Sara Shepard - Unbelievable

Unfortunately, Justin hadn’t shown up yet. Hanna and Emily peeked out one of the tent’s openings, keeping their eyes peeled for a convoy of limos. “This is going to be so exciting,” Emily murmured.

“Yeah,” Hanna said. But she wondered if she’d even be able to enjoy it. She felt like there was something really, really wrong. Something inside her wanted to break through, like a moth struggling inside a cocoon.

Suddenly, Aria emerged from the crowd. Her dark hair was tangled and there was a bruise on her cheek. She still wore her Rosewood Day blazer and pleated skirt, and looked very out of place amid the other dressed-up people at the party. “You guys,” she said breathlessly. “I need to talk to you.”

“And we need to talk to you ,” Emily shrieked. “You told Wilden about A!”

Aria’s eyelid twitched. “I…I did. Yes. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“It wasn’t ,” Hanna snapped, her body filling with rage. “A knows, Aria. A’s after us. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I know A knows,” Aria said, seeming distracted. “I have to tell you guys something else. Where’s Spencer?”

“Spencer went to the police station,” Emily said. The disco lights came back on, turning her face from pink to blue. “We tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up.”

Aria sank down into a nearby couch, looking a little shaken and confused. She picked up a carafe of sparkling water and poured herself a huge glass. “Did she go to the police station because of…A? The cops want to ask all of us more questions.”

“She didn’t,” Hanna said. “She went because she knows who killed Ali.”

Aria’s eyes were glassy. She seemed to be ignoring what Hanna just said altogether. “Something really weird just happened to me.” She drained her water glass. “I just had a long conversation with Jenna Cavanaugh. And…she knows about that night.”

“What were you doing talking to Jenna?” Hanna barked. Then the rest of what Aria had said finally registered, the same way, her physics teacher had explained, it takes radio waves years to reach outer space. Hanna’s mouth fell open, and all the blood drained from her head. “What did you just say?”

Aria pressed her hands to her forehead. “I’ve been taking these art classes, and Jenna’s in my class too. Tonight, I went up to the art studio and…and Jenna was there. I had this horrible fear that she was A…and that she was going to hurt me. I had a panic attack…but when I woke up, Jenna was still with me. She had helped me. I felt terrible, and I just started to blurt out what we did. Only, before I could really say anything, Jenna interrupted. She said that she remembered everything about that night, after all.” Aria looked at Hanna and Emily. “She and Ali set up the whole thing together.”

There was a long pause. Hanna could feel her pulse at her temples. “That’s not possible,” Emily finally said, abruptly standing up. “It can’t be.”

“It can’t be,” Hanna echoed weakly. What was Aria saying?

Aria pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ears. “Jenna said that she came to Ali with the plan to hurt Toby. She wanted him gone—I’m sure because he was…you know. Touching her. Ali said she’d help. Only, things went wrong. But Jenna kept the secret anyway—she said that things worked out the way she wanted. Her brother was gone. But…she also said that someone else was there that night. Besides Ali, and besides us. Someone else saw.”

Emily gaped. “No.”

“Who?” Hanna demanded, feeling her knees go weak.

Aria shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

A long pause followed. A bass line from a Ciara song throbbed in the background. Hanna looked around the party, amazed at how blissfully unaware everyone was. Mike Montgomery was grinding against some girl from the Quaker school; the adults were all hovering around the bar, getting drunk; and a bunch of girls in her grade were whispering cattily about how pudgy everyone else looked in their dresses. Hanna almost wanted to tell everyone to go home, that the universe had tipped upside down and right now, having fun was out of the question.

“Why did Jenna go to Ali, of all people?” Emily sounded out. “Ali hated her.”

Aria ran her fingers through her hair, which was wet from the rain. “She said that Ali would understand. That Ali had sibling problems, too.”

Hanna frowned, confused. “ Sibling problems? You mean like Jason?”

“I…I guess,” Aria mused. “Maybe Jason was doing what Toby did.”

Hanna wrinkled her nose, recalling Ali’s handsome-but-sullen older brother. “Jason was always kind of…weird.”

“You guys, no .” Emily’s hands fell to her lap. “Jason was moody, but he wasn’t a molester. He and Ali always seemed really happy around each other.”

“Toby and Jenna seemed happy around each other, too,” Aria reminded her.

“I heard, like, one in four boys is abusive to his sister,” Hanna seconded.

“That’s ridiculous,” Emily snorted. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

Hanna froze. She whipped her head around to Emily. “What did you just say?”

Emily’s lip trembled. “I said…don’t believe everything you hear.”

The words fanned out in sonarlike concentric circles. Hanna heard them again and again, banging back and forth inside her head.

The foundations of her brain started to crumble. Don’t believe everything you hear. She had seen those words before. It was her last text. From A. From the night she couldn’t remember.

Hanna must have made some sort of noise because Aria turned. “Hanna…what?”

Memories began to flood back to her, like a line of dominoes falling down one after another. Hanna saw herself wobbling into Mona’s party in the court dress, freaked because it didn’t fit. Mona had laughed in her face and called her a whale. It wasn’t Mona who had sent her that dress, Hanna realized—A had.

She saw herself taking a step back, her ankle buckling, and collapsing to the ground. The devastating riiiippppp of seams. The sounds of laughter above her, Mona’s loudest of all. And then, Hanna saw herself much later, sitting alone in her Toyota Prius in the Hollis Planetarium parking lot, wearing a sweatshirt and gym shorts, her eyes puffy from crying. She heard her BlackBerry chime and she saw herself reaching for her phone. Oops, guess it wasn’t lipo! the text said. Don’t believe everything you hear!—A

Except the text wasn’t from A. It had been from a regular cell phone number—a number Hanna knew well.

Hanna let out a muffled shriek. The faces looking down at her blurred and shimmered, as if they were holograms. “Hanna…what is it?” Emily shrieked.

“Oh. My. God,” Hanna whispered, her head reeling. “It’s…Mona.”

Emily frowned. “What’s Mona?”

Hanna pulled off her mask. The air felt cool and liberating. Her scar pulsed, as if it was a separate entity from her chin. She didn’t even look around to see how many people were staring at her bruised, ugly face, because right now, it didn’t matter. “I remember what I was going to tell you guys that night, when I wanted to meet you at Rosewood Day,” Hanna said, tears brimming in her eyes. “A is Mona.”

Emily and Aria stared at her so blankly that Hanna wondered if they’d even heard her. Finally, Aria said, “Are you sure ?”

Hanna nodded.

“But Mona’s with…Spencer,” Emily said slowly.

“I know,” Hanna whispered. She tossed her mask on the couch and stood up. “We have to find her. Now.”