Ruthless (29 page)

“You should’ve stuck around.” Mike chewed his Kashi flakes loudly. “The director got really smashed. People say that’s why he had to come and work at a random private school in the suburbs—he’s a boozer. And Spencer Hastings freaked out on this random girl.
Psycho!
” He sang the last word and bugged out his eyes.

“She’s not psycho.” Aria picked at a Fresh Fields waffle, the events of last night whirling in her head. Spencer freaked out, but it was for good reason.

So Kelsey was New A. On one hand, it was a good thing: At least they knew who the notes were coming from. On the other, what if people
did
believe what Kelsey knew about Tabitha? This morning, three more stories had appeared online about Tabitha’s death: one about a new forensic procedure the scientists had done to prove once and for all it had been Tabitha’s remains, another about a bake sale held in Tabitha’s honor, and a third about underage drinking in general, mentioning Tabitha’s death as a recent example.

Tabitha was becoming as popular in her community as Ali had been in Rosewood. If her little town in New Jersey caught wind that Tabitha had been murdered, would they really care if the girl crying foul was a drug addict? And what if Kelsey had more photos of Tabitha’s body? She thought of A’s recent note:
Don’t think you’ll be spared from my wrath, murderess. You’re the guiltiest of all.
Kelsey seemed to even know that
Aria
had done the pushing.

Mike’s phone rang, and he jumped up and left the room. Ella balled up her napkin and leaned forward on her elbows. “Honey, is there anything you want to talk about?”

Aria slurped her coffee. “Not really.”

Ella cleared her throat. “Are you sure? I couldn’t help but notice you talking to a certain ex-teacher of yours last night.”

Aria winced. “There’s nothing to tell.”

And there wasn’t. Ezra hadn’t called Aria after she’d caught him with Klaudia. There had been no
I’m sorry
texts on her phone or
please take me back
boxes of candy on her doorstep. New York certainly wasn’t happening. The love affair wasn’t happening. It was like she’d dreamed the whole thing.

Aria sighed and raised her head. “Remember how, before I went to Iceland last summer, everyone kept telling me it was going to be so amazing to be back?”

“Sure.” Ella stirred more Sugar in the Raw into her coffee.

“But then, when I came back, I told you it just . . . wasn’t the same?” Aria fiddled with the gnome salt and pepper shakers on the table. “It’s like, you can dream about something for so long, but sometimes reality doesn’t exactly quite live up.”

Ella clucked her tongue. “You know, you’re going to make someone very happy someday,” she said after a moment. “And someone is going to make
you
happy someday, too. You’ll know when it’s right.”

“How?” Aria asked quietly.

“You’ll just know it. I promise.”

Ella patted Aria’s hands, maybe waiting for Aria to say something else. When Aria didn’t, Ella rose to clear the table. Aria remained in her chair, deep in thought. She’d known something was different about Ezra as soon as he’d returned, but she hadn’t wanted to admit it. It was the same feeling she’d had about Reykjavik when the airport bus had driven them into town. She’d wanted to love it just as much, but it wasn’t the same place she remembered. The bar that sold soup in giant bread bowls was no longer on the corner. Aria’s old house had been painted a garish pink and had an ugly satellite dish that took up half the roof.

And then there was what had happened on that trip, something that had more or less ruined Aria’s memories of the country forever. It was a secret that only her old best friends knew, a secret she’d take with her to the grave.

When the doorbell rang, Aria straightened her spine. Could it be Ezra? Did she even
want
it to be Ezra? For both Ezra and Iceland some of the old magic was gone.

She rose from the table, cinched the belt of her robe around her waist, and pulled the door open. Noel stood on the porch, wringing his hands. “Hey.”

“Oh. Hi,” Aria said cautiously. “Are you looking for Mike?”

“No.”

Awkward seconds ticked by. The tap in the kitchen turned on, then off. Aria shifted from one foot to the other.

“I’ve missed you,” Noel blurted. “I can’t stop thinking about you. And I’m a complete ass. What I said in the hall the other day, it was bullshit. I didn’t mean it.”

Aria stared down at the gash in the floor she’d made when she was little by digging a clay knife into the soft wood, thinking she was a sculptor. “You were right, though. We
are
really different. You deserve someone more . . . Rosewood-y. Someone like Klaudia.”

