Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

‘What are you... ?’

Ezra sighed angrily. ‘Well, you know what? You got me. Okay? I’m the brunt of your big joke. You happy? Now get out.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Aria said loudly.

Ezra slapped his palm against the wall. The force of it made Aria jump. ‘Don’t play dumb! I’m not some boy, Aria!’

Aria’s whole body started to tremble. ‘I swear to God, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you explain, please? I’m kind of falling apart here!’

Ezra took his hand off the wall and started to pace around the tiny room. ‘Fine. After you left, I tried to sleep. There was this... this beeping. You know what it was?’ He pointed to the Treo. ‘Your cell phone thing. The only way to shut it up was to open your text messages.’

Aria wiped her eyes.

Ezra crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Shall I quote them for you?’

Then Aria realized. The text messages. ‘Wait! No! You don’t understand!’

Ezra trembled. ‘Student-teacher conference? Extra credit? This sound familiar?’

‘No, Ezra,’ Aria stammered. ‘You don’t understand.’ The world was spinning. Aria gripped the edge of Ezra’s kitchen table.

‘I’m waiting,’ Ezra said.

‘This friend of mine was killed,’ she began. ‘They just found her body.’ Aria opened her mouth to say more, but couldn’t find the words. Ezra stood at the farthest point in the room from her, behind the bathtub.

‘It’s all so silly,’ Aria said. ‘Can you please come over here? Can you at least hug me?’

Ezra crossed his arms over his chest and looked down. He stood that way for what felt like a long time. ‘I really liked you,’ he finally said, his voice thick.

Aria choked back a sob. ‘I really like you, too . . .’ She walked over to him.

But Ezra stepped away. ‘No. You have to get out of here.’

‘But . . .’

Ezra clapped his hand over her mouth. ‘Please,’ he said a little desperately. ‘Please leave.’

Aria widened her eyes and her heart started to pound. Alarms went off in her head. This felt . . . wrong. On impulse, she bit down into Ezra’s hand.

‘What the fuck?’ he shrieked, pulling away.

Aria stood back, dazed. Blood dripped out of Ezra’s hand onto the floor.

‘You’re insane!’ Ezra cried.

Aria breathed heavily. She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. So she turned and ran for the door. As her hand turned the doorknob, something screamed past her, bounced off the wall, and landed next to her foot. It was a copy of Being and Nothingness, by Jean-Paul Sartre. Aria turned back to Ezra, her mouth open in shock.

‘Get out!’ Ezra boomed.

Aria slammed the door behind her. She tore down across the lawn as fast as her legs would carry her.

The next day, Spencer stood at her old bedroom window, smoking a Marlboro and looking across her lawn into Alison’s old bedroom. It was dark and empty. Then, her eyes moved to the DiLaurentises’ yard. The flashing lights hadn’t stopped since they found her.

The police had put up DO NOT CROSS tape all around the concrete area of Alison’s old backyard, even though they had already removed her body from the ground. They’d put huge tents around the area while doing that, too, so Spencer hadn’t seen anything. Not that she’d have wanted to. It was beyond awful to think that Ali’s body had been next door to her, rotting in the ground for three years. Spencer remembered the construction before Ali disappeared. They dug the hole right around the night she went missing. She knew, too, that they’d filled it after Ali disappeared but wasn’t sure when. Someone had just dumped her there.

She stubbed out her Marlboro in the brick siding of her house and turned back to Lucky magazine. She’d hardly exchanged a word with her family since yesterday’s confrontation and she’d been trying to calm herself down by going methodically through it and marking everything she wanted to buy with the magazine’s little YES stickers. As she looked at a page on tweed blazers, though, her eyes glazed over.

She couldn’t even talk to her parents about this. Yesterday, after they confronted her at breakfast, Spencer had wandered outside to see what the sirens were all about – ambulances still made her nervous, from both The Jenna Thing and Ali’s disappearance. As she walked across her lawn to the DiLaurentis house, she sensed something and turned back. Her parents had come out to see what was going on too. When they saw her turn, they quickly looked away. The police told her to stand back, that this area was off limits. Then Spencer saw the morgue van. One of the policeman’s walkie-talkies crackled, ‘Alison.’

Her body had grown very cold. The world spun. Spencer slumped down on the grass. Someone spoke to her, but she couldn’t understand him. ‘You’re in shock,’ she finally heard. ‘Just try to calm down.’ Spencer’s field of vision was so narrow, she wasn’t sure who it was – only that it wasn’t her mom or dad. The guy came back with a blanket and told her to sit there for a while and keep warm.

Once Spencer felt well enough to get up, whoever had helped her was gone. Her parents had left too. They hadn’t even bothered to see if she was okay.

She’d spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday in her room, only going out into the hall to the bathroom when she knew no one else was around. She hoped someone would come up and check on her, but when she heard a small, tentative knock on her door earlier this afternoon, Spencer didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure why. She listened to whoever it was sigh and pad back down the hall.

And then, only a half hour ago, Spencer had watched her dad’s Jaguar back out of the driveway and turn toward the main road. Her mom was in the passenger seat; Melissa was in the back. She had no idea where they were going.

She slumped down in her computer chair and pulled up that first e-mail from A, the one talking about coveting things she couldn’t have. After reading it a few times, she clicked REPLY. Slowly she typed, Are you Alison?

She hesitated before hitting SEND. Were all the police lights making her trippy? Dead girls didn’t have Hotmail accounts. Nor did they have Instant Messenger screen names. Spencer had to get a grip – someone was pretending to be Ali. But who?

