Pretty Little Liars #13: Crushed

by Shepard, Sara

“Hanna?” Mike’s voice rang out behind her.

  She swung around to see him. He looked adorable in his Rosewood Day Lacrosse T-shirt, fitted black jeans, and beat-up Vans. There was an excited-little-boy smile on his face.

  “I have a surprise for you!”

  “What?” Hanna asked warily, dropping her phone back into her bag. She wasn’t really in the mood for a surprise right now.

  Mike snapped his fingers, and suddenly a line of JV lacrosse players trooped in. At the count of three, in one synchronized motion, they whipped off their shirts and faced Hanna. Letters had been painted onto their rock-hard abs. First was an H, then an A, and then . . .

  Hanna blinked hard. Their bodies spelled out Hanna for May Queen.

  Someone in the restaurant applauded. Kate Randall, Hanna’s stepsister, who was sitting in one of the booths, nodded appreciatively. A waitress’s eyes popped wide at the boys’ well-developed pecs and abs, and she almost dropped her tray. Then, Mike turned around, tore off his shirt, and grinned at Hanna. On his bare chest was an exclamation point.

  “You’re going to run, right?” he asked excitedly. “You’ve already got the lax team behind you—JV and varsity.”

  Speechless, Hanna fingered the Tiffany chain around her neck. May Queen was Rosewood Day’s term for prom queen. Hanna and Mike were going to prom together—she’d bought her dress last month at a Marchesa sample sale. It cost more than her dad wanted to spend, but he knew how much prom meant to her—she used to wax poetic about her ideal prom night in the same way most little girls dream of a fairy-tale wedding.

  But queen? Sure, Hanna had thought about it, dreamed about it, but after this crazy year, she hadn’t really taken it seriously. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly, looking at Mike and then the line of shirtless guys. “What about Naomi?”

  Naomi Zeigler was Rosewood’s queen bee. Naomi hadn’t let Hanna join her clique after Mona’s death, and though Hanna had begun to make inroads with Naomi on the cruise, that all had come crashing down when Hanna discovered that Naomi’s cousin was Madison, the girl she’d left for dead on the side of the road after crashing her car last summer. Hanna had even suspected Naomi was A . . . but she had been wrong. When Hanna confessed what she’d done, Naomi had been so disgusted that she’d gone back to not speaking to her again.

  A hand touched Hanna’s arm. Kate swam into view. “Naomi’s not running, Han. Her GPA isn’t high enough.” She smiled triumphantly. For reasons Hanna still wasn’t sure about, Naomi and Kate were in a fight.

  “And you’re not running, either?” Hanna asked her. With Kate’s long chestnut hair, even features, and runner’s body, she was more than pretty enough.

  Kate shook her head. “Nah. Not my thing. You should totally run, though. I’ll get everyone to vote for you.”

  Hanna blinked hard. She and Kate had made up in the past month, but after years of being enemies, she still wasn’t used to it. “What about Riley?” she asked.

  Kate snickered. Mike gave Hanna a crazy look. “Riley? Are you serious?”

  Hanna pictured Riley’s startlingly red hair and vampire-pale skin—definitely not May Queen material. “Okay. I guess you’re right.”

  Mike turned around and started riling up the rest of the team. “Han-na!” he chanted.

  “Han-na!” The other boys joined in. Kate did, too.

  Hanna grinned and started to consider it. She could already picture the fabulous, slightly spooky photo of herself and the king in the graveyard near the Philadelphia Four Seasons, a yearly Rosewood Day tradition that was printed in a special insert in the yearbook. If she won, her legacy at Rosewood would be that of a beautiful girl wearing the May Queen crown—not the girl who’d been tortured by A.

  “What the hell?” she said slowly. “I’m in!”

  “Great!” Mike slipped his T-shirt back over his head. “I’ll help you campaign. We’ll buy out a salon and offer girls free manicures. Give fashion advice. I’ll even take one for the team and offer myself up for free kisses.” He shut his eyes and puckered up. “Only from hot girls, though.”

  Hanna swatted him. “No kissing booths! But that other stuff sounds awesome.”

  Then, a pretty girl in the doorway caught Hanna’s eye. She had sleek black hair and violet eyes, and wore a cute wrap dress Hanna had seen in the BCBG window. Hanna squinted at the girl’s face, feeling a twinge of recognition.

  “Whoa.” Brant Fogelnest, one of the lacrosse players sitting nearby, tilted his head back to get a better look. “Chassey’s smokin’!”