Noel winced. “Oh, God.
Not
Klaudia. That girl’s crazy.”

A small light flickered on in Aria’s heart.

“She’s had me working like a dog after that ankle injury,” Noel said. “And I found out she’s a total klepto. She’s been stealing stuff from my room! Underwear, CDs, pages from my notebooks . . . and then I realized she took my leather jacket, that one that used to be my grandfather’s.”

Aria frowned. “I saw her wearing that in school. I figured you gave it to her.”

Noel looked horrified. “No way! And when I confronted her about it, she went ballistic. Then she went off about
you
, saying you were spreading lies about her—that you told everyone she threatened you, saying she was determined to sleep with me and that I shouldn’t believe it. But I kind of think she
does
want to sleep with me. A couple of nights ago, I woke up to her standing in my doorway, wearing . . .” He trailed off, an awkward look on his face. “I told my mom I wanted her out of the house.”

“Wow,” Aria said. Part of her wanted to gloat, but part of her just felt tired. “So . . . you didn’t sleep with her?” She couldn’t help but ask. It was kind of inconceivable to think Noel had resisted gorgeous Klaudia.

Noel shook his head. “I’m not into her like that, Aria. I like someone else.”

A frisson went through her. She didn’t dare look at him for fear she’d give too much away.

Noel leaned against the doorjamb. “I should have listened to you. About
everything.
I can understand if you don’t want to get back together, but . . . I miss you. Maybe we could at least be friends? I mean, who else will go with me to the rest of those cooking classes?”

Aria raised her head. “You
liked
those cooking classes?”

“They’re kind of girly, but they’re fun.” Noel smiled shyly. “And anyway, we need to have our
Iron Chef
battle at the end of the semester.”

The heady scent of the orangey soap Noel always used tickled Aria’s nose. What was he asking for: a companion to cooking class . . . or for Aria to be his girlfriend again? Maybe it was too late to get back together. Maybe they really
didn’t
have enough in common. Aria would never be a Typical Rosewood, after all. It wasn’t even worth trying for.

She must have been taking too long to answer, because Noel breathed in sharply. “You’re not back with that teacher dude again, are you? When I saw you guys together last night . . .”

“No,” Aria said quickly. “He’s . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Actually, he’s into Klaudia.”

This suddenly struck her as ridiculous. She leaned over and laughed long and hard, tears streaming from her eyes.

Noel laughed awkwardly, not really getting the joke. After a moment, Aria gazed up at him. He looked so sweet, standing on the porch in baggy jeans and an oversized T-shirt and rubber shower shoes over white gym socks, a look Aria had always hated. So Noel would never write a novel. So he’d never roll his eyes at the irony of the suburbs or whine about how everything here was so contrived and pretentious. But then she thought about how, on Christmas Day, Noel had appeared at Aria’s doorstep in a Santa Claus outfit with a bag of presents for her, all because she’d told him that her family never “did” Santa when she was little. And how, when Aria dragged Noel to the modern art wing at the Philadelphia Art Museum, he had patiently walked through the rooms with her, even buying a book about Picasso’s Blue Period at the gift shop afterward because he thought it was trippy. And he made Aria laugh: When the two of them had gone to the cooking class at Hollis, knives poised over green bell peppers, Noel had pointed out that they looked just like lumpy butts. The other students, mostly old ladies or sad bachelors probably taking the class to meet women, pursed their lips at them, which just made them laugh harder.

She stepped toward Noel. Her heart pounded as he leaned down, his breath sweet and warm on her face. They’d only been broken up for two weeks, but the moment their lips touched it felt like their very first kiss. Fireworks went off in Aria’s chest. Her lips tingled. Noel pulled her in and squeezed her so hard she thought she might burst. And, okay, it was drizzling outside, and Aria was pretty sure her mouth tasted like coffee, and Noel’s shower shoes were probably caked in mold. The moment wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t matter.

It just felt . . . right. Maybe even the
right
that Ella had talked about in the kitchen just moments ago. And for Aria, that was as perfect as perfect could be.

Chapter 36

THE REAL SPENCER F.

“Sorry it smells like chlorine,” Spencer said, lifting the lid of her family’s backyard hot tub, which had been closed up since last fall. She fiddled with the tie on her Burberry string bikini.

