As the fifties-era bubble-shaped clock in her bedroom clicked from 3:59 to 4:00 P.M. on Saturday afternoon, Aria rolled over on her bed and leafed through yet another copy of French Vogue, pretending she was in a hotel suite on the Left Bank of Paris instead of in her father’s house in Rosewood. She had cotton balls wedged between each bare toe from the pedicure she’d given herself, and next she was going to soak in a long, hot bubble bath. She had six other activities planned, too, all to fill the weekend hours without Noel.
Eyeing her laptop on her desk, she sat up and listened for the sounds in the house. Byron and Meredith had taken baby Lola to an infant swim class, and Mike was most likely at one of his friend’s houses. Satisfied that no one was around to randomly burst into her room and see what she was doing, she dragged the laptop to her bed, touched the click wheel to wake up the screen, and typed in the web address for the Tabitha Clark Memorial page.
As usual, Tabitha’s pretty smiling face popped up. A few new pictures had appeared on the site: one of Tabitha when she was in about seventh or eighth grade, sitting on a beach, the burns apparent on her arms and legs. Another was a shot of her a few years later, standing in what looked like a sleek hotel lobby next to a giant potted cactus someone had adorned with two plastic eyes, a nose, and a mouth. There were dark circles under her eyes, but her smile looked happy.
Aria felt a wave of nausea and looked away. You killed her, a voice needled her from deep inside her brain.
Her cell phone, sitting next to the bottle of blue-black Essie nail polish on her bed, buzzed. NEW TEXT MESSAGE. Aria’s insides twisted. When she rose and looked at the screen, the text was from a number with a 917 area code, not A’s usual CALLER UNKNOWN or jumble of letters and numbers. She opened it up.
Look out your window.
A shiver snaked up her spine. All at once, the house felt too empty and silent. She crept toward her large bedroom window, parted the curtains, and prepared to peek into the front yard.
A dark-haired figure stood on the lawn, a cell phone in his hand. Aria blinked hard, taking in the familiar rumpled jacket, pointed chin, and pink lips. Surely it was a cruel trick of the light. But then, the figure looked up, noticed Aria’s face at the window, and grinned broadly. He held a poster board over his head. Printed on it, in sloppy red letters, was I MISSED YOU, ARIA!
“Holy shit,” Aria whispered.
It was Ezra Fitz.
“Brie, arugula, and sun-dried tomato for you.” Ezra pulled a wax paper–wrapped sandwich out of a picnic basket. “And”—he paused bashfully—“McDonald’s chicken nuggets for me.” He glanced at Aria. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Heat rose to Aria’s cheeks. She’d once happened upon Ezra eating chicken nuggets in his office at Rosewood Day, but she wondered if he meant the statement in more ways than one.
Ezra removed the rest of the basket’s contents one by one: a container of ripe, juicy green grapes, a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips—Aria’s favorite—and a bottle of champagne with two plastic glasses. He arranged everything on the large boulder they were sitting on and craned his neck up at the bright blue sky poking through the trees. “I was hoping we could eat during sunset, but I guess I’m a little off.”
“No, this is amazing,” Aria gushed, hiding her trembling hands under her thighs. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. Twenty minutes ago, after ripping the cotton balls from between her toes and changing from her stained Hollis sweatshirt into a vintage silk blouse she’d gotten in Amsterdam, she’d sprinted down the stairs and flung open the front door. There was Ezra, the guy she’d pined after for so long, the guy she was sure was her soul mate even after he turned out to be her teacher, standing with his arms outstretched. “I’ve missed you so much,” he had said. “When you wrote to me, I had to come right away.”
“But I wrote to you for months,” Aria had replied, remaining rooted to her spot on the porch.
Ezra had looked stricken, saying he’d never received any correspondence from her. He added that his email account had been hacked a year ago, and it had taken him a while to get things sorted out—maybe some of his emails had gotten lost in the ether. Normally, Aria would have thought it was a lame guy excuse, but Ezra looked so apologetic that she believed him.