RUTHLESS, chapter one!
"Every Killer Deserves a Night Out."
On a Wednesday evening in early March, Emily Fields lay on the carpet in the bedroom she used to share with her sister, Carolyn. Swimming পদক and a big poster of Michael Phelps hung on the walls. Her sister’s বিছানা was littered with Emily’s warm-up জ্যাকেট tons of oversized T-shirts, and a pair of boyfriend jeans. Carolyn had left for Stanford in August, and Emily relished having a মহাকাশ all her own. Especially since she was spending almost all her time in her room these days. Emily rolled over and stared at her laptop. A ফেসবুক page blinked on the screen. Tabitha Clark, RIP.
She stared at Tabitha’s পরিলেখ picture. There were the পরাকাষ্ঠা lips that had smiled so seductively at Emily in Jamaica. There were the green eyes that had narrowed at all of them on the hotel crow’s nest deck. Now, Tabitha was nothing but bones, her flesh and innards eaten away দ্বারা fishes and pounded clean দ্বারা the tides.
We did that.
Emily slammed down the lid of her computer, feeling the urge to throw up. A বছর ago, on spring break in Jamaica, she and her বন্ধু had sworn that they’d come face to face with the real Alison DiLaurentis, back from the dead and ready to kill them once and for all, just like she’d meant to do at her family’s house in the Poconos. After a series of bizarre encountered where this new, enigmatic stranger had uttered secrets that only Ali had known, Aria had pushed her over the edge of the crow’s nest. The girl had fallen several stories to the sandy beach, and her body had disappeared almost instantly, presumably carried out to sea দ্বারা the tide. When the four of them saw the newscast on TV two weeks পূর্বে that this very same girl’s remains had washed up on the shores of the resort, they thought the whole world would discover what they already knew: that Real Ali had survived the আগুন in the Poconos. But then, the bomb dropped: the girl Aria pushed wasn’t Real Ali at all—her name was Tabitha Clark, just as she’d told them. They’d killed an innocent person.
As the newscast ended, Emily and her বন্ধু received a chilling note from an anonymous person known only as A, in the tradition of the two stalkers who’d tormented them before. This new A knew what they had done and was going to make them pay. Emily had been holding her breath ever since, waiting for A’s পরবর্তি move.
The realization cascaded over Emily daily, startling her anew and making her feel horribly ashamed. Tabitha was dead because of her. A family was ruined because of her. It was all she could do to keep from calling the police and telling them what they had done. But that would ruin Aria, Hanna, and Spencer’s lives, too.
Her phone bleated, and she reached for it on her pillow. Aria Montgomery, ব্যক্ত the screen. “Hey,” Emily ব্যক্ত when she picked up.
“Hey,” Aria ব্যক্ত on the other end. “You okay?”
Emily shrugged. “You know.”
“Yeah,” Aria agreed softly.
They fell into a long silence. In the two weeks since a new A had emerged and Tabitha’s body had been found, Emily and Aria had begun calling each other every evening, just to check in. Mostly, they didn’t even talk. Sometimes, they watched TV together—shows like Hoarders অথবা Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Last week, they’d both caught a rerun of Pretty Little Killer, the TV movie depicting Real Ali’s return and killing spree. Neither Emily nor her বন্ধু had seen the movie the night it originally aired—they’d been too shell-shocked from the revelation about Tabitha to change the channel from CNN. But Emily and Aria had watched the rerun quietly, gasping at the নায়িকা who played their roles and squirming at the overdramatized moments where their doppelgangers found Ian Thomas’s body অথবা ran from the আগুন in Spencer’s woods. When the movie hit its climax in the Poconos and the house exploded with Ali inside it, Emily shivered. The producers gave the প্রদর্শনী a definitive ending. They killed the villain and gave the girls their happily ever after. But they didn’t know that Emily and her বন্ধু were once again being haunted দ্বারা A.
As soon as they’d begun receiving notes from a New A—on the anniversary of the horrible আগুন in the Poconos that had almost killed all of them—Emily was sure that Real Ali had survived the আগুন in the Poconos and the push off the balcony in Jamaica and was back for revenge. Her বন্ধু slowly began to believe that as well—until the news came out about Tabitha’s true identity. But even that didn’t rule out the possibility that Real Ali was still alive. She still could be New A and know everything.