“I’m used to it,” Emily said. She was wearing one of her practice swimsuits, the shoulder straps stretched and the Speedo emblem almost worn off.

“As long as it’s warm, I don’t care,” Hanna seconded, stripping off her T-shirt to reveal a new Missoni bikini. And Aria shrugged, unzipping her hoodie, showing off a polka-dotted maillot that looked like it could have come from a 1950s time capsule.

Steam rose from under the hot tub cover. The water burbled invitingly. Percival, Spencer’s old yellow rubber duck, bobbed in the water, left there from the last time she’d taken a soak. Bringing Percival in here was a ritual of hers, back from when she was little and her parents only let her climb in the tub for a few minutes at a time. Their Ali always used to tease her about it, saying it was just as bad as a security blanket, but Spencer loved seeing the duck’s happy smiling face bobbing in the bubbles.

One by one, the girls stepped into the warm bath. Spencer had invited them over to rehash what had happened with Kelsey, but as soon as she saw Mr. Pennythistle—she should really start calling him Nicholas—fiddling with the lid to the tub earlier today she thought they might as well get some relaxation out of the visit, too.

“This feels awesome,” Aria murmured.

“Such a good idea,” Emily agreed. Her pale cheeks and forehead were already red from the heat.

“Remember the last time we were going to get in a hot tub together?” Hanna asked. “At the Poconos?”

Everyone nodded, staring into the steam. Ali had run under the deck to turn on the tub, leaving the girls alone on the porch. They’d all hugged and said how happy they were to be friends again.

“I remember feeling so happy,” Emily said.

“And then everything changed so fast,” Hanna said, her voice tight.

Spencer arched her neck up and looked for patterns in the gray clouds. That night at the Poconos felt like it was both yesterday and a million years ago. Would they ever get over it, or would it be something that haunted them for the rest of their lives?

“I found out what rehab hospital Kelsey’s in,” she said after a moment. “The Preserve.”

Everyone looked up, startled. The Preserve was where A had sent Hanna last year . . . and where Real Ali had spent all those years.

“The nurse on the phone said she can have visitors starting tomorrow,” Spencer went on. “I think we should go.”

“Are you serious?” Hanna’s eyes were round. “Don’t you think we should stay away from her?”

“We need to figure out what she really knows,” Spencer said. “Figure out how she became A. What she wanted with us.”

“She wanted what every A wanted.” Hanna picked at her cuticles. “Revenge.”

“But why did she try to kill herself?” Spencer had been running the problem over in her mind all night. “That’s unlike Mona or Ali. I would’ve thought she’d wanted
us
dead instead.”

“Maybe she wanted us to know we drove her to suicide,” Aria suggested. “It’s the ultimate guilt-trip. We’d have it on our conscience for the rest of our lives.”

The strong scent of chlorine tickled Spencer’s nose. She’d never suspected that Kelsey was suicidal—she’d always seemed so bubbly and carefree at Penn, even in the thick of taking Easy A. Had it been juvie that had changed her? Had it been the addiction to drugs? That was the biggest surprise of all: In Spencer’s memories, Kelsey had been resistant to taking the pills, seemingly disgusted by her druggie past. She’d never have thought Kelsey would turn to them again after juvie. After Spencer’s near-arrest experience, she’d quit Easy A cold turkey. It had been hard, especially with all the cramming she still needed to do, but she’d powered through her studies, scoring fives on the exams anyway. Nowadays, Spencer didn’t even yearn for the pills anymore.

But then, Kelsey’s life had taken such a different turn from hers. Even if Kelsey hadn’t succeeded in jumping into Floating Man Quarry, just the fact that she’d wanted to do it was more than Spencer could bear. It could have been all her fault, both for getting her back into drugs and for getting her sent to juvie. The visions Spencer had been having of Kelsey and Tabitha weren’t because of stress over school, as Spencer had wanted to believe. The guilt over what she’d done was eating her from the inside out. It was a good thing no one important had seen her attack on Kelsey at the cast party, like Wilden or her mother or any of the Rosewood Day teachers—Pierre had been there, but word had it he’d also been drunk. If Spencer didn’t find a healthy outlet for this guilt soon, she was a little afraid of what she might see—or do—next.