Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

‘Your pectorals are a little tight too,’ Wren said, and, horrifyingly, moved his hand to the front of her body. He slid his fingers under her bra again, rubbing just above her chest, and suddenly the bra strap fell off her shoulder. Spencer breathed in but he didn’t move away. This is a doctor thing, she reminded herself again. But then she realized: Wren was a first-year med student. He will be a doctor, she corrected herself. One day. In about ten years.

‘Um, where’s my sister?’ she asked quietly.

‘The store, I think? Wawa?’

‘Wawa?’ Spencer jerked away from Wren and pulled her bra strap back on her shoulder. ‘Wawa’s only a mile away! If she’s going there, she’s just picking up cigarettes or something. She’ll be back any minute!’

‘I don’t think she smokes,’ Wren said, tilting his head questioningly.

‘You know what I mean!’ Spencer stood up in the tub, grabbed her Ralph Lauren towel, and began violently drying her hair. She felt so hot. Her skin, bones – even her organs and nerves – felt like they’d been braised in the hot tub. She climbed out and fled to the house, in search of a giant glass of water.

‘Spencer,’ Wren called after her. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . I was just trying to help.’

But Spencer didn’t listen. She ran up to her room and looked around. Her stuff was still in boxes, still packed up to move to the barn. Suddenly she wanted everything organized. Her jewelry box needed to be sorted by gemstone. Her computer was clogged with old English papers from two years ago, and even though they’d gotten A’s back then they were probably embarrassingly bad and should be deleted. She stared at the books in the boxes. They needed to be arranged by subject matter, not by author. Obviously. She pulled them out and started shelving, starting with Adultery and The Scarlet Letter.

But by the time she got to Utopias Gone Wrong, she still didn’t feel any better. So she switched on her computer and pressed her wireless mouse, which was comfortingly cool, to the back of her neck.

She clicked on her e-mail and saw an unopened letter. The subject line read, SAT vocab. Curious, she clicked on it.

Spencer,

Covet is an easy one. When someone covets something,

they desire and lust after it. Usually it’s something they can’t

have. You’ve always had that problem, though, haven’t you?

—A

Spencer’s stomach seized. She looked around.

Who. The. Fuck. Could. Have. Seen?

She threw open her bedroom’s biggest window, but the Hastingses’ circular driveway was empty. Spencer looked around. A few cars swished past. The neighbors’ lawn service guy was trimming a hedge by their front gate. Her dogs were chasing each other around the side yard. Some birds flew to the top of a telephone pole.

Then, something caught her eye in the neighbor’s upstairs window: a flash of blondish hair. But wasn’t the new family black? An icy shiver crept up Spencer’s spine. That was Ali’s old window.

Hanna sank farther into the squishy cushions of her couch and tried to unbutton Sean’s Paper Denim jeans.

‘Whoa,’ Sean said. ‘We can’t...’

Hanna smiled mysteriously and put a finger to her lips. She started kissing Sean’s neck. He smelled like Lever 2000 and, strangely, chocolate, and she loved how his recently buzzed haircut showed off all the sexy angles of his face. She’d loved him since sixth grade and he’d only gotten handsomer with each passing year.

As they kissed, Hanna’s mother, Ashley, unlocked the front door and walked inside, chatting on her teensy LG flip phone.

Sean recoiled against the couch cushions. ‘She’ll see!’ he whispered, quickly tucking in his pale blue Lacoste polo.

Hanna shrugged. Her mom waved at them blankly and walked into the other room. Her mom paid more attention to her BlackBerry than she did to Hanna. Because of her work schedule, she and Hanna didn’t bond much, aside from periodic checkups on homework, notes on which shops were running the best sales, and reminders that she should clean her room in case any of the execs coming to her cocktail party needed to use the upstairs bathroom. But Hanna was mostly okay with that. After all, her mom’s job was what paid Hanna’s AmEx bill – she wasn’t always taking things – and her pricey tuition at Rosewood Day.

