Sara Shepard - Unbelievable

Spencer did yoga fire breaths, but she still didn’t feel any better. Finally, she pulled out her five economics books and a marked-up copy of Melissa’s paper and spread everything on her bed. You are going to win, her mother’s voice rang in her ear.

After a mind-numbing hour of rehearsing parts of Melissa’s paper in front of the mirror, Spencer heard a knock at the little adjoining door that led to the next suite. She sat up, confused. That door led to Melissa’s room.

Another knock. Spencer slid out of bed and crept toward the door. She glanced at her cell phone, but it was impassive and blank. “Hello?” Spencer called softly.

“Spencer?” Ian called hoarsely. “Hey. I think our rooms connect. Can I come in?”

“Um,” Spencer stammered. The adjoining door made a few clanking noises, then opened. Ian had changed out of his dress shirt and khakis into a T-shirt and Ksubi jeans. Spencer curled up her fingers, afraid and excited.

Ian looked around Spencer’s suite. “Your room is huge compared to ours.”

Spencer clasped her hands behind her back, trying not to beam. This was probably the first time ever she’d gotten a better room than Melissa. Ian gazed at the books splayed out on Spencer’s bed, then shoved them aside and sat down. “Studying, huh?”

“Sort of.” Spencer stayed glued to the table, afraid to move.

“Too bad. I thought we could take a walk or something. Melissa’s sleeping, after just one of those to-go cocktails. She’s such a lightweight.” Ian winked.

Outside, a series of cabs honked their horns, and a neon light blinked on and off. The look on Ian’s face was the same one Spencer remembered from years ago, when he’d stood in her driveway, about to kiss her. Spencer poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher on the table and took a long gulp, an idea forming in her mind. She actually had questions for Ian…about Melissa, about Ali, about the missing pieces of her memory, and about the dangerous, almost taboo suspicion that had been growing in her mind since Sunday.

Spencer set down her glass, her heart thumping hard. She tugged at her oversize University of Pennsylvania T-shirt so that it fell off one of her shoulders. “So, I know a secret about you,” she murmured.

“About me?” Ian thumbed his chest. “What is it?”

Spencer pushed some of her books aside and sat next to Ian. When she inhaled his Kiehl’s Pineapple Papaya facial scrub smell—Spencer knew the whole Kiehl’s skincare line by heart, she loved it so much—her head felt faint. “I know that you and a certain little blond girl used to be more than just friends.”

Ian smiled lazily. “And would that little blond girl be…you?”

“No…” Spencer pursed her lips. “Ali.”

Ian’s mouth twitched. “Ali and I hooked up once or twice, that’s it.” He poked Spencer’s bare knee. Tingles shot up Spencer’s back. “I liked kissing you more.”

Spencer leaned back, perplexed. In their last fight, Ali had told Spencer that she and Ian were together, and that Ian only kissed Spencer because Ali made him. Why, then, did Ian always seem so flirty with Spencer? “Did my sister know you hooked up with Ali?”

Ian scoffed. “Of course not. You know how jealous she gets.”

Spencer stared out over Lexington Avenue, counting ten yellow taxis in a row. “So were you and Melissa really together the whole night Ali went missing?”

Ian leaned back on his elbows, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “You Hastings girls are something. Melissa’s been talking about that night too. I think she’s nervous that cop is going to find out that we were drinking, since we were underage. But so what? It was over four years ago. No one’s going to bust us for it now.”

“She’s been…nervous?” Spencer whispered, her eyes widening.

Ian lowered his eyes seductively. “Why don’t you forget about all that Rosewood stuff for a little while?” He brushed Spencer’s hair off her forehead. “Let’s just make out instead.”

Desire teemed through her. Ian’s face came closer and closer, blocking out Spencer’s view of the buildings across the street. His hand kneaded her knee. “We shouldn’t do this,” she whispered. “It’s not right.”

“Sure it is,” Ian whispered back.

And then, there was another knock on her adjoining door.

“Spencer?” Melissa’s voice was thick. “Are you there?”

Spencer sprang out of bed, knocking her books and notes to the floor. “Y-yeah.”

“Do you know where Ian went?” her sister called.

When she heard Melissa turning the adjoining door’s knob, Spencer frantically gestured Ian toward the front door. He leaped off the bed, straightened his clothes, and slipped out of the room, just as Melissa pushed the door open.

Her sister had shoved her black silk sleeping mask onto her forehead and wore striped Kate Spade pajama pants and bottoms. She raised her nose slightly to the air, almost as if she was sniffing for Kiehl’s Pineapple Papaya. “Why is your room so much bigger than mine?” Melissa finally said.

They both heard the mechanical sound of Ian’s key card sliding into his door. Melissa turned around, her hair swinging. “Oh, there you are. Where’d you go?”

“To the vending machines.” Ian’s voice was buttery and smooth. Melissa shut the adjoining door without even saying good-bye.

Spencer flopped back on the bed. “ So close,” she groaned loudly, although, she hoped, not loud enough for Melissa and Ian to hear.

When Hanna opened her eyes, she was behind the wheel of her Toyota Prius. But hadn’t the doctors told her she shouldn’t drive with a broken arm? Shouldn’t she be in bed, with her miniature Doberman, Dot, by her side?

“Hanna.” A blurry figure sat next to her in the passenger seat. Hanna could only tell that it was a girl with blond hair—her vision was way too blurry to see anything else. “Hey, Hanna,” the voice said again. It sounded like…

“Ali?” Hanna croaked.

“That’s right.” Ali leaned close to Hanna’s face. The tips of her hair grazed Hanna’s cheek. “I’m A,” she whispered.

“What?” Hanna cried, her eyes wide.

Ali sat up straight. “I said, I’m okay. ” Then she opened the door and fled into the night.

Hanna’s vision snapped into focus. She was sitting in the parking lot of the Hollis Planetarium. A big poster that said THE BIG BANG flapped in the wind.

Hanna shot up, panting. She was in her cavernous bedroom, snuggled under her cashmere blanket. Dot was curled up in a ball on his little Gucci dog bed. To her right was her closet, with its racks and racks of beautiful, expensive clothes. She took deep breaths, trying to get her bearings. “Jesus,” she said out loud.

The doorbell rang. Hanna groaned and sat up, feeling like her head was stuffed with straw. What had she just dreamed about? Ali? The Big Bang? A?

The doorbell rang again. Dot was now out of his dog bed, jiggling up and down at Hanna’s closed door. It was Friday morning, and when Hanna checked her bedside clock, she realized it was after ten. Her mom was long gone, if she’d even come home last night at all. Hanna had fallen asleep on the couch, and Mona had helped her upstairs to bed.

“Coming,” Hanna said, pulling on her navy blue silk robe, sweeping her hair into a quick ponytail, and checking her face in the mirror. She winced. The stitches on her chin were still jagged and black. They reminded her of the crisscrossed laces on a football.

When she peeped through the panels of her front door, she saw Lucas standing on the porch. Hanna’s heart immediately sped up. She checked her reflection in the hallway mirror and pushed back a few strands of hair. Feeling like a circus fat lady in her billowing silk robe, she considered running back upstairs and putting on real clothes.