Sara Shepard: Ruthless

Tabitha Clark Memorial.

Tabitha’s parents had set up the website to honor their daughter. On it were Twitter posts from friends, pictures of Tabitha from cheerleading practice and ballet recitals, details about a scholarship set up in her name, and links to Tabitha-related news stories. Aria couldn’t stop looking at the page. She pounced on all of the news stories, always terrified that something—or some one —would connect Tabitha’s death with her.

But everyone still thought Tabitha’s death was a tragic accident. No one had even suggested that it might have been murder, and no one had made the connection that Aria and her friends had been in Jamaica the same time Tabitha was and at the same resort. Even Aria’s brother, Mike, and her boyfriend, Noel, who had been there as well, didn’t comment on the news story. Aria wasn’t even sure if they’d seen it. To them, it was probably just another senseless death to tune out.

There was one person who knew the truth, though. A.

Someone giggled behind her. A bunch of sophomore girls stared at Aria from a bank of lockers across the hall. “Pretty Little Killer,” one of them whispered, sending the rest into a fit of laughter. Aria winced. Ever since the made-for-TV movie of the same name had aired, kids walked down the hall quoting lines from the biopic of Real Ali’s life to her face. I thought we were best friends! TV Aria said to Real Ali at the end, when Ali tried to burn down the Poconos house. We were such losers before we met you! Like Aria would have really said something like that.

Then a familiar figure swept into view. Noel Kahn, Aria’s boyfriend, guided Klaudia Huusko, the blond Finnish exchange student who was living with his family, into an English classroom. Klaudia grimaced with every step, holding her Ace-bandaged ankle in the air and leaning heavily on Noel’s muscled shoulder. Every guy in the hall stopped and stared at Klaudia’s jiggling double-Ds.

Aria’s heart started to bang. Two weeks ago, Noel, his two older brothers, Aria, and Klaudia took a trip to a ski resort in upstate New York. Once there, Klaudia told Aria that she was making a move on Noel and there was nothing Aria could do about it. Enraged, Aria had accidentally pushed Klaudia off the chair lift in retaliation. Aria told everyone Klaudia had slipped, and Klaudia played dumb like she couldn’t remember what had happened, but Noel blamed Aria anyway. Since the trip, he had fawned over Klaudia’s sprained ankle day and night, driving her to school, carrying her books between classes, and retrieving her coffees and sushi platters during lunch. It was a wonder he wasn’t feeding her sashimi with Rosewood Day–embossed chopsticks.

Playing Florence Nightingale meant there was no time for Aria—not a hello in the halls, not even a phone call. He’d bagged on their standing Saturday date to Rive Gauche in the King James Mall for two weeks now. He’d also skipped out on the cooking class they were taking together at Hollis College, missing the class on grilling and marinades.

Noel emerged from the English classroom a minute later. When he spied Aria, instead of pretending she wasn’t there and turning away, as he’d done the past two weeks, he strode straight toward her. Aria’s spirits lifted. Maybe he was going to apologize for ignoring her. Maybe things would go back to normal.

She looked down at her trembling fingers. Her swirling nerves reminded her of the one and only time Noel had spoken to Aria in seventh grade at one of Their Ali’s parties. They’d actually hit it off, and Aria had been on cloud nine until Ali sidled up to her later, telling Aria that she’d had a big wedge of cilantro between her teeth the entire time she and Noel had talked. “I really think Noel’s out of your league,” Ali—really Courtney—had told Aria in a gentle yet teasing voice. “And anyway, I think he likes someone else.”

Yeah, like you ? Aria had thought bitterly. What guy didn’t have a thing for Ali?

Now, Noel stopped in front of a display case that featured this year’s pieced-together and decorated Time Capsule game flag, the emblem of the yearly Rosewood Day scavenger hunt. Printed copies of other years’ flags hung in the case as well—the real ones were buried behind the soccer fields—including the one from when Aria was in sixth grade. A big chunk of flag was missing in the center—Real Ali had found that piece, Their Ali had stolen it, and then Jason DiLaurentis, their brother, had stolen it from both of them and given it to Aria. It was all because of that Time Capsule piece that Their Ali had been able to make the dangerous switch with her twin sister, sending Real Ali off to the mental hospital for four long years.

“Hey,” Noel said. He smelled like orange soap and pepper, an unlikely combination Aria couldn’t get enough of. When Aria glanced at his Manhattan Portage messenger bag, she noticed that the party hat–wearing rhinoceros button Aria had bought for him at a local craft show was still nestled between his pins for Rosewood Day lacrosse and the Philadelphia Phillies. Rhino pin had to be a good sign, right?

“Hey,” Aria answered softly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Oh.” Noel pretended to be fascinated with the square face of his Omega watch. “Yeah, I’ve been really busy.”

“Tending to Klaudia?” Aria couldn’t help but snap.

Noel’s features hardened, as though he was about to launch into his “She’s in a foreign country and you should be more sensitive” speech again. But then he just shrugged. “Um, we need to talk.”

A rock-sized lump formed in Aria’s throat. “A-about what?” she stammered, even though she had a horrible feeling she knew what Noel was about to say.

Noel pushed his yellow lacrosse bracelet, which all the players wore in some über-masculine show of brotherhood, around his wrist. He wouldn’t look at Aria, not even at her feet. “I don’t think it’s working between us,” he said. His voice cracked a little.

It felt like a karate kick to Aria’s stomach. “W-why?”

Noel shrugged. His normally calm, easygoing face was all scrunched up, and his flawlessly smooth skin looked blotchy. “I don’t know. I mean, we don’t have that much in common, do we?”

The world suddenly went red. When Aria was pseudo-friends with Klaudia for a nanosecond, Klaudia had brought up how mismatched Aria and Noel were. Okay, so Aria wasn’t like the lacrosse-playing, Ralph Lauren Polo–wearing clones Noel usually dated, but Noel said he liked that. Then again, how could she compare to an ice-blond Finnish sex goddess?

The all-natural cleanser the custodial staff used to mop the floors swirled in Aria’s nose, making her queasy. A large guy on the basketball team bumped into her, knocking her into Noel, but Aria pulled away fast, suddenly uncomfortable with touching him. “So that’s . . . it ? All the time we spent together . . . it just doesn’t matter?”

Noel shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, Aria.” He caught her eye, and for a split second, he really did look sorry. But there was something closed-off about him, too, like he’d already said good-bye to her long ago.

Tears wet the corners of Aria’s eyes. She thought of all the weekends she’d spent with Noel. All the lacrosse games she’d watched, even though she didn’t really understand the nuances of the game. All the secrets she’d confessed, like how she and Their Ali caught her father making out with his student, Meredith, near Hollis College in seventh grade. How when Real Ali returned last year and hit on Noel, Aria was sure Noel would dump her. How after Real Ali nearly killed them in the Poconos, she’d slept with the light on and kept a samurai knife her father had bought on a trip to Japan under her pillow. And how even though Aria had lost her virginity to a boy in Iceland in tenth grade, she’d wanted the second time she had sex to be really, truly special. Maybe it was a good thing she’d held out with Noel, considering what was happening now.