by Sara Shepard
Hanna glanced at Sean now. He was sitting stiffly in a plastic visitor’s chair, peeking at Hanna’s various get-well cards. Visiting Hanna in the hospital was so him. She wanted to ask him why he and Aria had broken up, but all of a sudden, she realized that she didn’t care.
Noel looked at Hanna curiously. “What’s with the veil?”
“The doctors told me to do this.” Hanna pulled the blanket tight around her nose. “To, like, keep away germs. And besides, you get to focus on my beautiful eyes.”
“So, what was it like being in a coma?” Noel perched on the side of Hanna’s bed, squeezing a stuffed turtle that her aunt and uncle had given her yesterday. “Was it, like, a really long acid trip?”
“And are they giving you medicinal marijuana now?” Mike asked hopefully, his blue eyes glinting. “I bet the hospital stash rocks.”
“Nah, I bet they’re giving her painkillers.” Mason’s parents were doctors, so he always busted out his medical knowledge. “Hospital patients have such a sweet setup.”
“Are the nurses hot?” Mike burbled. “Do they strip for you?”
“Are you naked under there?” Noel asked. “Give us a peek!”
“Guys!” Lucas said in a horrified voice. The boys looked at him and rolled their eyes—except for Sean, who looked almost as uncomfortable as Lucas did. Sean was probably still in Virginity Club, Hanna thought with a smirk.
“It’s fine,” Hanna chirped. “I can handle it.” It was actually refreshing to have the boys here, making inappropriate comments. Everyone else who visited had been so damn serious. As the boys gathered around to sign Hanna’s cast, Hanna remembered something and sat up. “You guys are coming to my welcome-back party on Friday, right? Spencer and Mona are planning it, so I’m sure it’s going to rock.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Noel glanced at Mason and Mike, who were looking out the window, chatting about what limbs they’d break if they jumped from Hanna’s fifth-floor balcony. “What’s up with you and Mona, anyway?” Noel asked.
“Nothing.” Hanna flinched. “Why?”
Noel capped the pen. “You guys had quite a catfight at her party. Rrow!”
“We did?” Hanna asked blankly. Lucas coughed uncomfortably.
“Noel, it was so not rrow!” Mona breezed into the room. She blew air-kisses at Noel, Mason, and Mike, shot a frosty smile at Sean, and dropped an enormous binder at the bottom of Hanna’s bed. She ignored Lucas completely. “It was just a little BFF bitchiness.”
Noel shrugged. He joined the other boys at the window and proceeded to get into a noogie fight with Mason.
Mona rolled her eyes. “So listen, Han, I was just talking to Spencer, and we made a must-have party list. I want to run the details by you.” She opened her Tiffany-blue binder. “You, of course, have the final say before I talk to the venue.” She licked her finger and turned a page. “Okay. Bisque or ivory napkins?”
Hanna tried to focus, but Noel’s words were still fresh in Hanna’s mind. Rrow? “What were we fighting about?” Hanna blurted out.
Mona paused, lowering her list to her lap. “Seriously, Han, nothing. You remember we were fighting the week before? About the skywriter? Naomi and Riley?”
Hanna nodded. Mona had asked Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe, their biggest rivals, to be part of her Sweet Seventeen party court. Hanna suspected it was in retaliation to Hanna blowing off their Frenniversary celebration.
“Well, you were totally right,” Mona went on. “Those two are enormous bitches. I don’t want us to hang out with them anymore. I’m sorry I let them in the inner circle for a little bit, Han.”
“It’s okay,” Hanna said in a small voice, feeling a tiny lift.
“So, anyway.” Mona pulled out two magazine cutouts. One was a longish, white, pleated bubble dress with a silk rosette on the back, and the other was a wild-print dress that hit high on the thigh. “Phillip Lim gathered gown or flirty Nieves Lavi minidress?”
“Nieves Lavi,” Hanna answered. “It’s boatneck and short, so it’ll show lots of leg but detract from my collarbone and face.” She pulled the sheet up to her eyes again.
“Speaking of that,” Mona chirped, “look what I got for you!”
