Pretty Little Liars #15: Toxic (7 page)

Hanna picked up right away. “What are you talking about?” Aria whispered.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Hanna whispered back. “But she’s on the set—she was in a crowd scene I was in. I looked across the room and saw this blond head . . . and I had this sense. It was her.”

Aria sank into the window seat in the living room. “But you’re not
sure
.”

“Well, no, but . . .”

Aria jumped up nervously and started pacing around. “Let’s try to think about this logically. Could Ali actually get onto a movie set? Isn’t there lots of security?”

“Yeah . . .” Hanna sounded uncertain. “But she’s a master at sneaking in and out.”

“But why would she risk mixing with people who might recognize her? And she’d be on camera.”

“True,” Hanna said. She exhaled loudly. “Okay. Maybe it was my imagination. I mean, that has to be it, right? Ali wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“She wouldn’t,” Aria assured her.

But when she hung up, she wandered into the kitchen and stared blankly out the stained-glass window over the sink. Past the flat expanse of grass was a long, gradual slope leading to thick, dark woods. Ali had set fire to those woods the year before, nearly killing Aria and the others and decimating Spencer’s family’s barn. What if Hanna was right? What if Ali
was
somewhere close, ready to torment them again?

She stared at her phone, figuring it was the perfect time to receive a text from A. On cue, her phone bleated. The device fell from her hands and clattered to the wood floor. A 610 number flashed on the screen.

It took Aria a moment to realize it was her mom at the gallery. “Aria?” Ella said when Aria answered. “Are you sitting down?”

“Yeah . . . ,” Aria said uncertainly, her heart starting to thud all over again as she sat at the breakfast table. Maybe
Ella
had seen Ali?

“You aren’t going to believe this”—Ella’s voice swooped—“but we got a call from a very wealthy New York collector today. Mr. John Carruthers.”

“Wait,
the
John Carruthers?” Aria asked. There’d been a profile of him in
Art Now
magazine—he’d recently bought two Picassos at auction because his wife wanted one for each of their kids’ rooms. He was
the
collector every artist and gallery owner wanted to woo.

“Yep,” Ella chirped. “His assistant called and had me describe the paintings we had. I almost fell out of my chair.
Then
he asked me to send a few pictures. He hung up, but he called back a little while later saying Mr. Carruthers was interested in purchasing one. And guess what? It’s one of
yours
.”

“W-what?” Aria shot to her feet. “You’re kidding!”

“Nope!” Ella screamed. “Honey, you’ve been discovered!”

Aria shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she murmured.

“Well, you should,” Ella insisted. “You’ve been so prolific in the past few weeks, and your work is fantastic. Apparently, Mr. Carruthers thinks you’re luminous and a huge talent to watch. And, honey, that’s not all. You know what he bought the painting for? A
hundred thousand dollars
.”

Aria’s mind went blank. She tried to picture that figure in a bank account, but she felt as if her head might explode.

“That’s . . .
amazing
,” she finally managed to say. Then she cleared her throat. “W-which painting did he buy? One of the dark abstract pieces? One of the portraits of Noel?”

Ella coughed awkwardly. “Actually, no. It was the portrait of Alison. That big one in the corner.”

Aria flinched. It wasn’t even her best work, the brushstrokes crude, Ali’s face so creepy. Ella had sent a photo of
that
? And someone had bought it? What if he bought it
only
because it was of Ali—and because she was a Pretty Little Liar?

Then again, maybe she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. A hundred thousand dollars was a hundred thousand dollars. “Well, that’s great,” she murmured to her mom, trying to sound unruffled.

“Listen, I have to get off the line—Jim’s back, and he’s over the moon,” Ella said, suddenly sounding rushed. “I think he’s going to give me a promotion!” she added in a whisper. “But I’ll call you back with all the payment details. I’m so proud of you, honey. This is going to change your life.”

Then Ella was gone. Aria held the phone in her hands, her mind whirring fast. Then she stood and slid the door to the porch open, stepped out, and leaned against the cool glass, taking heaving breaths. The fresh air felt invigorating.

She let what Ella told her sink in. Her first sale. For a painting of
Ali.

