Wanted

Aria watched helplessly as the music swirled romantically. Someone let out a loud whoop.

Time snapped into warp speed, and just as a fiery flame ignited in Aria’s stomach, Ali broke away from Noel, her face twisted with outrage. She slapped him hard, her hand making a loud cracking sound against his cheek. “What are you doing?” she screamed as Aria rushed over.

“Wha…?” Noel stammered. A huge red welt appeared where Ali had slapped him. “I don’t…”

“Aria is my friend!” Ali screamed. “Who the hell do you think I am?”

Then she turned, locked eyes with Aria, and froze. Her lips parted. Noel turned and saw Aria, too. His face went sheet-white. He started to shake his head, as if to say he didn’t know how he’d found himself here, doing what he was doing. Aria glared from Noel to Ali, her fingers twitching with rage.

The cloying scent of dark chocolate from the fondue station wafted into Aria’s nostrils. The oscillating spotlight on the dance floor turned Ali and Noel from blue to red to yellow. Aria was so angry that her teeth began to chatter.

Noel’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Ali stood a safe distance away, shaking her head both self-righteously and sympathetically. “Aria, it’s not…” Noel started.

“You said she didn’t matter,” Aria interrupted. Her chin wobbled, but she steeled herself not to cry. “You said you didn’t like her. You wanted me to give her a chance.”

“Aria, wait!” Noel’s voice cracked. But she didn’t let him finish, whirling away and weaving around the gaping partygoers. Lucas Beattie let out a gasp. Zelda Millings, who went to the nearby Quaker school but always managed to snag dates to Rosewood Day events, smirked. Let them, Aria thought. She didn’t care.

Aria was almost to the door when she felt a hand on her arm. It was Ali. “I’m so sorry.” She panted, out of breath. “He just…smothered me. There was nothing I could do about it.”

Aria kept walking on, too furious to speak. Her instincts about Noel had been right all along. He was a typical, lacrosse-playing, fratty, cheating Rosewood boy. He’d claimed to be different and she’d bought it. She was so stupid.

Ali was still keeping pace with Aria, her arms crossed and her head bowed. I’ve changed, Ali had said at the wishing well. Maybe she had.

They emerged into the frigid air. A bunch of kids loitered near their cars, smoking cigarettes. Fireworks erupted above the stately school, marking the end of the dance. Across the parking lot, Aria spied Spencer, Emily, and Hanna leaning against a BMW. Their faces brightened when they saw Ali, and Ali waved back.

Aria knew what her old friends were waiting for and where they would be going next. Suddenly, she realized how badly she wanted to join them. How badly she wanted to go back to the way things were—before all the secrets and lies. Back to when they first became friends and everything was filled with possibility.

“Um, about your Poconos trip,” she said tentatively, not daring to look Ali in the eye. “Do you think there’s room for one more?”

The corners of Ali’s mouth spread into a wide grin. She jumped up and down a little, and then threw her arms around Aria’s shoulders. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Ali pulled Aria across the parking lot, avoiding a shiny patch of ice. “We’re going to have such a great time, I promise. You’ll forget all about Noel. And tomorrow, we’ll find you someone even hotter.”

They skipped to the bottom of the hill, arm in arm. “Look who I found!” Ali cried, hitting the unlock button on her key chain. “She’s coming with us!”

Everyone whooped. Suddenly, Aria heard a strange, muffled sound. She paused, curling her hand over the car door. It sounded like a thump, followed by a squeal.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered, looking around the parking lot. Couples staggered to their cars. Limos chugged. Mothers waited for their kids in their SUVs. Aria thought about the Polaroids she’d found in the woods. That phantom face, looming at the barn window. She looked around for Wilden…or any cop, for that matter, but they were all gone.

Ali paused. “Hear what?”

Aria waited, listening again. Between the thumping bass and the booming fireworks, it was difficult to hear anything. “I guess it’s nothing,” she decided. “Probably just some kids hooking up on the Commons.”

“Sluts,” Ali giggled. She opened her door and gracefully got into the driver’s seat. Spencer sat beside her, and Hanna, Emily, and Aria clambered into the back. As soon as the car flickered to life, Ali cranked the music up so loud that it drowned out the fireworks. “Let’s go, bitches!” she cried. And off they went.

26

A REINVENTION OF THE PAST

The DiLaurentises’ Poconos house was exactly as Hanna remembered it: large and rambling, with red-painted teak siding and white shutters and windows. The porch light was off, but the moon was so big and bright that Hanna could see five white rockers on the porch. She, Ali, and the others used to sit on those rockers, Us Weekly magazines in their laps, watching the sun set over the lake.

The car crunched into the driveway and rolled to a stop. Everyone leaped up and grabbed their purses. The night air was cold. A mist hung over the valley, as fine and vaporous as breath.

There was a rustle in the bushes. Hanna halted. A long tail flickered. Two eyes glowed yellow. A black cat scampered stealthily across the driveway and into the woods. She breathed out.

Ali unlocked the door to the house and ushered them in. The place smelled like aged wallpaper glue, dusty wood floors, and closed-up rooms. There was also a faint odor that reminded Hanna of old hamburger.

“Drinks?” Ali cried, dropping the keys on the farmhouse table.