  Hanna did a double take. “Did he just say Chassey?” she whispered to Mike. “As in Bledsoe?”

  “I think so,” Mike murmured, his forehead wrinkling. Kate nodded, too.

  Hanna balked. Chassey Bledsoe was a dork who played with yo-yos, wore Cat in the Hat hats to formals, and favored large, limp bags that made her look like a postal worker. This girl wore Jimmy Choos and carried a dainty clutch under her arm. She looked like she was even wearing false eyelashes.

  But then the girl spoke. “Oh, there you are!” she said to someone across the room. It was Chassey Bledsoe’s honking-horn voice, the same voice that had called after Hanna, Ali, and the others on the playground in middle school, desperate to be part of their group. New-and-improved Chassey flounced over to her best friend, Phi Templeton, who was sitting in a booth in the corner. Though Phi was in ill-fitting Mudd jeans and an oversized T-shirt with a stain over a boob, it didn’t seem to cramp New Chassey’s style.

  “Wasn’t she out of school for, like, a month with shingles?” Hanna whispered. Chassey was in her calculus class; the teacher had taken pity on her because she’d had shingles once, too.

  “I thought so.” Mike drummed his fingers on the bar. “But if that’s what shingles does to you, maybe more girls should get it.”

  Kirsten Cullen, who was sitting at a bistro table near Hanna, raised an eyebrow, listening in. “She looks amazing. She should totally run for May Queen.”

  More kids murmured that New Chassey should run—even some of the lax team Hanna-chanters called out a halfhearted “Chas-sey.” Hanna looked at Mike helplessly. “Can’t you do something?”

  Mike raised his palms. “Do what?”

  “I don’t know! May Queen is my thing!”

  Beep.

  Hanna’s cell phone flashed insistently inside her purse. She pulled it out. ONE NEW TEXT FROM ANONYMOUS.

  Her stomach sank. She hadn’t heard from A all week, but she’d known it would only be a matter of time. She glanced around the restaurant, hoping to spot the texter. A figure slipped behind a fountain in the courtyard. The door to the kitchen swung shut fast, swallowing up a shadow.

  Bracing herself, she pressed READ.

  Only losers campaign against losers. Make any effort to win, and not only will you lose my respect—I’ll tell Agent Fuji about all your naughty little lies. —A

  3

  Dear Emily, I’m On to You

  That same afternoon, Emily Fields and her mother entered a boutique called Grrl Power in Manayunk, a hipster neighborhood in Philadelphia. A song by a grungy girl band blared through the stereo speakers. A girl with a pierced eyebrow and a half-shaved head watched them from the other side of the counter. Two girls with hands in each other’s pockets perused the jeans section. Mannequins wore tees that boasted things like I CAN’T EVEN THINK STRAIGHT! and I’M NOT GAY, BUT MY GIRLFRIEND IS.

  Mrs. Fields sifted through items on a table, then held up a pair of canary-yellow leggings. “These are cute, don’t you think? I could wear them on my morning walks.”

  Emily stared at them. Printed on the butt was I LOVE A GOOD MUFFIN IN THE MORNING. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Did her mom know what that meant?

  Then she looked around. Everyone in the store seemed to be staring at her, on the verge of cracking up. She yanked the leggings from her mom’s hand.

  Mrs. Fields stepped away from the table, looking cowed. Instantly, Emily wondered if she�
�d been too harsh. Her mom was trying so hard. This was the same woman who’d banished Emily to Iowa for coming out last year. Emily had just dropped another bomb on her mom, too: She’d had a baby last summer and given her away to a couple in Chestnut Hill. For a while, her family had cut her off entirely, but there was nothing like a real bomb on a cruise ship and a near-drowning at sea to put things in perspective. When Emily returned from the cruise alive, her parents had given her a hero’s welcome and promised to try to make things right.

  So far, Mr. Fields had made Emily banana pancakes for breakfast every day this past week. Both her parents had sat at Emily’s computer and looked at her cruise photos with her, oohing and aahing at her shots of glowing orange sunsets and far-off dolphin fins. Today, Mrs. Fields had come into Emily’s bedroom at eight AM and announced they were going to have a girls’ day: manicures, lunch, and then shopping in Manayunk. Even though mani-pedis and shopping weren’t Emily’s thing, she’d readily agreed.

  Emily placed the leggings back on the table and selected a red pair that read GIRLS RULE on the butt. She handed them to her mom. “I think red looks the best on you.”

