. Her clothes were all over the floor in unorganized piles. On her bed were CDs, sequins she was using to make a beaded hat, poster paints, playing cards, Pigtunia, line drawings of Ezra’s profile, several skeins of yarn. The carpet had a big, red candle wax stain on it. She searched in the covers of her bed and on the surface of her desk for her Treo – she needed it to call Ezra. But it wasn’t there. She checked the green bag she’d taken to the party last night, but her phone wasn’t in that, either.

Then she remembered. After she received that text, she’d dropped the phone like it was poisonous. She must have left it behind.

She stormed down the stairs. Her parents were still on the landing.

‘I’m taking the car,’ she mumbled, grabbing the keys off the ring by the foyer table.

‘Okay,’ her father said.

‘Take your time,’ her mother added.

Someone had propped the front door to Ezra’s house open with a large metal sculpture of a terrier. Aria stepped around it and walked inside the hallway. She knocked on Ezra’s door. She had the same feeling she did when she had to pee really badly – it might be torture, but you knew that very soon, you were going to feel a whole hell of a lot better.

Ezra flung open the door. As soon as he saw her, he tried to shut it again.

‘Wait,’ Aria squeaked, her voice still filled with tears. Ezra retreated into his kitchen, his back to her. She followed him in.

Ezra whirled around to face her. He was unshaven and looked exhausted. ‘What are you doing here?’

Aria chewed on her lip. ‘I’m here to see you. I got some news . . .’ Her Treo sat on his sideboard. She picked it up. ‘Thanks. You found it.’

Ezra glared at the Treo. ‘Okay, you got it. Can you leave now?’

‘What’s going on?’ She walked toward him. ‘I got this news. I had to see—’

‘Yeah, I got some news too,’ he interrupted. Ezra moved away from her. ‘Seriously, Aria. I can’t . . . I can’t even look at you.’

Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘What?’ Aria stared at him, confused.

Ezra lowered his eyes. ‘I found what you said about me on your cell phone.’

Aria wrinkled her eyebrows. ‘My cell phone?’

Ezra raised his head. His eyes flashed with anger. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? Was this all just a game? A dare?’