Sara Shepard - Ruthless

“Dad.” Hanna padded into the kitchen. Her father was now standing at the sink, washing his dishes. “There’s something I need to tell you. About Tucker Wilkinson.”

Her father turned, one eyebrow raised. And then everything Liam had told Hanna spilled out of her: his father’s affair, the woman’s unwanted pregnancy, the abortion. Her dad’s eyes bulged with every word. His jaw dropped lower and lower. The words felt like poison spilling from Hanna’s mouth, worse than any piece of gossip she’d ever spread, but then the photos from the paper flashed through her mind once more. They made her think of that line from some random Shakespeare-era play Mr. Fitz had made them read in English class last year: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Liam totally deserved it.

“Mike, cereal is meant to be eaten with a spoon,” Ella said that same morning as she, Aria, and Mike sat down to breakfast in the sun-filled nook. The room smelled like organic coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and the slightly wilted wildflowers Thaddeus had sent Ella the other day.

Mike begrudgingly grabbed an antique silver spoon from the drawer and slumped back to his seat. Then Ella turned to Aria. “So what happened to you at the cast party last night? I turned around and you were gone.”

Aria pushed the big Ray-Ban sunglasses higher on her nose. She was wearing them to hide her red, puffy eyes from a whole night of crying over Ezra, Kelsey, A, and everything else. “I had some stuff to take care of,” she mumbled.

“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.”