Sara Shepard - Ruthless

Hanna inhaled sharply. This was Kelsey’s dorm room at Penn—she recalled some of the details from when she’d snuck in there last summer. But how was she here now . . . and why?

A hand touched her shoulder. Hanna swung around and almost screamed. There, standing before her, was a familiar blond girl with a heart-shaped face and a haunting smile. It was Real Ali. She was dressed in a blue oxford shirt and a white blazer, which she’d worn to the press conference last year when the DiLaurentises had announced her return to Rosewood.

“Looking to plant something?” Ali teased, tilting her hips.

“Of course not!” Hanna hid the pill bottle behind her back. “And what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be . . .”

“Dead?” Ali covered her mouth and giggled. “You know better than that, don’t you, Han?” And then she rushed for Hanna, her arms outstretched.

Hanna shot straight up in bed, gasping for air. She ran her fingers along the cool sheets and waited for her heartbeat to slow down. She was in the little loft room at her dad’s house again. The heater hissed softly in the corner. Her door was closed, and the TV was muted to a late-late showing of The Hangover .

But Ali’s presence still felt so real. She could practically smell her vanilla soap.

Bzzz. Hanna looked over. Her iPhone glowed with a new text from Liam.

Hey. Go to your balcony.

She cautiously slipped out of her sheets and tiptoed to the double doors that led to the Juliet balcony. Dot rose from his dog bed and followed her. The latch made a squeak when it turned. The doors groaned as she pulled them open. A whoosh of frigid air swept in, bringing with it the cold, dead smell of winter.

“Boo.”

Hanna screamed. Dot let out a sharp yap. “Whoa!” Liam said, grabbing Hanna’s shoulders. “It’s okay! It’s just me!”

“You scared me!” Hanna cried. Dot started barking hysterically.

“ Shhh .” Liam leaned down to pet the dog. “This is supposed to be a secret rendezvous, not a party for all the neighbors!”

Hanna stared at Liam. He was wearing a J. Crew anorak, a thick black scarf, dark jeans, and hiking boots. Then she looked at the long drop to the yard. “How did you know where I lived? And how did you get up here?”

“I looked you up on Google,” Liam answered. “And I climbed.” He gestured to a trellis on the side of the house.

“You can’t be here,” Hanna whispered. “My dad’s one flight down! And I think my stepsister’s onto us!”

Liam tucked a lock of hair behind Hanna’s ear. “I thought we could have a sleepover.”

“Are you insane?” Hanna glanced at her closed bedroom door, half expecting Kate to poke her head in—or worse, for her dad and Isabel to appear. What would she do with Liam then? Push him off the balcony? Stuff him under the bed?

Liam grabbed her hands. “Tell me you haven’t missed me.”

Hanna stared down at her pale feet sticking out of her pajama pants, then glanced at the Cornelius Maximilian stuffed Rottweiler in the bed. She stood to lose everything if she let Liam stay here. But when she looked at Liam’s soft, warm eyes, his devilish grin, and the adorable dimple in his right cheek again, her heart melted.

Without a word, Hanna pulled him into the bedroom. They tumbled into Hanna’s bed and immediately started making out. Liam’s hands roamed all over Hanna’s body, and his lips devoured her skin. She felt him suck hard on her neck, surely creating a hickey, but she didn’t care.

Then he flopped back on the bed and looked at her. “I feel so comfortable with you, like I can tell you anything and you won’t judge me. No other girl has made me feel like this before.”

“I feel the same way about you,” Hanna gushed. “It’s incredible.”

“ Magical ,” Liam whispered. “I never used to believe in soul mates before, but now I’ve changed my mind.”

Hanna propped up her head on her hand. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

“Like my fear of spiders admission wasn’t enough?” Liam rolled onto his back. A few moments passed before he spoke. “I had an imaginary friend when I was little. He was a vampire.”

Hanna wrinkled her nose. “Seriously?”

“Uh huh. His name was Frank, and he looked like Dracula. He slept in my closet, upside down like a bat. I used to make my mom set an extra plate for him at dinner.”

A little giggle escaped out of Hanna’s mouth. “Why a vampire?”

Liam shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed like a cool idea. I wanted Frank to be my dad instead of my real dad. We didn’t exactly get along.” He shot Hanna an uneasy look. “We still don’t.”

Hanna shifted on the pillow, not wanting to talk about Liam’s father. “I had a lot of imaginary friends, too. My dad and I invented some of them, actually. Like this big owl named Hortense who watched over me when I slept—I was afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone. When I was in fourth grade and had no real friends, my dad used to draw pictures of Hortense on my lunch bag. It was really sweet.” She closed her eyes and pictured her father’s crude, shaky drawings on the brown paper bags. She’d stashed a lot of them in her school binder, looking at them when she felt particularly lonely. But then, in fifth grade, the drawings abruptly stopped. That was about the time her parents started fighting.

“That’s so great that your dad was there for you,” Liam said quietly.

Hanna sniffed. “Well, he used to be.”

“What happened?”

Dot snored in the corner, fast asleep again. The small strip of light under the door was an unwavering yellow. Hanna pictured her father in his king-sized bed downstairs, Isabel next to him. She imagined Kate in her queen bed in the room next to them, a sleeping mask over her eyes. Hanna’s father said there were no guest rooms on their floor, but when Hanna had passed down that hall, she’d noticed a bedroom on the other side of her dad’s, full of Isabel’s quilting supplies. Why hadn’t he put Hanna in that room instead? Didn’t he remember how Hanna used to be afraid of the dark and suffered from bad dreams? Hanna would’ve been mortally embarrassed if he would’ve pointed it out, but it would’ve been nice if he’d offered.

It was sweet that he’d found Cornelius, but was that really enough? It still felt like he was holding her at arm’s length, still considering her separate from his real family.

Hanna looked at Liam, feeling overcome with sadness. “My dad and I used to be really close,” she said, “but then things changed.” She told him how she’d become friends with Ali in the midst of her parents’ divorce, but even being the most popular girl at Rosewood Day didn’t make up for her father leaving. She recounted the mortifying episode in Annapolis when she and Ali first met Kate. “When Kate came along, I never felt good enough,” she sighed. “I always thought my dad liked her better.”

Liam nodded and asked questions, holding Hanna’s hand when she felt like she was about to cry. “Things are a lot better between us now, and I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “But I just wish I could go back to when my dad and I were tight. The thing is, that time I want to go back to? I wasn’t happy. I might have been popular, but I was still fat and ugly and ruthlessly teased by my best friend. So would I really want to go back to that? It’s like I’m pining for this time that doesn’t exist.”

Liam sighed. “I pine for the time when my parents got along.”

“I’m so sorry about everything that happened between them,” Hanna whispered. “That must be so hard.”

A faraway look swept over Liam’s face. He sighed deeply and took Hanna’s hands. “You’re the only positive thing in my life right now. Promise me we’ll never let anything come between us. And promise me you’ll tell me everything. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”