Emily knew what her old বন্ধু would say if she voiced such a theory: Get over it, Em. Ali’s gone. আরো than likely they’d reverted back to their old assumption that Ali had perished inside the burning house in the Poconos. But there was something all of them didn’t know: Emily had left the front door unlatched and ajar for Ali before the house exploded. She could have easily escaped.
“Emily?” Mrs. Fields called out. “Can আপনি come downstairs?”
Emily sat up fast. “I have to go,” she told Aria. “I’ll talk to আপনি tomorrow, okay?”
She hung up the phone, crossed to the bedroom door, and looked over the railing. Her parents, who were still dressed in the matching gray sweat স্যুইটস্ they wore for their evening power-walks around the neighborhood, stood in the foyer. A tall, freckled girl with reddish-blonde hair just like Emily’s was পরবর্তি to them, a bulging duffel over her shoulder that ব্যক্ত বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় of Arizona Swimming in big red letters.
“Beth?” Emily squinted.
Emily’s older sister, Beth, craned her neck up and spread her arms wide. “Ta-dah!”
Emily raced down the stairs. “What are আপনি doing here?” she cried. Her sister rarely visited Rosewood. Her job as a teaching assistant at the বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় of Arizona, where she’d gone to college, kept her busy, and she was also assistant-coaching the U of A swim team, of which she’d been captain her senior year.
Beth dropped the duffel to the hardwood floor. “I had a couple days off, and Southwest was running a special. I thought I’d surprise you.” She looked Emily up and down and made a face. “That’s an interesting outfit.”
Emily stared down at herself. She was wearing a stained T-shirt from a swimming relay carnival and a pair of too-small Victoria’s Secret sweatpants with the word পরাকাষ্ঠা written across the butt. The pants had been Ali’s—her Ali’s, the girl who was actually Courtney, whom Emily had confided in, giggled with, and adored in sixth and seventh grades. Even though the sweats were fraying at the hems and had long পূর্বে হারিয়ে গেছে the string that cinched the waist, they’d become Emily’s go-to after school uniform in the past two weeks. For some reason, she felt that as long as she had them on, nothing bad would happen to her.
“Dinner’s about ready.” Mrs. Fields turned on her heel toward the kitchen. “Come on, girls.”
Everyone followed her down the hall. Comforting smells of টমেটো sauce and garlic swirled through the air. The রান্নাঘর টেবিল had been set for four, and Emily’s mother scuttled to the চুলা as the timer started to beep. Beth sat down পরবর্তি to Emily and took a long, slow sip of water from a Kermit the Frog tumbler that had been Beth’s special glass since she was little. She had the same freckles across her cheeks and strong swimmer’s body as Emily did, but her reddish-blondish hair was cut in a choppy bob below her ears, and she wore a small silver hoop earring at the শীর্ষ of her earlobe. Emily wondered if it had hurt to get it done. She also wondered what Mrs. Fields would say when she noticed it—she didn’t like her children looking “inappropriate,” piercing their noses অথবা navels, dying their hair weird colors, অথবা getting tattoos. But Beth was twenty-four; maybe she was beyond her mother’s jurisdiction.
“So how are you?” Beth folded her hands on the টেবিল and looked at Emily. “It feels like ages since we’ve seen each other.”
“You should come প্রথমপাতা আরো often,” Mrs. Fields chirped pointedly from the counter.
Emily studied her chipped nails, most of which were bitten down to the quick. She couldn’t think of a single innocuous thing to tell Beth—everything in her life was tainted with strife.
“I heard আপনি spent the summer with Carolyn in Philly,” Beth prompted.
“Uh, yeah,” Emily answered, balling up a chicken-print napkin. The summer was the last thing she wanted to talk about right now.
“Yes, Emily’s wild summer in the city,” Mrs. Fields ব্যক্ত in a half-touchy, half-joking voice as she placed a ceramic dish of lasagna on the table. “I don’t remember আপনি taking a summer off swimming, Beth.”
“Well, it’s all water under the bridge.” Mr. Fields sat down at his regular আসন and grabbed a piece of garlic রুটি from the basket. “Emily’s all set for পরবর্তি year.”
“That’s right, I heard!” Beth punched Emily playfully on the shoulder. “A swim scholarship to UNC! Are আপনি psyched?”
Emily felt her family’s gaze and swallowed a huge lump in her throat. “Really psyched.”
