Sara Shepard - Perfect

“Yes,” Hanna said sharply, conjuring up a voice that sounded surprisingly like her mother’s. “One that works this time, please.”

The sales guy looked tired. “I’m not going to be able to transfer over your information from this one, though. We don’t do that at this location.”

“It’s fine,” Hanna snapped. “I have a hard copy of everything at home.”

The sales guy retrieved a new phone from the back, pulled it out of its Styrofoam bed, and started hitting some buttons. Hanna leaned on the counter and watched the shoppers stream through the King James Mall concourse, trying not to think about what she and Mona usually did on Friday nights. First, they’d buy a Happy Friday outfit to reward themselves for making it through another week; next, they’d hit a sushi place for the salmon platter; and then—Hanna’s favorite part—they’d go home and gossip on Hanna’s queen-size bed, laughing and making fun of the “Ouch! of the Day” column in CosmoGirl! . Hanna had to admit that it was hard to talk to Mona about certain things—she’d sidestepped any emotional conversations about Sean because Mona thought he was gay, and they were never able to talk about Ali’s disappearance because Hanna didn’t want to dredge up bad memories about her old friends. In fact, the more she thought about it, she wondered what she and Mona did talk about. Boys? Clothes? Shoes? People they hated?

“It’ll be a minute,” the sales guy said, frowning and looking at something on his computer monitor. “For some reason, our network isn’t responding.”

Ha! Hanna thought. There was something wrong with the network.

Someone laughed as they entered T-Mobile, and Hanna looked up. She had no time to duck when she saw Mona walking in with Eric Kahn.

Mona’s light blond hair stood out against her charcoal gray turtleneck sweater dress, black tights, and tall black boots. Hanna wished she could hide, but she didn’t know where—the T-Mobile register counter was an island in the middle of the store. This stupid place didn’t even have any aisles to sneak down or shelves to hide under, just four walls of cell phones and mobile devices.

Before she could do anything, Eric saw her. His eyes flashed with recognition, and he gave Hanna a nod. Hanna’s limbs froze. Now she knew how a deer felt when it was face-to-face with an oncoming tractor-trailer.

Mona followed Eric’s gaze. “Oh,” she said flatly when her eyes met Hanna’s.

Eric, who must have sensed girl trouble, shrugged and wandered to the back of the store. Hanna took a few steps toward Mona. “Hi.”

Mona stared at a wall of phone headsets and car adapters. “Hey.”

A long beat passed. Mona scratched the side of her nose. She had painted her nails with Chanel’s limited edition La Vernis black lacquer—Hanna remembered the time they’d stolen two bottles from Sephora. The memory nearly brought tears to Hanna’s eyes. Without Mona, Hanna felt like a great outfit without matching accessories, a screwdriver that was all orange juice and no vodka, an iPod without headphones. She just felt wrong . Hanna thought about the time in the summer after eighth grade when she’d tagged along with her mom on a work trip. Hanna’s cell didn’t get service there, and when she came back, there had been twenty voice mails from Mona. “It felt weird not talking to you every day, so I decided to tell you everything in messages instead,” Mona had said.

Hanna let out a long, shaky breath. T-Mobile smelled overwhelmingly like carpet cleaner and sweat—she hoped it wasn’t her own. “I saw that message we painted on top of your garage the other day,” she blurted out. “You know, HM + MV = BBBBBFF ? You can see it from the sky. Clear as day.”

Mona seemed startled. Her expression softened. “You can?”

“Uh-huh.” Hanna stared at one of T-Mobile’s promo posters across the room. It was a cheesy photo of two girls giggling over something, holding their cell phones in their laps. One was auburn-haired, the other blond—like Hanna and Mona.

“This is so messed up,” Hanna said quietly. “I don’t even know how this started. I’m sorry I missed the Frenniversary, Mon. I didn’t want to be hanging out with my old friends. I’m not getting close with them or anything.”

Mona tucked her chin into her chest. “No?” Hanna could barely hear her over the mall’s kiddie train, which was rumbling by right outside the T-Mobile store. There was only one pudgy, miserable-looking boy on the ride.

“Not at all,” Hanna answered, after the kiddie train passed. “We’re just…weird stuff is happening to us. I can’t explain all of it right now, but if you’re patient with me, I’ll be able to tell you soon.” She sighed. “And you know I didn’t do that skywriting thing on purpose. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Hanna let out a small, squeaky hiccup. She always got the hiccups before she was about to start bawling, and Mona knew it. Mona’s mouth twitched, and for a second, Hanna’s heart leapt. Maybe things would be okay.

Then, it was like the cool-girl software inside Mona’s head re-booted. Her face snapped back to being glossy and confident. She stood up straighter and smiled icily. Hanna knew exactly what Mona was doing—she and Hanna agreed never, ever to cry in public. They even had a rule about it: if they even thought they were going to cry, they had to squeeze their butt cheeks together, remind themselves that they were beautiful, and smile. A few days ago, Hanna would’ve done the same thing, but now, she couldn’t see the point. “I miss you, Mona,” Hanna said. “I want things to go back to the way they were.”

“Maybe,” Mona answered primly. “We’ll have to see.”

Hanna tried to force a smile. Maybe? What did maybe mean?

When she pulled into her driveway, Hanna noticed Wilden’s police cruiser next to her mother’s Lexus. Inside, she found her mother and Darren Wilden snuggled up on the couch watching the news. There was a bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. By the looks of Wilden’s T-shirt and jeans, Hanna guessed Supercop was off duty tonight.

The news was showing the leaked video of the five of them again. Hanna leaned against the doorjamb between the living room and the kitchen and watched as Spencer threw herself at her sister’s boyfriend, Ian, and Ali sat at the corner of the couch, looking bored. When the clip ended, Jessica DiLaurentis, Alison’s mother, appeared on the screen. “The video is hard to watch,” Mrs. DiLaurentis said. “All of this has made us go through our suffering all over again. But we want to thank everyone in Rosewood—you’ve all been so wonderful. The time we’ve spent back here for Alison’s investigation has made my husband and me realize how much we’ve missed it.”

For a brief second, the camera panned on the people behind Mrs. DiLaurentis. One of them was Officer Wilden, all gussied up in his cop uniform. “There you are!” Hanna’s mother cried, squeezing Wilden’s shoulder. “You look great on camera.”

Hanna wanted to vomit. Her mom hadn’t even gotten that excited last year when Hanna had been named Snowflake Queen and had ridden on a float in the Philadelphia Mummers parade.

Wilden swiveled around, sensing Hanna’s presence in the doorway. “Oh. Hi, Hanna.” He moved slightly away from Ms. Marin, as if Hanna had just caught him doing something wrong.

Hanna grunted a hello, then turned and opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled down a box of peanut butter Ritz Bits.

“Han, a package came for you,” her mother called, turning down the TV volume.

“Package?” Hanna repeated, her mouth full of crackers.