  The smile returned to her mom’s face. There. That felt better.

  Then Mrs. Fields’s phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the screen, and smiled. “Carolyn just texted that she aced her biology final. Isn’t that great?”

  Emily pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. Her sister was now at Stanford on a swim scholarship, and Emily had heard secondhand how she’d struggled with the coursework all year. Carolyn hadn’t told her herself, of course. Her sister had bitterly hidden Emily in Philly during the later stages of her pregnancy, and they weren’t exactly on speaking terms.

  Emily fiddled with a studded leather bracelet on a display tray. “So when do you think I’ll hear from Carolyn?”

  Mrs. Fields refolded a T-shirt she’d been looking at, carefully avoiding Emily’s gaze. “I’m sure she’ll call you soon.”

  “Does she really want to apologize?”

  Mrs. Fields’s eyelid twitched. “We should concentrate on you and me, don’t you think? I’m so happy that we’re out together. I hope we can do this more often.”

  Emily cocked her head. “So . . . that means Carolyn is still really mad?”

  Mrs. Fields’s cell phone blared, and she made a big production of rooting through her bag to find it. “I need to take this,” she said briskly, even though Emily was pretty sure it was only her dad . . . or maybe Carolyn herself.

  Emily leaned against a rack of jackets and sighed. Okay, so things weren’t perfect yet. Mrs. Fields had told her that Carolyn wanted to let bygones be bygones, but Emily had seen no indication of that yet. Nor had she and her family had a conversation about Emily’s pregnancy or the baby. But these things took time, right? Banana pancakes were still a huge gesture.

  As her mom slipped through the front door, Emily pulled out her own phone and checked her e-mail. There was one new message from the Rosewood Day May Day Senior Prom Committee: Don’t forget to buy a ticket for the Senior Prom! May 7, 7 PM. The Four Seasons Hotel, 1 Logan Square, Philadelphia. Dinner and dancing.

  A lonely feeling swept through her. She’d already bought a ticket for prom; her friends were making her go. But the only person Emily wanted to invite—a girl named Jordan Richards she’d met on the cruise—couldn’t come.

  Thankfully, there were no new alerts about Tabitha. Emily’s finger bumped the button to her photo gallery, and suddenly, a picture of Alison DiLaurentis stared back. It was the real Alison DiLaurentis, the girl who’d come back to Rosewood last year and later revealed herself as A. Emily had snapped the photo of Ali in her bedroom the day Ali had kissed her. It’s me, Em, Emily could practically hear Ali saying. I’m back. I’ve wanted to do that again for so long. I’ve missed you so much.

  Emily had continued to love Ali despite everything. Even after Ali had confessed that she’d killed her own sister, Emily held out hope that she’d come to her senses and atone for what she’d done. Her love for Ali had been so intense that she’d left the door open for her in the Poconos instead of barricading it shut and letting the girls’ would-be killer burn.

  She’d kept the secret for a while, but she finally told her friends last week. Now, they were starting to believe what Emily knew all along: Real Ali wasn’t dead, and she was their New A. That meant that Real Ali had witnessed all of the girls’ transgressions last summer, including Emily smuggling her baby out of the hospital and away from Gayle Riggs, a woman she’d thought was crazy—and a woman who was now dead. Ali might have been in Jamaica, too, and she might be Tabitha’s real killer. It also meant Real Ali had been on the cruise ship last week. How had they not seen her? How had no one seen her?

  Emily’s thumb hovered over DELETE. After A had threatened her baby’s life, she’d finally come to hate Real Ali. And yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to get rid of the one photo she had of her. Sighing, Emily scrolled to the end of her photo gallery and looked at a picture of another girl she was pretty sure she loved. Jordan grinned into the camera. Her body was backlit by the blazing Puerto Rican sun, and blue water stretched behind her for miles. Emily touched the screen, wishing she could feel Jordan’s soft cheek one more time.

  “She’s hot.” The shaved-head salesgirl glanced over Emily’s shoulder at Jordan’s photo. “That your girlfriend?”

  Emily smiled bashfully. “Kind of.”

  One corner of the girl’s lip curled into a smile. “What’s that mean?”

  Emily slipped the phone into her pocket. It means she’s a fugitive. It means she jumped off a cruise ship in Bermuda to avoid the FBI, and I have no idea where she is now or when I’ll see her again.