She reached into her butter-colored Cynthia Rowley tote and pulled out a delicate porcelain mask. It was in the shape of a pretty girl’s face, with prominent cheekbones, pretty, pouty lips, and a nose that would definitely be on a plastic surgeon’s most-requested list. It was so beautiful and intricate, it looked almost real.
“These exact masks were used in last year’s Dior haute couture show,” Mona breathed. “My mom knows someone at Dior’s PR company in New York, and we had someone drive it down from New York City this morning.”
“Oh my God.” Hanna reached out and touched the edge of the mask. It felt like a mix between baby-soft skin and satin.
Mona held the mask up to Hanna’s face, which was still half-covered by the blanket. “It will cover all your bruises. You’ll be the most gorgeous girl at your party.”
“Hanna’s already gorgeous,” Lucas piped up, whirling around from all the medical machines. “Even without a mask.”
Mona’s nose wrinkled as if Lucas had just told her he was going to take her temperature in her butt. “Oh, Lucas,” she said frostily. “I didn’t see you standing there.”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Lucas pointed out tersely.
The two of them glowered at each other. Hanna noticed something almost apprehensive about Mona’s expression. But in a blink, it was gone.
Mona placed Hanna’s mask against her vase of flowers, positioning it so that it was staring at her. “This is going to be the party of the year, Han. I can’t wait.”
With that, Mona blew her a kiss and danced out of the room. Noel, Mason, Sean, and Mike followed, telling Hanna they’d be back tomorrow and she’d better share some of her medicinal marijuana with them. Only Lucas remained, leaning against the far wall next to a soothing Monet-esque poster of a field of dandelions. There was a disturbed expression on his face.
“So that cop, Wilden? He asked me some questions about the hit-and-run while we were waiting for you to wake up from your coma a couple days ago,” Lucas said quietly, sitting down on the orange chair next to Hanna’s bed. “Like, if I’d seen you the night it happened. If you were acting weird or worried. It kind of sounded like he thought the hit-and-run wasn’t an accident.”
Lucas swallowed hard and raised his eyes to Hanna. “You don’t think it was the same person who was sending you those weird text messages, do you?”
Hanna shot up. She’d forgotten that she’d told Lucas about A when they’d gone up in the hot-air balloon together. Her heart started to pound. “Tell me you didn’t say anything about that to Wilden.”
“Of course not,” Lucas assured her. “It’s just…I’m worried about you. It’s so scary that someone hit you, is all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hanna interrupted, crossing her arms over her chest. “And please, please don’t say a word to Wilden about it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Lucas said. “Sure.”
“Good,” Hanna barked. She took a long sip from the glass of water that was next to her bed. Whenever she dared to consider the truth—that A had hit her—her mind closed off, refusing to let her ponder it any further.
“So. Isn’t it nice that Mona’s throwing a party for me?” Hanna asked pointedly, wanting to change the subject. “She’s been such a wonderful friend. Everyone’s saying so.”
Lucas fiddled with the buttons on his Nike watch. “I’m not sure if you should trust her,” he mumbled.
Hanna wrinkled her brow. “What are you talking about?”
Lucas hesitated for a few long seconds.
“Come on,” Hanna said, annoyed. “What?”
Lucas reached over and tugged Hanna’s sheet down, exposing her face. He took her cheeks in his hands and kissed her. Lucas’s mouth was soft and warm and fit perfectly with hers. Tingles scam
pered up Hanna’s spine.
When Lucas broke away, they stared at each other for seven long beeps on Hanna’s EKG machine, breathing hard. Hanna was pretty sure the look on her face was one of pure astonishment.
“Do you remember?” Lucas asked, his eyes wide.
Hanna frowned. “Remember…what?”
Lucas stared at her for a long time, his eyes flickering back and forth. And then he turned away. “I—I should go,” Lucas mumbled awkwardly, and pushed out of the room.
Hanna stared after him, her bruised lips still sparking from his kiss. What had just happened?
18
NOW, INTRODUCING, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN ROSEWOOD, JESSICA MONTGOMERY
That same afternoon, Aria stood outside the Hollis art building, staring at a group of kids doing capoeira on the lawn. Aria had never understood capoeira. Her brother described it best, saying it looked less like a Brazilian fight dance and more like the people were trying to smell one another’s butts or pee on each other like dogs.
