The silence after the crash was deafening. Jason glared at Courtney, who had frozen in the corner. “Why did you have to start things with her?” he hissed.
“I couldn’t help it,” Courtney said weakly.
“Yes, you could,” Jason said. And then, letting out a frustrated groan, he pushed out the back door.
Courtney’s insides turned over. “Jason, wait!” she yelled, running to the window. Jason was her only ally—she couldn’t have him angry at her. But when she gazed out the glass, Jason was gone. The four girls were still cowering in the bushes, though.
She glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen. Pieces of the New York City plate lay all over the floor. Soon enough, her mother would appear from wherever she was and discover the mess. She would call to her two daughters to ask what had happened. One would appear from upstairs. What if the other daughter was outside, talking to a few girls from school? It wouldn’t be Courtney out there, after all—she didn’t know anyone. She wasn’t even allowed outside.
This was it. Her opportunity. If she went out there, their parents would think she was Ali, not Courtney. It would be the first time she’d ever impersonated her sister without Ali making her. The first thing you need to do, she told herself, is channel her. No one will believe you’re her if you don’t. So she shut her eyes and channeled her sister. A beautiful bitch. A manipulative queen bee. The girl who’d ruined her life.
Her skin prickled. It wasn’t even that difficult: Courtney had been the queen bee of a group of popular girls at the Radley, scoring the best table in the day room, controlling what shows they watched on TV, putting on the best performance for the ward’s talent show. And even before she’d gone to the Radley, kids had loved her—more than her sister, in fact. People felt at ease with Courtney; they picked her first for kickball, they teamed up with her for art projects, she got more valentines than anyone else in the class. Ali, however, sometimes put people off. She was too pushy, too intense. She yelled at people when no adults were watching, pouted when she didn’t get the best gift in the Secret Santa exchange, and once even kicked a girl’s brand-new kitten that she’d brought to show-and-tell. Yes, Ali was beautiful—a teensy bit more beautiful than Courtney, in fact—but she wasn’t the most-loved. It was why she’d worked so hard to get Courtney out of the picture. She wanted to be the one and only star.
Courtney noticed Ali’s blue wedges sitting by the door and slipped them on. To ensure her mother would see exactly where she was—and where her sister wasn’t—she casually knocked another plate off the shelf. As it fell with a loud, hard-to-ignore crash, Courtney pushed the screen door open and watched as the girls, who were now arguing loudly, fell silent and looked up. By the intimidated, reverent expressions on their faces, she knew she already had them fooled. Of course they thought she was Ali.
“You can come out,” she yelled in the most confident voice she could muster.
The girls didn’t move.
“Seriously, I know someone’s there,” she said. “But if you’ve come for my flag, it’s gone. Someone already stole it.”
Spencer emerged from the bushes first. The others followed. And then it just . . . happened. They assumed she was Ali, and they asked her questions. Answers spilled from Courtney’s mouth so naturally, like this was a role that was perfect for her. And when Mrs. DiLaurentis appeared on the porch, her gaze flickered cautiously at the girls in the yard—these definitely weren’t Ali’s friends. But when she looked at her daughter, she didn’t suspect a thing. She just assumed Courtney was Ali. And when she closed the door again, the family was in the car within minutes. They drove away. Just like that.
Courtney was so excited and nervous and scared that she could barely keep up her apathetic act with the girls in the yard. She felt like she was about to burst. She felt like giving every tree in the yard a huge hug.
By the time Courtney returned to the house, she felt like she’d just run the distance to the Radley and back. Her head felt light. Her limbs felt heavy. She looked around the kitchen. Pieces of the plates were still on the floor. A flower vase had been knocked over, too. The quiet house seemed to reverberate with the phantom sounds and voices of what had just transpired. Violent, desperate screams echoing in the air. A scuffle to get into the car. A protest that they had the wrong twin.
She walked through the silent rooms, her sister’s wedges clomping on the floor. Her plan had worked. But suddenly, panic struck her. Now she had to keep it up. This wasn’t something that might only last a few days or weeks before people caught on that the wrong girl was at the Preserve. She had to figure out a way to stay home forever.
She ran upstairs to her sister’s bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time. Her gaze scanned Ali’s black-and-white bedspread, the cutout magazine ads and pictures of her friends on the walls, the bulging closet full of clothes. She darted to Ali’s bed and slid her hand under the mattress. Ali’s diary was buried precisely in the middle, just as it had been yesterday. She sat down, opened to where she’d left off, and read.
But when she got to the end, the fizzy feeling in her stomach had intensified. The diary was all about Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe, and it made a lot of shadowy references to secrets and inside jokes that Courtney would have no way of knowing. There was no way she could remain friends with Naomi and Riley—she’d have to ditch them and form a new clique. Only, who?
The four girls in the yard popped into her head. Spencer, Aria, Emily, and that last girl, the chubby one. She ran to Ali’s fifth-grade yearbook and scoured the pages. Hanna—that was her name. They hadn’t signed her yearbook—none of them knew Ali well. Perfect.
Slam.
Her head whipped up, and she shoved the diary back under the mattress. Only an hour had passed. Had they returned already? Had they figured it out?
She peeked out the front window. There was a black car chugging at the curb; she couldn’t see the driver. Footsteps sounded across the kitchen floor, then creaked on the stairs. She remained stock-still as whoever it was padded down the hall. A figure appeared in her doorway, and she almost screamed.
Jason looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Did they already take her?”
Courtney nodded, still not daring to breathe.
Jason’s mouth became small and tight. “Well, I guess you’re happy now, huh, Ali?”
He shook his head and continued toward his room. The door slammed loudly, rattling the walls. A few seconds later, the opening bars of an Elliott Smith song blared.
Courtney ran her hands down the length of her face. He’d called her Ali.
She walked to the mirror. The girl in the glass wore a deep-pink shirt and wedge heels. She had glossy hair, a heart-shaped face, and an impish smile. After a moment, she threw back her head and tossed her hair over her shoulder, just the way Ali did, and then gasped. She’d nailed it.
Euphoria washed over her like a tidal wave. She was going to rule the school. Become fabulous. Turn into the best Alison DiLaurentis possible. She deserved it, damn it. And her sister? She thought of Ali’s face as her parents shoved her into the car, the life she would lead in the Preserve. But what was done was done. And it was only fair.