She knew she should be happy about the swim scholarship, but she’d হারিয়ে গেছে a friend, Chloe Roland, because of it—Chloe had assumed Emily was hooking up with her well-connected father in order to score a spot on UNC’s squad, but the truth was that Mr. Roland had come on to her and she’d done everything she could to avoid him. There was also a part of Emily that wondered if she’d even get to go to UNC পরবর্তি year. What if A told the police about what they did to Tabitha? Would she be in jail দ্বারা the time freshman বছর started?
Everyone worked their way through the lasagna, their forks scraping against the plates. Beth started talking about a tree-planting charity group she was working with in Arizona. Mr. Fields complimented his wife on the sautéed spinach. Mrs. Fields chattered about a new family she’d visited as part of the Rosewood Welcome Wagon committee. Emily smiled and nodded and asked her family questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to contribute much to the conversation. She couldn’t manage আরো than a few forkfuls of lasagna, either, even though it was one of her পছন্দ dinners.
After dessert, Beth jumped up and insisted she’d do the dishes. “Wanna help, Em?”
Truthfully, Emily really wanted to go back to her room and burrow under her covers, but she didn’t want to be rude to a sister she rarely saw. “Sure.”
Together they stood at the sink, both of them staring out at the dark cornfield that bordered the backyard. As the basin filled with suds and the smell of লেবু Dawn wafted around the room, Emily cleared her throat. “So what are আপনি going to do while you’re home?”
Beth glanced over her shoulder to make sure she and Emily were alone. “I have all kinds of fun things planned, actually,” she whispered. “There’s a costume party tomorrow that’s supposed to be awesome.”
“That sounds . . . nice.” Emily couldn’t conceal her surprise. The Beth she knew wasn’t into partying. From what she remembered, Beth was a lot like Carolyn—she never broke curfew, never skipped a swim practice অথবা class. Her senior বছর at Rosewood Day, when Emily was in sixth, Beth and her prom date, Chaz, a wiry swimmer with white-blonde hair, hung out at the Fields house after the dance instead of going to an after-party. Ali had been sleeping over that night, and they’d snuck down the stairs and spied on Beth and Chaz, hoping to catch them making out. But they’d been sitting on opposite sides of the couch, watching reruns of 24. “No offense, Em, but your sister’s really lame,” Ali had whispered.
“Good, because you’re coming too.” Beth splashed Emily with soapy water, getting some all over her U of A hoodie as well.
Emily quickly shook her head. Going to a party right now sounded about as fun as walking over hot coals.
Beth flipped the switch to the garbage disposal, and the water in the sink began to bubble. “What’s up with you? Mom ব্যক্ত you’ve been mopey, but আপনি seem catatonic. When I asked আপনি about your swim scholarship, আপনি looked like আপনি were about to burst into tears. Did আপনি just break up with a girlfriend?”
A girlfriend. The chicken-silkscreened dish towel slipped from Emily’s grasp. It always jolted her when one of her prim-and-proper family members mentioned Emily’s sexual orientation. She knew they were trying to be understanding, but their chipper it’s-okay-to-be-gay attitude sometimes made Emily feel embarrassed.
“I didn’t break up with anyone,” Emily mumbled.
“Is mom still being really hard on you?” Beth rolled her eyes. “Who cares if আপনি took a summer off swimming? That was months ago! I don’t know how আপনি deal, living under this roof all দ্বারা yourself.”
Emily looked up. “I thought আপনি liked mom.”
“I do, but I was dying to get out of here দ্বারা the time senior বছর was over.” Beth wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Now, c’mon. What’s bugging you?”
Emily slowly dried a dish, looking into Beth’s kind, patient face. She wished she could tell her sister the truth. About the pregnancy. About A. Even about Tabitha. But Beth would freak. And Emily had already alienated one sister.
“I’ve been stressed,” she mumbled. “Senior বছর is harder than I thought it would be.”
Beth pointed a fork at Emily. “That’s why আপনি need to come with me to this party. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Emily traced her fingers over a plate’s scalloped edge. She desperately wanted to say no, but something deep inside her made her pause. She missed having a sister to talk to—over বড়দিন break, the last time she’d seen Carolyn, Carolyn had made every effort to avoid being alone with Emily. She’d even slept on the পালঙ্ক in the den, saying she’d gotten used to falling asleep in front of the TV, but Emily knew it was really to avoid their shared bedroom. Beth’s attention and affection felt like a gift Emily shouldn’t refuse.
“I guess I could go for a little bit,” she mumbled.
Beth threw her arms around her. “I knew you’d be up for it.”
“Up for what?”