She felt a cold, thin hand on her shoulder. “Are you on campus for your art class?” a voice whispered in Aria’s ear.
Aria stiffened. “Meredith.” Today, Meredith wore a green pin-striped blazer and ripped jeans, and had an army green knapsack slung over her shoulder. The way she was staring at Aria, Aria felt like a little ant beneath a Meredith-shaped magnifying glass.
“You’re taking Mindless Art, right?” Meredith said. When Aria nodded dumbly, Meredith looked at her watch. “You’d better get up there. It starts in five minutes.”
Aria felt trapped. She’d been considering bagging this class completely—the last thing she wanted to do was spend two hours with Jenna Cavanaugh. Just seeing her the other day had brought back all sorts of uncomfortable memories. But Aria knew Meredith would relay everything to Byron, and Byron would give her a lecture on how it wasn’t very nice to throw Meredith’s charitable gift away. Aria pulled her pink cardigan around her shoulders. “Are you going to walk me up?” she snapped.
Meredith looked surprised. “Actually…I can’t. I have to go do something. Something…important.”
Aria rolled her eyes. She wasn’t being serious, but Meredith was looking back and forth shiftily, as if concealing a big secret. A horrible thought occurred to Aria: What if she was doing something wedding related? Even though Aria really, really didn’t want to imagine Meredith and her father standing at the front of a church altar, repeating their vows, the horrible image popped into her head anyway.
Without saying good-bye, Aria walked over to the building and took the stairs two at a time. Upstairs, Sabrina was about to start her lecture, instructing all the artists to find workstations. It was like a big game of musical chairs, and when the dust settled, Aria still didn’t have a seat. There was only one art table left…next to the girl with the white cane and the big golden retriever guide dog. Naturally.
It felt like Jenna’s eyes were following her as Aria’s thin-soled Chinese slippers slapped against the wood floor toward the empty workstation. Jenna’s dog panted amiably at Aria as she passed. Today, Jenna wore a low-cut black blouse with a tiny bit of a lacy black bra peeking through. If Mike were here, he would probably adore Jenna because he could stare at her boobs without her ever knowing. When Aria sat down, Jenna cocked her head closer to her. “What’s your name?”
“It’s…Jessica,” Aria blurted, before she could stop herself. She glanced at Sabrina at the front of the room; half the time, art teachers for the continuing-ed classes didn’t bother to learn people’s names, and hopefully Meredith hadn’t told Sabrina to look out for her in class.
“I’m Jenna.” She stuck out her hand, and Aria shook it. Afterward, Aria turned away quickly, wondering how on earth she would get through the rest of the class. A new Jenna memory had come to mind that morning when Aria was eating breakfast in Meredith’s freak show of a kitchen, probably brought on by the looming dwarves on top of Meredith’s refrigerator. Ali, Aria, and the others used to call Jenna Snow, after Snow White in the Disney movie. Once, when their class went to the Longwood Orchards for apple-picking, Ali had suggested they give Jenna an apple they’d dunked in the orchard’s filthy women’s toilet, just like the wicked witch gave Snow White a poisoned apple in the movie.
Ali suggested that Aria give Jenna the apple—she always made the others do her dirty work. “This apple is special,” Aria had said to Jenna, holding the fruit outstretched, listening as Ali snickered behind her. “The farmer told me it was from the sweetest tree. And I wanted to give it to you.” Jenna’s face had been so surprised and touched. As soon as she took a big, juicy bite, though, Ali crowed, “You ate an apple that’s been peed on! Toilet breath!” Jenna had stopped mid-chew, letting the apple chunk fall out of her mouth.
Aria shook the memory from her head and noticed a bunch of oil paintings stacked at the edge of Jenna’s workstation. They were portraits of people, all done in vibrant colors and energetic strokes. “Did you paint those?” she asked Jenna.
“The stuff on my desk?” Jenna asked, laying her hands on her lap. “Yeah. I was talking to Sabrina about my work, and she wanted to see them. I might be in one of her gallery shows.”
Aria balled up her fists. Could this day get any worse? How the hell had Jenna gotten a gallery show? How on earth did Jenna even know how to paint if she couldn’t see?