  She wandered toward the shoe section, which smelled heavily of leather and rubber. She would never forget those last few minutes she and Jordan were together. In Jordan’s past life, she’d been Katherine DeLong, the Preppy Thief, the girl who stole boats, cars, and planes. When Emily met her, she’d just escaped from prison and changed her name, and was ready for a new start. The FBI agents, probably alerted by Real Ali/New A, chased both of them to the ship’s railing. Jordan had given Emily one last look, then dived into the bay to escape.

  When Emily returned home, she’d received a postcard from Jordan. We’ll see each other again. Emily was dying to write back, but Jordan wasn’t stupid enough to include a return address. Wherever she was—Thailand, Brazil, some teeny island off the coast of Spain—she was hopefully hiding well enough to evade the cops.

  Emily ran her fingers over the smooth leather of a display pair of Doc Martens, getting an idea. She pulled out her phone again, opened the Twitter app, and logged into her account. Then she copy-pasted the prom invite into a new tweet. PROM IS IN TWO WEEKS, she typed. WISH I COULD TAKE MY TRUE LOVE.

  She hit TWEET, feeling satisfied. Hopefully Jordan would see it and understand what it meant. And even though Jordan probably wouldn’t reply, at least she’d know Emily was thinking about her.

  When her phone buzzed a second later, her spirits soared—Jordan already! But the e-mail was from someone named Special Agent Jasmine Fuji. NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU ABOUT TABITHA CLARK.

  Emily’s vision narrowed. The growling voices in the song pumping through the store’s speakers suddenly sounded like vicious dogs. Pressing herself into a back corner, she opened the e-mail. Dear Miss Fields, it read. I’m a special agent in charge of the Tabitha Clark murder investigation. Your name was on a list of guests at The Cliffs resort in Negril, Jamaica, at the same time Miss Clark was there. Procedure dictates that I interview everyone to get a better picture of what happened that night. Please contact me at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Special Agent Jasmine Fuji.

  “Emily?”

  Her mother was staring at her, her faux-croc purse tucked under her arm. “Are you okay?”

  Emily licked her dry lips. There was no way she could talk to a cop. Jasmine Fuji would know instantly she was l
ying.

  Mrs. Fields took her arm. “You’re so pale. Let’s get some air.”

  The street smelled of car exhaust and stale beer from the dive bar next door. Emily took heaving breaths, trying to tell herself this wasn’t a big deal. But it was. She couldn’t lie to a federal agent.

  Beep.

  Dizzily, she glanced at her phone again. As if on cue, a text message from an anonymous sender had come in. Emily gasped as she read the note.

  Wait until I tell Agent Fuji that you and your GF are perfect for each other—you’re both cold-blooded criminals. —A

  4

  No One Knows What Aria Did Last Summer

  “Go, Noel, go!” Aria Montgomery screamed from the sidelines of the lacrosse field the following afternoon at lunchtime. Her boyfriend, Noel Kahn, dashed across the grass and tried for his fifth goal in a row. Aria held her breath as the ball sailed into the net.

  “Yes!” she screamed, slapping hands with Hanna. The lacrosse team was raising money for the local homeless shelter, and people had placed donation bets on which player could get the most balls past the goalie in under a minute. Naturally, Aria had ten bucks on Noel.

  Once the minute was up—Noel was in second place after Jim Freed—Noel trotted over to her. “You were amazing!” Aria squealed, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Thanks, babe.” Noel kissed her long and hard, making the backs of Aria’s legs tingle. Even though they’d been dating for over a year, Aria’s stomach still flipped when she smelled his slightly lemony, slightly sweaty post-workout scent.

  Hanna, who had just greeted her own lacrosse-playing boyfriend, Aria’s brother, Mike, nudged Noel. “I can’t believe you’ve turned Aria into a lacrosse groupie. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  Noel took a mock bow. “It was hard work, but totally worth it.”

  “Aw, thanks.” Aria pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. It was chilly for late April, and the gray sky threatened rain. Hanna was right: If someone had told her at the beginning of her junior year that she’d be watching the lacrosse charity event during lunch instead of, say, working on a sculpture, she would have laughed her head off. And if that person had said she would be dating Noel Kahn, she would have fallen off her chair. Aria had crushed on Noel big-time when she and Ali were friends in middle school, but after Noel liked Ali instead, she’d sworn off him. Then, when she returned from her family’s three-year sabbatical in Iceland, she was no longer the kind of girl who dated preppy lacrosse players. Or so she’d thought.