Aria looked at her phone again. After a beat, she called up her photo gallery, then flipped through the pictures she’d taken of her recent paintings. She stopped on the portrait of Ali. The girl on the canvas was skin and bones, her cheeks hollowed, her hair dulled, her eyes wide and crazy. Then, as Aria stared, Ali seemed to . . .
move.
One corner of her lip rose in a smirk. Her eyes narrowed a tad.

Aria dropped the phone once more. What the hell?

The device landed faceup, Ali’s picture still on the screen. Aria looked at it again, but it looked like a snapshot on a cell phone. She grabbed the phone, exited out of the photo, and stabbed at the
DELETE
button.

Good riddance.
Thank God Ella was packaging that portrait up and sending it far, far away. Aria couldn’t bear the idea of that face haunting her any longer.

7

THE BULLIED . . . OR THE BULLY?

Spencer was finishing dinner with her mother, Mr. Pennythistle, and Amelia. Chinese takeout boxes sat around them, but, typical of Spencer’s mom, they were eating on fine china from Mrs. Hastings’s great-grandmother and using porcelain chopsticks from a specialty shop in Shanghai. Spencer’s mom had dressed for dinner, too, changing out of the jeans and plaid shirt she’d worn at the family’s stables and into a crisp off-white linen dress and shiny black Tory Burch flats.

“So being selected for the orchestra trip is
really
prestigious.” Amelia adjusted the tortoiseshell headband that held back her tight curls. Even though it was summer vacation, she, too, was dressed up in a crisp white shirt and a gray pleated skirt that didn’t look much different from her St. Agnes uniform. “The orchestra director told me I should be really proud,” she added, looking around expectantly.

“That’s great, honey.” Mr. Pennythistle smiled warmly. So did Spencer’s mom.

But Spencer resisted rolling her eyes. Every time Amelia opened her mouth, it was to brag. Yesterday at dinner, she’d boasted for a while about how good a
sleeper
she was.

Suddenly, she couldn’t deal with one more boastful thing out of Amelia’s mouth. “May I be excused?” she asked, placing her chopsticks in her soy sauce–stained bowl.

“Yes, but only after we talk about the Rosewood Rallies event,” Mrs. Hastings said.

Spencer fell back into her chair and wrinkled her nose. “We’re actually going?” Why did she need another event to remind her of Ali? Wasn’t the point to get
over
it?

Mrs. Hastings nodded firmly. “You’re an honored guest. And actually, I’ve volunteered to help out.” She clicked her chopsticks together. “You girls can bring a date, if you like. It should be fun.”

Spencer felt her cheeks flush.
A date.
Her mind shuffled through her long list of failed romances from the past year. Andrew Campbell had pulled away from her shortly after the Poconos fire, probably because he didn’t want to be associated with someone surrounded by so much drama. And Chase, another Ali detective Spencer had met online, had dropped Spencer when his life was in danger.

Every boy she’d gotten close to had run away screaming . . . and it was all Ali’s fault. Spencer
wanted
to be with someone . . . but she also felt as if it could never happen.

“I’ll go if it means that much to you,” she told her mother, picking up her dishes. “But I’m not going to enjoy it.”

She carried everything to the stainless steel sink in the kitchen. As she was rinsing off the chopsticks, she sensed a presence behind her and turned. Amelia stood by the fridge. Spencer cringed, anticipating a nasty remark.

But Amelia moved forward almost shyly. “Um, I meant to tell you. A friend directed me to your new blog. It’s kind of . . . awesome.”

Spencer’s mind froze. “You really think so?” she blurted.

“Of course.” Amelia placed her bowl on the counter. “I think it’s really great that you gave all those people a voice.” And then, with a smile, she turned and pranced back into the dining room.

Spencer stood still. She was so dazed she didn’t realize she’d left the tap running until the water flowed over her dirty bowl.

Huh.

Then she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and sat down at her computer, bringing up the blog. It was astonishing, actually, that Amelia even
knew
about the blog . . . but then again, it had recently garnered quite a following, even showing up on the very first page on a Google search for
bullying.