‘I have to go,’ Sean murmured.

‘You should come over on Saturday,’ Hanna purred. ‘My mom’s going to be at the spa all day.’

‘I’ll see you at Noel’s party on Friday,’ Sean said. ‘And you know this is hard enough.’

Hanna groaned. ‘It doesn’t have to be so hard,’ she whined.

He leaned down to kiss her. ‘See you tomorrow.’

After Sean let himself out, she buried her face in the couch pillow. Dating Sean still felt like a dream. Back when Hanna was chubby and lame, she’d adored how tall and athletic he was, how he was always really nice to teachers and kids who were less cool, and how he dressed well, not like a color-blind slob. She never stopped liking him, even after she shed her last few stubborn inches and discovered defrizzing hair products. So last school year, she casually whispered to James Freed in study hall that she liked Sean, and Colleen Rink told her three periods later that Sean was going to call Hanna on her cell that night after soccer. It was yet another moment Hanna was pissed Ali wasn’t here to witness.

They’d been a couple for seven months and Hanna felt more in love with him than ever. She hadn’t told him yet – she’d kept that to herself for years – but now, she was pretty sure he loved her too. And wasn’t sex the best way to express love?

That was why the virginity pledge thing made no sense. It wasn’t as if Sean’s parents were overly religious, and it went against every preconceived notion Hanna had about guys. Despite how she used to look, Hanna had to hand it to herself: With her deep brown hair, curvy body, and flawless – we’re talking no pimples, ever – skin, she was hot. Who wouldn’t fall madly in love with her? Sometimes she wondered if Sean was gay – he did have a lot of nice clothes – or if he had a fear of vaginas.

Hanna called for her miniature pinscher, Dot, to hop up on the couch. ‘Did you miss me today?’ she squealed as Dot licked her hand. Hanna had petitioned to let Dot come to school in her oversize Prada handbag – all the girls in Beverly Hills did it, after all – but Rosewood Day said no. So to prevent separation anxiety, Hanna had bought Dot the snuggliest Gucci bed money could buy and left QVC on her bedroom TV during the day.

Her mother strode into the living room, still in her tailored tweed suit and brown kitten-heel sling backs. ‘There’s sushi,’ Ms. Marin said.

Hanna looked up. ‘Toro rolls?’

‘I don’t know. I got a bunch of things.’

Hanna strode into the kitchen, taking in her mom’s laptop and buzzing LG.

‘What now?’ Ms. Marin barked into the phone.

Dot’s little claws tick-ticked behind Hanna. After searching through the bag, she settled on one piece of yellow tail sashimi, one eel roll, and a small bowl of miso soup.

‘Well, I talked to the client this morning,’ her mom went on. ‘They were happy then.’

Hanna daintily dipped her yellow tail roll into some soy sauce and flipped breezily through a J. Crew catalog. Her mom was second-in-command at the Philly advertising firm McManus & Tate, and her goal was to be the firm’s first woman president.

Besides being extremely successful and ambitious, Ms. Marin was what most guys at Rosewood Day would call a MILF – she had long, red-gold hair, smooth skin, and an incredibly supple body, thanks to her daily Vinyasa yoga ritual.

Hanna knew her mom wasn’t perfect, but she still didn’t get why her parents had divorced four years ago, or why her father quickly began dating an average-looking ER nurse from Annapolis, Maryland, named Isabel. Talk about trading down.

Isabel had a teenage daughter, Kate, and Mr. Marin had said Hanna would just love her. A few months after the divorce, he’d invited Hanna to Annapolis for the weekend. Nervous about meeting her quasi-stepsister, Hanna begged Ali to come along.

‘Don’t worry, Han,’ Ali assured her. ‘We’ll outclass whoever this Kate girl is.’ When Hanna looked at her, unconvinced, she reminded Hanna of her signature phrase: ‘I’m Ali and I’m fabulous!’ It sounded almost silly now, but back then Hanna could only imagine what it would feel like to be so confident. Having Ali there was like a security blanket – proof she wasn’t a loser her dad just wanted to get away from.

