Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

Aria grabbed her bag and tore out the door and across the yard. She needed to get away. Now.

‘The limit of x is . . . ,’ Spencer murmured to herself. She propped herself up on one elbow on her bed and stared at her brand-new, just-covered-with-a-brown-bag calculus book. Her lower back still burned with Icy Hot.

She checked her watch: It was after midnight. Was she crazy to stress over her calc homework on the school year’s first Friday night? The Spencer of last year would’ve whizzed over to the Kahns’ in her Mercedes, drunk bad keg beer, and maybe made out with Mason Byers or some other cute lax boy. But not the Spencer of now. She was the Star, and the Star had homework to do. Tomorrow, the Star was visiting home design stores with her mom to properly accessorize the barn. She might even hit Main Line Bikes with her dad in the afternoon – he’d pored over some bicycling catalogues with her during dinner, asking her which Orbea frame she liked better. He’d never asked her opinion about bikes before.

She cocked her head. Was that a tiny, tentative knock at the door? Putting down her mechanical pencil, Spencer gazed out the barn’s large front window. The moon was silvery and full, and the windows of the main house blazed a warm yellow. There was the knock again. She padded over to the heavy wooden door and opened it a crack.

‘Hey,’ Wren whispered. ‘Am I interrupting?’

‘Of course not.’ Spencer opened the door wider. Wren was barefoot, in a slim-fitting white T-shirt that said, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL, and baggy khaki shorts. She looked down at her black French Connection baby tee, short track-star gray sweat shorts from Villanova, and bare legs. Her hair was pulled back in a low, messy ponytail; wisps hanging around her face. It was a completely different look from her everyday Thomas Pink striped button-down and Citizens jeans. That look said, I’m sophisticated and sexy, this look said, I’m studying ... but still sexy.

Okay, so maybe she’d planned for the off chance this would happen. But it goes to show you shouldn’t just throw on your high-waisted underwear and old, ratty I HEART PERSIAN CATS T-shirt.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked. A warm breeze lifted the wispy ends of her hair. A pine cone fell out of a nearby tree with a thump.

Wren hovered in the doorway. ‘Shouldn’t you be out partying? I heard there was a huge field party somewhere.’

Spencer shrugged. ‘Not into it.’

Wren met her eyes. ‘No?’

Spencer’s mouth felt cottony. ‘Um . . . where’s Melissa?’

‘She’s sleeping. Too much renovating, I guess. So I thought maybe you could give me a tour of this fabulous barn I don’t get to live in. I never even got to see it!’

Spencer frowned. ‘Do you have a housewarming gift?’

Wren paled. ‘Oh. I . . .’

‘I’m kidding.’ She opened the door. ‘Enter the Spencer Hastings barn.’

She’d spent some of the night daydreaming about all the potential scenarios of being alone with Wren, but nothing compared to actually having him right here, next to her.

Wren strolled over to her Thom Yorke poster and stretched his hands behind his head. ‘You like Radiohead?’

‘Love.’

Wren’s face lit up. ‘I’ve seen them like twenty times in London. Every show gets better.’

She smoothed down the duvet on her bed. ‘Lucky. I’ve never seen them live.’

‘We have to remedy that,’ he said, leaning against her couch. ‘If they come to Philly, we’re going.’

Spencer paused. ‘But I don’t think . . .’ Then she stopped. She was about to say I don’t think Melissa likes them, but . . . maybe Melissa wasn’t invited.

She led him to the walk-in closet. ‘This is my, um, closet,’ she said, accidentally bumping into the doorjamb. ‘It used to be a milking station.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yep. This is where the farmers squeezed the cow’s nipples or whatever.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t you mean udders?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ Spencer blushed. Oops. ‘You don’t have to look in there to be polite. I mean, I know closets aren’t that interesting to guys.’

‘Oh no.’ Wren grinned. ‘I’ve come all this way; I absolutely want to see what Spencer Hastings has in her closet.’

‘As you wish.’ Spencer flicked on the closet light. The closet smelled like leather, mothballs, and Clinique Happy. She’d stashed all her undies, bras, nightgowns, and grubby hockey clothes in wicker pull-out baskets, and her shirts

hung in neat rows, arranged according to color.

Wren chuckled. ‘It’s like being in a shop!’

‘Yeah,’ Spencer said bashfully, running her hands against her shirts.

‘I’ve never heard of a window in a closet.’ Wren pointed to the open window on the far wall. ‘Seems funny.’

