“Wow,” Aria said. Part of her wanted to gloat, but part of her just felt tired. “So . . . you didn’t sleep with her?” She couldn’t help but ask. It was kind of inconceivable to think Noel had resisted gorgeous Klaudia.

Noel shook his head. “I’m not into her like that, Aria. I like someone else.”

A frisson went through her. She didn’t dare look at him for fear she’d give too much away.

Noel leaned against the doorjamb. “I should have listened to you. About everything. I can understand if you don’t want to get back together, but . . . I miss you. Maybe we could at least be friends? I mean, who else will go with me to the rest of those cooking classes?”

Aria raised her head. “You liked those cooking classes?”

“They’re kind of girly, but they’re fun.” Noel smiled shyly. “And anyway, we need to have our Iron Chef battle at the end of the semester.”

The heady scent of the orangey soap Noel always used tickled Aria’s nose. What was he asking for: a companion to cooking class . . . or for Aria to be his girlfriend again? Maybe it was too late to get back together. Maybe they really didn’t have enough in common. Aria would never be a Typical Rosewood, after all. It wasn’t even worth trying for.

She must have been taking too long to answer, because Noel breathed in sharply. “You’re not back with that teacher dude again, are you? When I saw you guys together last night . . .”

“No,” Aria said quickly. “He’s . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Actually, he’s into Klaudia.”

This suddenly struck her as ridiculous. She leaned over and laughed long and hard, tears streaming from her eyes.

Noel laughed awkwardly, not really getting the joke. After a moment, Aria gazed up at him. He looked so sweet, standing on the porch in baggy jeans and an oversized T-shirt and rubber shower shoes over white gym socks, a look Aria had always hated. So Noel would never write a novel. So he’d never roll his eyes at the irony of the suburbs or whine about how everything here was so contrived and pretentious. But then she thought about how, on Christmas Day, Noel had appeared at Aria’s doorstep in a Santa Claus outfit with a bag of presents for her, all because she’d told him that her family never “did” Santa when she was little. And how, when Aria dragged Noel to the modern art wing at the Philadelphia Art Museum, he had patiently walked through the rooms with her, even buying a book about Picasso’s Blue Period at the gift shop afterward because he thought it was trippy. And he made Aria laugh: When the two of them had gone to the cooking class at Hollis, knives poised over green bell peppers, Noel had pointed out that they looked just like lumpy butts. The other students, mostly old ladies or sad bachelors probably taking the class to meet women, pursed their lips at them, which just made them laugh harder.

She stepped toward Noel. Her heart pounded as he leaned down, his breath sweet and warm on her face. They’d only been broken up for two weeks, but the moment their lips touched it felt like their very first kiss. Fireworks went off in Aria’s chest. Her lips tingled. Noel pulled her in and squeezed her so hard she thought she might burst. And, okay, it was drizzling outside, and Aria was pretty sure her mouth tasted like coffee, and Noel’s shower shoes were probably caked in mold. The moment wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t matter.

It just felt . . . right. Maybe even the right that Ella had talked about in the kitchen just moments ago. And for Aria, that was as perfect as perfect could be.

Chapter 36

THE REAL SPENCER F.

“Sorry it smells like chlorine,” Spencer said, lifting the lid of her family’s backyard hot tub, which had been closed up since last fall. She fiddled with the tie on her Burberry string bikini.

“I’m used to it,” Emily said. She was wearing one of her practice swimsuits, the shoulder straps stretched and the Speedo emblem almost worn off.

“As long as it’s warm, I don’t care,” Hanna seconded, stripping off her T-shirt to reveal a new Missoni bikini. And Aria shrugged, unzipping her hoodie, showing off a polka-dotted maillot that looked like it could have come from a 1950s time capsule.

Steam rose from under the hot tub cover. The water burbled invitingly. Percival, Spencer’s old yellow rubber duck, bobbed in the water, left there from the last time she’d taken a soak. Bringing Percival in here was a ritual of hers, back from when she was little and her parents only let her climb in the tub for a few minutes at a time. Their Ali always used to tease her about it, saying it was just as bad as a security blanket, but Spencer loved seeing the duck’s happy smiling face bobbing in the bubbles.

One by one, the girls stepped into the warm bath. Spencer had invited them over to rehash what had happened with Kelsey, but as soon as she saw Mr. Pennythistle—she should really start calling him Nicholas—fiddling with the lid to the tub earlier today she thought they might as well get some relaxation out of the visit, too.

“This feels awesome,” Aria murmured.

“Such a good idea,” Emily agreed. Her pale cheeks and forehead were already red from the heat.

“Remember the last time we were going to get in a hot tub together?” Hanna asked. “At the Poconos?”

Everyone nodded, staring into the steam. Ali had run under the deck to turn on the tub, leaving the girls alone on the porch. They’d all hugged and said how happy they were to be friends again.

“I remember feeling so happy,” Emily said.

“And then everything changed so fast,” Hanna said, her voice tight.