The day had been a train wreck, anyway. Kate was the prettiest girl Hanna had ever met and her dad had basically called her a pig right in front of Kate. He’d quickly backpedaled and said it was only a joke, but that was the very last time she’d seen him . . . and the very first time she ever made herself throw up.

But Hanna hated thinking about stuff in the past, so she rarely did. Besides, now Hanna got to ogle her mom’s dates in a not so will-you-be-my-new-father? way. And would her father let Hanna have a 2 A.M. curfew and drink wine, like her mom did? Doubtful.

Her mom snapped her phone shut and fastened her emerald green eyes on Hanna. ‘Those are your back-to-school shoes?’

Hanna stopped chewing. ‘Yeah.’

Ms. Marin nodded. ‘Did you get a lot of compliments?’

Hanna turned her ankle to inspect her purple wedges. Too afraid to face the Saks security, she’d actually paid for them. ‘Yeah. I did.’

‘Mind if I borrow them?’

‘Um, sure. If you wa—’

Her mom’s phone rang again. She pounced on it. ‘Carson? Yes. I’ve been looking for you all night . . . What the hell is going on there?’

Hanna blew at her side-swept bangs and fed Dot a tiny piece of eel. As Dot spit it out on the floor, the doorbell rang.

Her mother didn’t even flinch. ‘They need it tonight,’ she said to the phone. ‘It’s your project. Do I have to come down and hold your hand?’

The doorbell rang again. Dot started barking and her mother stood to get it. ‘It’s probably those Girl Scouts again.’

The Girl Scouts had come over three days in a row, trying to sell them cookies at dinnertime. They were rabid in this neighborhood.

Within seconds, she was back in the kitchen with a young, brown-haired, green-eyed police officer behind her. ‘This gentleman says he wants to speak with you.’ A gold pin on the breast pocket of his uniform read WILDEN.

‘Me?’ Hanna pointed at herself.

‘You’re Hanna Marin?’ Wilden asked. The walkie-talkie on his belt made a noise.

Suddenly Hanna realized who this guy was: Darren Wilden. He’d been a senior at Rosewood when she was in seventh grade. The Darren Wilden she remembered allegedly slept with the whole girls’ diving team and was almost kicked out of school for stealing the principal’s vintage Ducati motorcycle. But this cop was definitely the same guy – those green eyes were hard to forget, even if it had been four years since she’d seen them. Hanna hoped he was a stripper that Mona had sent over as a joke.

‘What’s this all about?’ Ms. Marin asked, looking longingly back at her cell phone. ‘Why are you interrupting us at dinner?’

‘We received a call from Tiffany’s,’ Wilden said. ‘They have you on tape shoplifting some items from their store. Tapes from various other mall security cameras tracked you out of the mall and to your car. We traced the license plate.’

Hanna started pinching the inside of her palm with her fingernails, something she always did when she felt out of control.

‘Hanna wouldn’t do that,’ Ms. Marin barked. ‘Would you, Hanna?’

Hanna opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. Her heart was banging against her ribs.

‘Look.’ Wilden crossed his arms over his chest. Hanna noticed the gun on his belt. It looked like a toy. ‘I just need you to come to the station. Maybe it’s nothing.’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing!’ Ms. Marin said. Then she took her Fendi wallet out of its matching purse. ‘What will it take for you to leave us alone to have our dinner?’

‘Ma’am.’ Wilden sounded exasperated. ‘You should just come down with me. All right? It won’t take all night. I promise.’ He smiled that sexy Darren Wilden smile that had probably kept him from getting expelled from Rosewood.

‘Well,’ Hanna’s mother said. She and Wilden looked at each other for a long moment. ‘Let me get my bag.’