‘It was part of the original barn,’ Spencer explained.

‘You like people watching you naked?’

‘There are blinds,’ Spencer said.

‘Too bad,’ Wren said softly. ‘You looked so beautiful in the bathroom... I hoped I’d get to see you... like that... again.’

When Spencer whirled around – what did he just say? – Wren was staring at her. He rubbed his fingers over the cuff of a hung-up pair of Joseph trousers. She slid her Tiffany Elsa Peretti heart ring up and down her finger, afraid to speak. Wren took a step forward, then another, until he was right next to her. Spencer could see the light smattering of freckles over his nose. The well-behaved Spencer of a parallel universe would have ducked around him and shown him the rest of the barn. But Wren kept staring at her with his huge, gorgeous brown eyes. The Spencer who was here now rubbed her lips together, afraid to speak, yet dying to do . . . something.

So then she did. She closed her eyes, reached up, and kissed him right on the lips.

Wren didn’t hesitate. He kissed her back, then held on to the back of her neck and kissed her harder. His mouth was soft, and he tasted a tiny bit like cigarettes.

Spencer sank back into her wall of shirts. Wren followed. A few slipped off the hangers, but Spencer didn’t care.

They sank down onto the soft carpeted floor. Spencer kicked her field hockey cleats out of the way. Wren rolled on top of her, groaning slightly. Spencer grabbed fistfuls of his worn T-shirt in her hands and pulled it over his head. He took hers off next and ran his feet up and down her legs. They rolled over and now Spencer was on top of him. A huge, overwhelming surge of – well, she didn’t know what – overcame her. Whatever it was, it was so intense it didn’t occur to her to feel guilty. She paused over him, breathing hard.

He reached up and kissed her again, then kissed her nose and her neck. Then he pushed himself up. ‘I’ll be right back.’

‘Why?’

He motioned his eyes to his left, the direction of her bathroom.

As soon as she heard Wren shut the door, Spencer threw her head back onto the floor and stared dizzily up at her clothes. Then she scrambled up and examined herself in the three-way mirror. Her hair had come out of its ponytail and cascaded over her shoulders. Her bare skin looked luminous, and her face was slightly flushed. She grinned at the three Spencers in the mirror. This. Was. Unbelievable.

That was when the reflection of her computer screen, directly opposite her closet, caught her eye.

It was flashing. She turned around and squinted. It looked like she had hundreds of instant messages, piled one on top of the other. Another IM popped on the screen, this time written in 72-point font. Spencer blinked.

A A A A A A: I already told you: Kissing your sister’s boyfriend is WRONG.

Spencer ran up to her computer screen and read the IM again. She turned and glanced toward the bathroom; a tiny strip of light shone from underneath the door.

A was definitely not Andrew Campbell.

When she kissed Ian back in seventh grade, she told Alison about it, hoping for some advice. Ali examined her French-manicured toenails for a long moment before she finally said, ‘You know, I’ve been in your corner when it comes to Melissa. But this is different. I think you should tell her.’

‘Tell her?’ Spencer shot back. ‘No way. She’d kill me.’

‘What, do you think Ian’s going to go out with you?’ Ali said nastily.

‘I don’t know,’ Spencer said. ‘Why not?’

Ali snorted. ‘If you don’t tell her, maybe I will.’

‘No you won’t!’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘If you tell Melissa,’ Spencer said after a moment, her heart pounding wildly, ‘I’ll tell everyone about The Jenna Thing.’

Ali barked out a laugh. ‘You’re just as guilty as I am.’

Spencer stared at Ali long and hard. ‘But no one saw me.’

She turned to Spencer and gave her a fierce, angry look – scarier than any look she’d ever given any of the girls before. ‘You know I took care of that.’

Then there was that sleepover in the barn on the last day of seventh grade. When Ali said how cute Ian and Melissa were together, Spencer realized Ali really might tell on her. Then, strangely, a light, free feeling swept over her. Let her, Spencer thought. She suddenly didn’t care anymore. And even though it sounded horrible to say now, the truth was, Spencer wanted to be free of Ali, right then and there.

Now Spencer felt nauseous. She heard the toilet flush. Wren strode out and stood in the closet’s doorway. ‘Now, where were we?’ he cooed.

But Spencer still had her eyes on her computer screen.

Something on it – a flicker of red – just moved. It looked like . . . a reflection.

‘What’s the matter?’ Wren asked.