She stared up at the Mondrian mobile she’d bought last year at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Then she heard a plink sound. There it was again.

Plink.

It sounded really close, actually. Like at her window. Spencer sat up just as a pebble hit her window again. Someone was throwing rocks.

A?

As another rock hit, she went to the window – and gasped. On the lawn was Wren. The blue and red lights from the police cars kept making streaky shadows across his cheeks. When he saw her, he broke into a huge smile. Immediately, she bolted downstairs, not caring how horrible her hair looked or that she was wearing marinara-stained Kate Spade pajama pants. Wren ran for her as she came out the door. He threw his arms around her and kissed her scruffy head.

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she murmured.

‘I know.’ He stood back. ‘But I noticed your parents’ car was gone, so...’

She pushed her hand through his soft hair. Wren looked exhausted. What if he had to sleep in his little Toyota last night?

‘How did you know I’d be back in my old room?’

He shrugged. ‘A hunch. I also thought I saw your face at the window. I wanted to come earlier, but there was . . . all that.’ He gestured to the police cars and random news vans next door. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Spencer answered. She tilted her head up to Wren’s mouth and bit her chapped lip to keep from crying. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Me? Sure.’

‘Do you have somewhere to live?’

‘I can stay on a friend’s couch until I find something. Not a big deal.’

If only Spencer could stay on a friend’s couch too. Then something occurred to her. ‘Are you and Melissa over?’

Wren cupped her face in his hand and sighed. ‘Of course,’ he said softly. ‘It was kind of obvious. With Melissa, it wasn’t like . . .’

He trailed off, but Spencer thought she knew what he was going to say. It wasn’t like being with you. She smiled shakily and laid her head against his chest. His heart thumped in her ear.

She looked over at the DiLaurentis house. Someone had started a little shrine to Alison on the curb, complete with pictures and Virgin Mary candles. In the center were little alphabet magnet letters that spelled Ali. Spencer herself had propped up a smiling picture of Alison in a tight blue Von Dutch T-shirt and spanking new Sevens. She remembered when she’d taken that picture: They were in sixth grade, and it was the night of the Rosewood Winter Formal. The five of them had spied on Melissa as Ian picked her up. Spencer had gotten hiccups from laughing when Melissa, trying to make a grand entrance, tripped down the Hastingses’ front walk on the way to the tacky rented Hummer limo. It was probably their last really fun, carefree memory. The Jenna Thing happened not too long after. Spencer glanced at Toby and Jenna’s house. No one was home, as usual, but it still made her shiver.

As she blotted her eyes with the back of her pale, thin hand, one of the news vans drove by slowly, and a guy in a red Phillies cap stared at her. She ducked. Now would not be the time to capture some emotional-girl-breaks-down-at-thetragedy footage.

‘You’d better go.’ She sniffed and turned back to Wren. ‘It’s so crazy here. And I don’t know when my parents will be back.’

‘All right.’ He tilted her head up. ‘But can we see each other again?’

Spencer swallowed, and tried to smile. As she did, Wren bent down and kissed her, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck and the other around the very spot on her lower back that, just Friday, hurt like hell.

Spencer broke away from him. ‘I don’t even have your number.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Wren whispered. ‘I’ll call you.’

Spencer stood out on the edge of her vast yard for a moment, watching Wren walk to his car. As he drove away, her eyes stung with tears again. If only she had someone to talk to – someone who wasn’t banned from her house. She glanced back at the Ali shrine and wondered how her old friends were dealing with this.

As Wren pulled to the end of her street, Spencer noticed another car’s headlights turn in. She froze. Was that her parents? Had they seen Wren?

The headlights inched closer. Suddenly, Spencer realized who it was. The sky was a dark purple, but she could just make out Andrew Campbell’s longish hair.

She gasped, ducking behind her mother’s rosebushes. Andrew slowly pulled his Mini up to her mailbox, opened it, slid something in, and neatly closed it again. He drove away.

She waited until he was gone before sprinting out to the curb and wrenching open the mailbox. Andrew had left her a folded-up piece of notepaper.

Hey, Spencer. I didn’t know if you were taking any calls. I’m

really sorry about Alison. I hope my blanket helped you yesterday.

—Andrew

Spencer turned up her driveway, reading and rereading the note. She stared at the slanty boy handwriting. Blanket? What blanket?

Then she realized. It was Andrew who helped her?

She crumpled up the note in her hands and started sobbing all over again.

‘Police have reopened the DiLaurentis case, and are in the process of questioning witnesses,’ a newscaster on the eleven-o’clock news reported. ‘The DiLaurentis family, now living in Maryland, will have to face something they’ve tried to put behind them. Except now, there is closure.’

Newscasters were such drama queens, Hanna thought angrily as she shoved another handful of Cheez-Its in her mouth. Only the news could find a way to make a horrible story worse. The camera stayed focused on the Ali shrine, as they called it, the candles, Beanie Babies, wilted flowers people no doubt just picked out of neighbors’ gardens, marshmallow Peeps – Ali’s favorite candy – and of course photos.

The camera cut to Alison’s mother, whom Hanna hadn’t seen in a while. Besides her teary face, Mrs. DiLaurentis looked pretty – with a shaggy haircut and dangly chandelier earrings.

‘We’ve decided to have a service for Alison in Rosewood, which was the only home Ali knew,’ Mrs. DiLaurentis said in a controlled voice. ‘We want to thank all of those who helped search for our daughter three years ago for their enduring support.’