Sara Shepard: Perfect

“I don’t think so,” Hanna said in her interview, fiddling with the pale blue string bracelet Ali had made for them after Jenna’s accident. “Ali wasn’t that close with many people. Only us. And we all loved her to death.”

Sure, Spencer seemed angry with Ali. But really, deep down, weren’t they all? Ali was perfect—beautiful, smart, sexy, irresistible—and she was ditching them. Maybe they did hate her for it. But that didn’t mean any of them wanted her gone.

It’s amazing what you don’t see, though. Even when it’s right in front of your eyes.

Spencer Hastings should have been sleeping at six-thirty on Monday morning. Instead, she was sitting in a therapist’s blue-and-green waiting room, feeling a little like she was trapped inside an aquarium. Her older sister, Melissa, was sitting on an emerald-colored chair opposite her. Melissa looked up from her Principles of Emerging Markets textbook—she was in an MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania—and gave Spencer a motherly smile.

“I’ve felt so much clearer since I started seeing Dr. Evans,” purred Melissa, whose appointment was right after Spencer’s. “You’re going to love her. She’s incredible.”

Of course she’s incredible, Spencer thought nastily. Melissa would find anyone willing to listen to her for a whole uninterrupted hour amazing.

“But she might come on a little strong for you, Spence,” Melissa warned, slapping her book closed. “She’s going to tell you things about yourself you don’t want to hear.”

Spencer shifted her weight. “I’m not six. I can take criticism.”

Melissa gave Spencer a tiny eyebrow-raise, clearly indicating that she wasn’t so sure. Spencer hid behind her Philadelphia magazine, wondering again why she was here. Spencer’s mother, Veronica, had booked her an appointment with a therapist— Melissa’s therapist—after Spencer’s old friend Alison DiLaurentis had been found dead and Toby Cavanaugh committed suicide. Spencer suspected the appointment was also meant to sort through why Spencer had hooked up with Melissa’s boyfriend, Wren. Spencer was doing fine though. Really. And wasn’t going to her worst enemy’s therapist like going to an ugly girl’s plastic surgeon? Spencer feared she’d probably come out of her very first shrink session with the mental-health equivalent of hideously lopsided fake boobs.

Just then, the office door swung open, and a petite blond woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses, a black tunic, and black pants poked her head out.

“Spencer?” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Evans. Come in.”

Spencer strode into Dr. Evans’s office, which was spare and bright and thankfully nothing like the waiting room. It contained a black leather couch and a gray suede chair. A large desk held a phone, a stack of manila folders, a chrome gooseneck lamp, and one of those weighted drinking-bird toys that Mr. Craft, the earth science teacher, loved. Dr. Evans settled into the suede chair and gestured for Spencer to sit on the couch.

“So,” Dr. Evans said, once they were comfy, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Spencer wrinkled her nose and glanced toward the waiting room. “From Melissa, I guess?”

“From your mom.” Dr. Evans opened to the first page of a red notebook. “She says that you’ve had some turmoil in your life, especially lately.”

Spencer fixed her gaze on the end table next to the couch. It held a candy dish, a box of Kleenex—of course —and one of those pegboard IQ games, the kind where you jumped the pegs over one another until there was only one peg remaining. There used to be one of those in the DiLaurentis family den; she and Ali had solved it together, meaning they were both geniuses. “I think I’m coping,” she muttered. “I’m not, like, suicidal.”

“A close friend died. A neighbor, too. That must be hard.”

Spencer let her head rest on the back of the couch and looked up. It looked like the bumpily plastered ceiling had acne. She probably needed to talk to someone—it wasn’t like she could talk to her family about Ali, Toby, or the terrifying notes she’d been getting from the evil stalker who was known simply as A. And her old friends—they’d been avoiding her ever since she’d admitted that Toby had known all along that they’d blinded his stepsister, Jenna—a secret she’d kept from them for three long years.

But three weeks had gone by since Toby’s suicide, and almost a month had passed since the workers unearthed Ali’s body. Spencer was coping better with all of it, mostly, because A had vanished. She hadn’t received a note since before Foxy, Rosewood’s big charity benefit. At first, A’s silence made Spencer feel edgy—perhaps it was the calm before the hurricane—but as more time passed, she began to relax. Her manicured nails dislodged themselves from the heels of her hands. She started sleeping with her desk light off again. She’d received an A+ on her latest calc test and an A on her Plato’s Republic paper. Her breakup with Wren—who had dumped her for Melissa, who had in turn dumped him—didn’t sting so much anymore, and her family had reverted back into everyday obliviousness. Even Melissa’s presence—she was staying with the family while a small army renovated her town house in Philly—was mostly tolerable.

Maybe the nightmare was over.

Spencer wiggled her toes inside her knee-high buff-colored kidskin boots. Even if she felt comfortable enough with Dr. Evans to tell her about A, it was a moot point. Why bring A up if A was gone?

“It is hard, but Alison has been missing for years. I’ve moved on,” Spencer finally said. Maybe Dr. Evans would realize Spencer wasn’t going to talk and end their session early.

Dr. Evans wrote something in her notebook. Spencer wondered what. “I’ve also heard you and your sister were having some boyfriend issues.”

Spencer bristled. She could only imagine Melissa’s extremely slanted version of the Wren debacle—it probably involved Spencer eating whipped cream off Wren’s bare stomach in Melissa’s bed while her sister watched helplessly from the window. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” she muttered.

Dr. Evans lowered her shoulders and gave Spencer the same you’re not fooling me look her mother used. “He was your sister’s boyfriend first, wasn’t he? And you dated him behind her back?”

Spencer clenched her teeth. “Look, I know it was wrong, okay? I don’t need another lecture.”

Dr. Evans stared at her. “I’m not going to lecture you. Perhaps…” She put a finger to her cheek. “Perhaps you had your reasons.”

Spencer’s eyes widened. Were her ears working correctly—was Dr. Evans seriously suggesting that Spencer wasn’t 100 percent to blame? Perhaps $175 an hour wasn’t a blasphemous price to pay for therapy, after all.

“Do you and your sister ever spend time together?” Dr. Evans asked after a pause.

Spencer reached into the candy dish for a Hershey’s Kiss. She pulled off the silver wrapper in one long curl, flattened the foil in her palm, and popped the kiss in her mouth. “Never. Unless we’re with our parents—but it’s not like Melissa talks to me . All she does is brag to my parents about her accomplishments and her insanely boring town house renovations.” Spencer looked squarely at Dr. Evans. “I guess you know my parents bought her a town house in Old City simply because she graduated from college.”

“I did.” Dr. Evans stretched her arms into the air and two silver bangle bracelets slid to her elbow. “Fascinating stuff.”

And then she winked.

Spencer felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Apparently Dr. Evans didn’t care about the merits of sisal versus jute either. Yes .