Spencer arched her neck up and looked for patterns in the gray clouds. That night at the Poconos felt like it was both yesterday and a million years ago. Would they ever get over it, or would it be something that haunted them for the rest of their lives?

“I found out what rehab hospital Kelsey’s in,” she said after a moment. “The Preserve.”

Everyone looked up, startled. The Preserve was where A had sent Hanna last year . . . and where Real Ali had spent all those years.

“The nurse on the phone said she can have visitors starting tomorrow,” Spencer went on. “I think we should go.”

“Are you serious?” Hanna’s eyes were round. “Don’t you think we should stay away from her?”

“We need to figure out what she really knows,” Spencer said. “Figure out how she became A. What she wanted with us.”

“She wanted what every A wanted.” Hanna picked at her cuticles. “Revenge.”

“But why did she try to kill herself?” Spencer had been running the problem over in her mind all night. “That’s unlike Mona or Ali. I would’ve thought she’d wanted us dead instead.”

“Maybe she wanted us to know we drove her to suicide,” Aria suggested. “It’s the ultimate guilt-trip. We’d have it on our conscience for the rest of our lives.”

The strong scent of chlorine tickled Spencer’s nose. She’d never suspected that Kelsey was suicidal—she’d always seemed so bubbly and carefree at Penn, even in the thick of taking Easy A. Had it been juvie that had changed her? Had it been the addiction to drugs? That was the biggest surprise of all: In Spencer’s memories, Kelsey had been resistant to taking the pills, seemingly disgusted by her druggie past. She’d never have thought Kelsey would turn to them again after juvie. After Spencer’s near-arrest experience, she’d quit Easy A cold turkey. It had been hard, especially with all the cramming she still needed to do, but she’d powered through her studies, scoring fives on the exams anyway. Nowadays, Spencer didn’t even yearn for the pills anymore.

But then, Kelsey’s life had taken such a different turn from hers. Even if Kelsey hadn’t succeeded in jumping into Floating Man Quarry, just the fact that she’d wanted to do it was more than Spencer could bear. It could have been all her fault, both for getting her back into drugs and for getting her sent to juvie. The visions Spencer had been having of Kelsey and Tabitha weren’t because of stress over school, as Spencer had wanted to believe. The guilt over what she’d done was eating her from the inside out. It was a good thing no one important had seen her attack on Kelsey at the cast party, like Wilden or her mother or any of the Rosewood Day teachers—Pierre had been there, but word had it he’d also been drunk. If Spencer didn’t find a healthy outlet for this guilt soon, she was a little afraid of what she might see—or do—next.

“Maybe Spencer’s right.” Emily broke the silence. “Maybe we should go see Kelsey at the Preserve. Try to figure things out.”

Hanna chewed on her pinkie. “Guys, I’m not super comfortable about going back there. It’s an awful place.”

“We’ll be with you,” Aria said. “And if it gets too hard, I’ll take you home.” Then she looked at Spencer. “I think we should go, too. Together.”

“I’ll set up an appointment for us tomorrow when we go back inside,” Spencer said.

Fat raindrops began to fall on the hot tub, first slowly, and then fast and steady. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Spencer eyed the steel-colored sky. “So much for our big hot tub idea.”

She climbed out of the tub, wrapped herself in an orange towel, and handed three towels to her old friends. Everyone was silent as they padded back toward the kitchen. Hanna and Aria slipped inside, but as Emily passed by, Spencer caught her arm. “Are you okay?”

Emily nodded faintly, her eyes trained on the wood slats on the deck. “I’m so sorry again,” she sighed. “It was wrong of me to tell Kelsey what you did. I never should have trusted her over you.”

“I should have never said what I said to you, either. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Maybe I deserved it,” Emily said sadly.

“You didn’t.” Poor Emily, always thinking she deserved the worst. Spencer leaned into her. “We’ve been terrible to each other ever since Jamaica. We should know by now that we should stick together, not fight.”

“I know.” A tiny smile wobbled across Emily’s lips. Then, awkwardly, she stepped forward and circled her arms around Spencer’s shoulders. Spencer hugged back, feeling tears come to her eyes. In moments, Aria and Hanna returned from inside and looked at them. Spencer wasn’t sure if they’d heard the conversation or not, but both girls stepped forward and wrapped their arms around Spencer and Emily, too, becoming a four-girl sandwich, just like they’d hugged in sixth and seventh grade. They were one girl short, but Spencer didn’t miss her at all.

An hour later, after Spencer’s friends had gone home, she made the call setting up the appointment to visit Kelsey the following day. Then she sat on the living room couch, absently stroking Beatrice’s matted fur. For once, the house was dead quiet. Amelia’s orchestra group wasn’t rehearsing today. Spencer wondered what the songs would sound like with one violinist missing.

When the home phone rang, Spencer started so hugely her whole body twitched. Princeton Admissions Board, the Caller ID said. She stared at it for a moment, afraid to pick it up. This was it. The big decision of the Spencers had been made.