Pretty Little Liars

by Sara Shepard

Page 10

 

  “So if you don’t like field hockey, why do you play?” Wren asked.

  “Because it looks good on a college application. ”

  Now Wren sat up a little, making the water ripple. “It does?”

  “Uh, yeah. ”

  Spencer shifted and winced when her shoulder muscle cramped into her neck.

  “You okay?” Wren asked.

  “Yeah, it’s nothing,” Spencer said, and inexplicably felt an overwhelming wave of despair. It was only the first day of school, and she was already burned out. She thought of all the homework she had to do, lists she had to make, and lines she had to memorize. She was too busy to freak out, but that was the only thing keeping her from freaking out.

  “Is it your shoulder?”

  “I think,” Spencer said, trying to rotate it. “In field hockey, you spend so much time bending over, and I don’t know if I pulled it or what…. ”

  “I bet I could fix it for you. ”

  Spencer stared at him. She suddenly had an urge to run her fingers through his shaggy hair. “That’s okay. Thanks, though. ”

  “Really,” he said. “I’m not going to bite you. ”

  Spencer hated when people said that.

  “I’m a doctor,” Wren continued. “I bet it’s your posterior deltoid. ”

  “Um, okay…”

  “Your shoulder muscle. ” He motioned for her to come closer. “C’mere. Seriously. We just need to soften the muscle. ”

  Spencer tried not to read into that. He was a doctor, after all. He was being doctorly. She drifted to him, and he pressed his hands into the middle of her back. His thumbs dug into the little muscles around her spine. Spencer closed her eyes.

  “Wow. That’s awesome,” she murmured.

  “You just have some fluid buildup in your bursa sac,” he said. Spencer tried not to giggle at the word sac. When he reached under her sports bra strap to dig deeper, she swallowed hard. She tried to think about nonsexual things—her uncle Daniel’s nose hair, the constipated look her mom got on her face when she rode a horse, the time her cat, Kitten, carried a dead mole from the creek out back and left it in her bedroom. He’s a doctor, she told herself. This is just what doctors do.

  “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.

  8

  WHERE ARE THE DAMN GIRL SCOUTS WHEN YOU NEED THEM?

  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 ever
y 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 slingbacks. “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 yellowtail 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 yellowtail 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.