At the front of the room, Sabrina told the students to pick up a pouch of flour, strips of newspaper, and an empty bucket. Jenna tried to retrieve the things herself, but in the end, Sabrina carried them back for her. Aria noticed how all of the students were looking at Jenna out of the corners of their eyes, afraid that if they looked too pointedly, someone would chastise them for staring.
When they all returned to their desks, Sabrina cleared her throat. “Okay. Last time, we talked about seeing things by touch. We’re going to do something similar today by making masks of one another’s faces. We all wear masks in our own ways, don’t we? We all pretend. What you might find, when you look at a mold of your face, is that you don’t really look the way you thought you did at all.”
“I’ve done this before,” Jenna whispered in Aria’s ear. “It’s fun. Do you want to work together? I’ll show you how to do it.”
Aria wanted to dive out the classroom window. But she found herself nodding, and then, realizing Jenna couldn’t see she was nodding, she said, “Sure.”
“I’ll do you first.” As Jenna turned, something in her jeans pocket beeped. She pulled out a slim LG phone with a foldout keypad, and held it up to Aria, as if she knew Aria had been staring. “This has a voice-activated keyboard, so I can finally text people.”
“Aren’t you worried about getting flour all over it?” Aria asked.
“It’ll wash off. I love it so much I keep it with me always.”
Aria cut up strips of newspaper for Jenna, since she didn’t really trust her with scissors. “So, where do you go to school?” Jenna asked.
“Um, Rosewood High,” Aria said, naming the local public school.
“That’s cool,” Jenna said. “Is this your first art class?”
Aria stiffened. She had taken art classes before she’d even learned to read, but she had to swallow her pride. She wasn’t Aria—she was Jessica. Whoever Jessica was. “Um, yeah,” she said, quickly conjuring up a character. “It’s a big jump for me—I’m usually more into sports, like field hockey.”
Jenna poured water into her bowl. “What position do you play?”
“Um, all of them,” Aria mumbled. Once, Ali had tried to teach her field hockey, but she’d stopped the lesson about five minutes in because she said Aria ran like a pregnant gorilla. Aria wondered why on earth she’d conjured up a Typical Rosewood Girl—the exact type of girl she tried her hardest not to be—as her alter ego.
“Well, it’s nice that you’re trying something new,” Jenna murmured, mixing the flour and water together. “The only time the field hockey–playing girls at my old school tried someth
ing new was when they took a chance on some emerging designer they read about in Vogue.” She snorted sarcastically.
“There were field hockey girls at your school in Philly?” Aria blurted out, thinking of the school for the blind Jenna’s parents had sent her to.
Jenna straightened. “Uh…no. How did you know I went to a school in Philly?”
Aria pinched the inside of her palm. What was she going to say next, that Aria had given her a toilet-poisoned apple in sixth grade? That she’d kind of been involved in her stepbrother’s death a couple weeks back? That she’d blinded her and ruined her life? “Just a guess.”
“Well, I meant my old school before that. It’s around here, actually. Rosewood Day? Do you know it?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Aria mumbled.
“I’m going back there next year.” Jenna dunked a strip of paper into the flour-and-water mixture. “But I don’t know how I feel about it. Everyone at that school is so perfect. If you aren’t into the right kinds of things, you’re nothing.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“No! I totally agree!” Aria protested. She couldn’t have put it more succinctly herself. A nagging feeling prodded at her. Jenna was beautiful—tall, graceful, cool, and artistic. Really artistic, in fact—if she really did go to Rosewood Day, Aria probably wouldn’t be the school’s best artist anymore. Who knew what Jenna could’ve been if her accident hadn’t happened. Suddenly, the desire to tell Jenna who Aria really was and how sorry she felt about what they’d done was so nauseatingly overpowering, it took all of Aria’s strength to keep her mouth shut.
Jenna came close to her. She smelled like cupcake icing. “Hold still,” Jenna instructed Aria as she located Aria’s head and laid the goopy strips over her face. They were wet and cool now, but soon they would harden over her face’s contours.
“So, do you think you’ll use your mask for anything?” Jenna asked. “Halloween?”