“You’re Xavier Reeves?” Ella cried gleefully. “I was going to go to your show, but I gave my invite to Aria instead.” She looked at Aria. “I was so busy today I didn’t even ask you about it! Was it good?”
Aria blinked rapidly. “I…”
Xavier touched Ella’s arm. “She can’t say anything bad about it with me standing here! Ask her after I’m gone.”
Ella chortled as if this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. Then she slung her arm around Aria’s shoulders. Aria could feel her mother’s forearm shaking. She’s nervous, Aria thought. Ella had totally fallen for Xavier at first sight.
“This is a crazy coincidence, huh?” Xavier said.
“It’s a wonderful coincidence,” Ella corrected.
She turned to Aria expectantly. Aria felt the need to paste the same dumb smile on her face. “It’s wonderful,” she echoed. Wonderfully weird.
9 YOU’RE NOT PARANOID IF HE’S REALLY AFTER YOU
Later that same Tuesday, Emily slammed the door to her mom’s Volvo and walked across Spencer’s enormous front yard. She’d skipped the second half of swim practice to meet with her old friends, as Marion had suggested, to check in with one another and talk.
Just as she was about to ring the bell, her Nokia chimed. Emily dug it out of her bright yellow ski parka and looked at the screen. Isaac had sent her a ringtone. When she opened it up, she heard her favorite Jimmy Eat World song, the one that included the line, Can you still feel the butterflies? She’d listened to it a lot last September when she was falling for Maya. Hey Emily, said the accompanying text. This song reminds me of you. See you at Chem Hill tomorrow!
Emily blushed, pleased. She and Isaac had texted back and forth all day. He’d filled her in on the details of his religion class—taught by none other than Father Tyson, who’d gotten Isaac into the Lord of the Rings books too—and Emily had recapped the horror that had been her oral report on the Battle of Bunker Hill for history. They’d compared favorite books and TV shows and discovered they both liked M. Night Shyamalan movies, even though he was terrible at dialogue. Emily had never been one of those girls who was glued to her phone during school hours—and anyway, it was technically forbidden at Rosewood Day—but whenever she heard her phone make a low-pitched little ping, she felt the urge to write back to Isaac immediately.
She’d asked herself several times that day exactly what she was doing and grappled to assess her feelings. Did she like Isaac? Was she even capable of that?
A branch cracked nearby, and Emily looked down Spencer’s front walk to the dark, quiet street. The air smelled cold, like nothing. A thick coating of ice had turned the Cavanaugh mailbox flag from red to white. Down the street was the Vanderwaals’, eerily unoccupied—Mona’s family had disappeared from town after she died. A shiver ran up Emily’s spine. A had lived just steps away from Spencer the whole time, and none of them had known.
Shuddering, Emily dropped her phone back into her jacket pocket and pressed Spencer’s front bell. There were footsteps, and then Spencer flung open the door, her dirty-blond hair spilling down her shoulders. “We’re back in the media room,” she mumbled.
The smell of butter permeated the air, and Aria and Hanna were perched on the edge of the couch, picking at a big plastic bowl of microwave popcorn. The TV was tuned to The Hills, the sound on mute. “So,” Emily said, flopping onto the chaise. “Are we supposed to call Marion, or what?”
Spencer shrugged. “She didn’t really say. She just said we should…talk.”
They all looked around at one another, silent.
“So, girls, are we all doing our chants?” Hanna said in a fake-concerned voice.
“Ommmm,” Aria hummed, erupting into giggles.
Emily picked at a loose thread on her navy blue Rosewood Day blazer, kind of wanting to defend Marion. She was trying to help. She gazed around the room, noticing something propped up against the base of a large wire sculpture of the Eiffel Tower. It was the black-and-white photograph of Ali standing in front of the Rosewood Day bike racks, her school blazer slung over her arm—the one Emily had asked Spencer not to burn.
Emily studied the candid. There was something very sharp and realistic about it. She could practically feel the crisp autumn air and smell the crabapple trees on Rosewood Day’s front lawn. Ali was staring at the camera dead-on, her mouth open in laughter. There was a piece of paper in her right hand. Emily squinted at the words. Time Capsule Starts Tomorrow! Get Ready!
“Whoa.” Emily leapt off the chaise and held up the photo for the others to see. Aria read the flyer and widened her eyes too. “Do you remember that day?” Emily asked. “When Ali announced that she was going to find one of the pieces of the flag?”
“What day?” Hanna unfolded her long legs and walked over to them. “Oh. Huh.”
Spencer was behind them now, finally curious. “The common was totally mobbed. Everyone saw the sign at once.”
Emily hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. She’d been so excited when she’d seen the flyer about the Time Capsule game beginning. And then Ali had marched outside with Naomi and Riley, pushed through the crowd, torn down the sign, and announced that one of the pieces was as good as hers.
Emily looked up, startled by the memory of what had happened next. “Guys. Ian came up to her. Remember?”
Spencer nodded slowly. “He teased her that she shouldn’t brag that she was going to find a piece, because someone might try to steal it from her.”
Hanna’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “And Ali said there was no way that could be true. Whoever wanted her piece would have to…”
“…kill her to get it.” Spencer’s face was ashen. “And then Ian said something like, ‘Well, if that’s what it takes.’”
“God,” Aria whispered.
Emily’s stomach rumbled. Ian’s words had been so eerily prophetic, but how could they have known to take him seriously? Back then, the only thing Emily had known about Ian Thomas was that he was Rosewood Day’s go-to guy if they needed an upperclassman representative to help out at the elementary school’s field day or corral kids in the cafeteria when a big snowstorm made the buses late. That day, after Ali strolled away with her posse, Ian had turned and walked casually to his car. It didn’t seem like the behavior of someone who was planning murder…which made the whole thing creepier.
“And then the next morning she was so smug, everyone knew she’d found the piece,” Spencer said with a frown, like it still bothered her that Ali had found the flag instead of her.
Hanna stared at the photo. “I wanted Ali’s piece of the Time Capsule flag so badly.”
“Me too,” Emily admitted. She glanced over at Aria, who shifted uncomfortably and seemed to be studiously avoiding everyone’s eyes.
“We all wanted to win.” Spencer sat back down on the couch and hugged a blue satin pillow to her chest. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have shown up in her yard two days later to steal it.”
“Isn’t it weird someone else stole Ali’s piece first?” Hanna asked, turning a chunky turquoise bracelet around and around her wrist. “I wonder whatever happened to it?”
Suddenly, Spencer’s sister, Melissa, burst into the room. She wore a baggy beige sweater and wide-leg jeans. Her round face was ashen. “Guys.” Her voice shook. “Turn on the news. Now.” She pointed to the TV.