She scrolled through her email. Today’s crop of stories made her own experiences with Ali pale in comparison. There were tales of kids being verbally and physically attacked by whole gangs of enemies. Kids were made fun of for their sexuality, like Emily had been, or for their race or religion. A girl wrote in telling a story about how her best friend committed suicide, unable to take the jeers from her classmates any longer.
I miss her every day
, the email said.
And I’m not even sure the kids who were mean to her understood what they did.
Spencer thought of Emily there, too—how they’d saved her from taking her life off the covered bridge. If they hadn’t gotten there in time, she might have gone through with it.

She checked the website stats. To her astonishment, the blog had gotten eight thousand hits in the past twenty-four hours.

Halfway down the list, she opened an email from Greg Messner from Wilmington, Delaware. Greg hadn’t been bullied himself, the letter said, but he’d witnessed other people being picked on and had stood by, doing nothing. Eventually, his passivity began to haunt him, he said. He should have stood up for what was right, yet he’d been too scared that the bully would turn on him.
Your site is inspirational
, he said,
and I want you to know that not just kids who were bullied are reading it. Everyone can use it as a tool to understand what bullying feels like.

Spencer sat back. It was an interesting perspective. Years ago, she and her friends had stood idly by as Ali tormented kids, too. Sometimes, Spencer had even actively participated. She remembered laughing at Mona’s askew glasses or Chassey Bledsoe’s ubiquitous Razor scooter. She’d helped write teasing missives on the sidewalk outside Mona’s house and, one time, filled her locker with tampons with their tips painted bright red.

She started to write a response.
Dear Greg, Thank you for your letter. Like you, I was passive around bullies, too. In fact, there have been many times I’ve wondered if what happened to me is karma. We all make mistakes. I’m just glad the site is helping people.

She sent it off. Within a half a minute, Greg replied.
Hey, Spencer, Thank you so much for writing back to me. Don’t kid yourself: You’re awesome. The best thing you can do is admit your mistakes and try your best to help others. You are truly an inspiration.

Tingles ran up her spine. It was such a nice thing to say. But then she set her jaw. No more boys. No falling for someone on the internet. No freaking way.

She continued to scroll down the list of stories, taking time to read each one. Then she got to one written by someone who called himself DominickPhilly. Not
him
again.

You think you’re so awesome, but you’re not
, the message read.
You’re nothing but a poser, and pretty soon, people are going to figure you out.

Her head started to pound. DominickPhilly had sent her messages practically since she’d set up the blog. He’d said that the site was pathetic. That Spencer didn’t know what she was talking about. That she used her fake bullying story as a stepping-stone to fame, and that she didn’t know what
real
pain was. In this latest message, he’d included a thumbnail photograph of himself. Spencer clicked on it, leaning in close to look at his square, angry face. If his profile details were to be believed, he lived in the city of Philadelphia, and he was her age. Why did he hate her so much? Why was he trolling this site? He hadn’t included a tale of being bullied. Maybe
he
was a bully.

Pots and pans clanged in the kitchen, followed by the soft sounds of the family’s two Labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, drinking water from their metal bowls. The sun had sunk lower in the sky, and everyone’s front lights had snapped on, casting a warm golden glow along the circle. Spencer stared out the window at the neighborhood she loved and hated. Her gaze drifted to Ali’s old bedroom next door. For a split second, she thought she saw Ali standing there, smirking at her.

She blinked hard. There
was
someone at the window. Someone blond.

But then she looked again. The window wasn’t even lit. The St. Germains, who had lived there for almost two years now, were on vacation in the Outer Banks. Of course Ali wasn’t there.
You’re supposed to forget about her
, Spencer thought.

Beep.

It was her computer. Spencer turned away from the window and moved the mouse to wake up the screen. There was a new email for the bully site from someone called BTH087.
Please Read
, read the subject line.

She opened the email, grateful it wasn’t from DominickPhilly. A new bullying tale was written in swirly pink font, each sentence on a separate line like a poem. For whatever reason, the author had bolded the first letter of every sentence. Still a little freaked out, Spencer began to read.

I
want to tell you my story.

A
ll my life, I have been persecuted, and

M
y heart breaks every day.

W
hy people are after me, I don’t know, because