“Definitely,” Spencer said. She unloaded a grocery bag of Cheez-Its, blue corn tortilla chips, M&M’s, Diet Coke, Red Bull, and a bottle of vodka. Hanna went to the cupboard where the DiLaurentises kept their glasses and pulled out five crystal tumblers.

After making vodka and Red Bulls, everyone strolled into the den. Built-in bookshelves lined the walls. The closet was slightly open, revealing stacks and stacks of old board games. The television that got only four channels still sat on the old hutch. Hanna stared out at the big backyard, immediately locating the spot where they’d built the five-girl tent and slept under the stars. Ali had presented them with their Jenna bracelets in that tent, making them promise that they’d remain best friends until the day they died.

Hanna wandered over to the mantel, noticing a familiar silver-framed photo. It was the picture of the five of them standing next to a big canoe, all of them soaking wet. The same photo used to hang in the DiLaurentises’ old foyer. It had been taken the first time Ali invited them to the Poconos, not long after they became friends. Hanna and the others had made up a secret ritual of touching the bottom corner of the photo at the same time, though they’d been too embarrassed to tell Ali about it.

Everyone else gathered around the photo, too. The ice in their glasses rattled. “Remember that day?” Emily murmured. Her breath already smelled like vodka. “That crazy waterfall?”

Hanna snorted. “Yeah. You freaked.” It was their maiden voyage on a new canoe Mr. DiLaurentis had bought from the local sporting goods store. They’d all paddled furiously to start off, but then everyone got tired and bored and let the current carry them. When the river began to get rough, Spencer wanted to try and ride the rapids. Then Emily saw the little waterfall ahead and demanded they abandon ship.

Spencer nudged Emily’s ribs. “You were like, ‘People die if they go over waterfalls in a canoe! We should tip it and swim to shore!’”

“And then you tipped us all without telling us first,” Aria said, shaking with giggles. “That water was so cold!”

“I was shivering for days,” Emily agreed.

“We look so young,” Hanna murmured, focusing especially on her own pudgy face. “Just think, a couple weeks before that, we were sneaking into your yard trying to steal your flag, Ali.”

“Yeah,” Ali said distractedly. Hanna watched her, waiting for Ali to chime in with a memory, but Ali simply began to pull out the bobby pins from her French twist, setting each one on the glass end table. Maybe it was wrong to bring up the Time Capsule day. Courtney had apparently been home that weekend, switching from the Radley to the Preserve. It probably stirred up all kinds of bad memories.

Hanna looked at the photo again. Things had been so different then. When they’d tipped the canoe, Hanna’s drenched, oversize T-shirt had clung to every roll of skin and ounce of fat. Not long after, Ali began to make remarks about how Hanna ate so much more than the rest of them, and that Hanna didn’t play a sport, and that Hanna always went for seconds at lunch. Once, at the King James Mall, she’d even quipped that they should go into Faith 21—Forever 21’s plus-size store—just to “look around.”

Suddenly, Naomi’s words flashed through Hanna’s mind. Everyone said Ali picked you as a joke. You were such a loser.

Hanna slumped against the sideboard, nearly knocking over a decorative plate adorned with a print of Independence Mall. Her mouth felt sticky with vodka, and her limbs hung loose and free.

Ali turned and lobbed something white and fluffy at each of the girls. “Hot tub time!” She clapped her hands. “Make yourselves fresh cocktails and get changed while I go outside and turn it on.”

Grabbing her drink, Ali skipped through the living room and out to the back porch, her blond ponytail bobbing. Hanna stared at the objects Ali had thrown at her—a fluffy white Frette towel and a polka-dotted Marc Jacobs string bikini. She held the bikini top and bottom up to the light, admiring the shiny fabric and silvery ties.

Hanna straightened up, suddenly refortified. Nice try, bitches. The tag inside the butt read size zero. Hanna smiled to herself, flattered and stunned. It was the best compliment anyone could have given her.

27

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

The alcohol had definitely gone to Emily’s head. She stood in the tiny Pennsylvania Dutch–themed downstairs bathroom clad in only her string bikini, tilting from one side to the other, sizing up her toned biceps, her thin waist, and her shapely shoulders. “You’re hot,” she whispered to her reflection. “Ali wants you.” She started to giggle.

Not only was she drunk on vodka, she was also drunk on Ali. It was thrilling to be back in the Poconos. And kissing Ali at the dance? Emily wasn’t sure when she’d felt happier in her entire life.

Emily marched out of the bathroom, a fluffy white towel wrapped around her waist. She plucked a half-drunk cocktail off the buffet table and skipped out to the three-season porch. It was exactly as she remembered it—the overpowering smell of potting soil and wetness, the stone garden gnomes in the corner, and the quirky, chipped tile-top tables Mrs. DiLaurentis had found at an estate sale. Emily expected to see Ali there—she’d wanted to give Ali a secret kiss before the others came out—but the room was empty.

“Chilly!” Emily cried as her bare toes hit the frigid floor. A heat lamp had been set up near the door, and the big green plastic cover had been pulled off the hot tub. The motor groaned loudly. Bluish bubbles rose to the surface of the tub. When Emily touched the water, she squealed again. It was ice-cold. The tub probably hadn’t been used in years.