They both turned. Mrs. Fields stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Beth stood up straighter. “Nothing, mom.”
Mrs. Fields padded back out of the room. Emily and her sister faced each other and burst into giggles.
“We’re going to have so much fun,” Beth whispered.
For a moment, Emily almost believed her.
"Every Killer Deserves a Night Out."
On a Wednesday evening in early March, Emily Fields lay on the carpet in the bedroom she used to share with her sister, Carolyn. Swimming পদক and a big poster of Michael Phelps hung on the walls. Her sister’s বিছানা was littered with Emily’s warm-up জ্যাকেট tons of oversized T-shirts, and a pair of boyfriend jeans. Carolyn had left for Stanford in August, and Emily relished having a মহাকাশ all her own. Especially since she was spending almost all her time in her room these days. Emily rolled over and stared at her laptop. A ফেসবুক page blinked on the screen. Tabitha Clark, RIP.
She stared at Tabitha’s পরিলেখ picture. There were the পরাকাষ্ঠা lips that had smiled so seductively at Emily in Jamaica. There were the green eyes that had narrowed at all of them on the hotel crow’s nest deck. Now, Tabitha was nothing but bones, her flesh and innards eaten away দ্বারা fishes and pounded clean দ্বারা the tides.
We did that.
Emily slammed down the lid of her computer, feeling the urge to throw up. A বছর ago, on spring break in Jamaica, she and her বন্ধু had sworn that they’d come face to face with the real Alison DiLaurentis, back from the dead and ready to kill them once and for all, just like she’d meant to do at her family’s house in the Poconos. After a series of bizarre encountered where this new, enigmatic stranger had uttered secrets that only Ali had known, Aria had pushed her over the edge of the crow’s nest. The girl had fallen several stories to the sandy beach, and her body had disappeared almost instantly, presumably carried out to sea দ্বারা the tide. When the four of them saw the newscast on TV two weeks পূর্বে that this very same girl’s remains had washed up on the shores of the resort, they thought the whole world would discover what they already knew: that Real Ali had survived the আগুন in the Poconos. But then, the bomb dropped: the girl Aria pushed wasn’t Real Ali at all—her name was Tabitha Clark, just as she’d told them. They’d killed an innocent person.
As the newscast ended, Emily and her বন্ধু received a chilling note from an anonymous person known only as A, in the tradition of the two stalkers who’d tormented them before. This new A knew what they had done and was going to make them pay. Emily had been holding her breath ever since, waiting for A’s পরবর্তি move.
The realization cascaded over Emily daily, startling her anew and making her feel horribly ashamed. Tabitha was dead because of her. A family was ruined because of her. It was all she could do to keep from calling the police and telling them what they had done. But that would ruin Aria, Hanna, and Spencer’s lives, too.
Her phone bleated, and she reached for it on her pillow. Aria Montgomery, ব্যক্ত the screen. “Hey,” Emily ব্যক্ত when she picked up.
“Hey,” Aria ব্যক্ত on the other end. “You okay?”
Emily shrugged. “You know.”
“Yeah,” Aria agreed softly.
They fell into a long silence. In the two weeks since a new A had emerged and Tabitha’s body had been found, Emily and Aria had begun calling each other every evening, just to check in. Mostly, they didn’t even talk. Sometimes, they watched TV together—shows like Hoarders অথবা Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Last week, they’d both caught a rerun of Pretty Little Killer, the TV movie depicting Real Ali’s return and killing spree. Neither Emily nor her বন্ধু had seen the movie the night it originally aired—they’d been too shell-shocked from the revelation about Tabitha to change the channel from CNN. But Emily and Aria had watched the rerun quietly, gasping at the নায়িকা who played their roles and squirming at the overdramatized moments where their doppelgangers found Ian Thomas’s body অথবা ran from the আগুন in Spencer’s woods. When the movie hit its climax in the Poconos and the house exploded with Ali inside it, Emily shivered. The producers gave the প্রদর্শনী a definitive ending. They killed the villain and gave the girls their happily ever after. But they didn’t know that Emily and her বন্ধু were once again being haunted দ্বারা A.
As soon as they’d begun receiving notes from a New A—on the anniversary of the horrible আগুন in the Poconos that had almost killed all of them—Emily was sure that Real Ali had survived the আগুন in the Poconos and the push off the balcony in Jamaica and was back for revenge. Her বন্ধু slowly began to believe that as well—until the news came out about Tabitha’s true identity. But even that didn’t rule out the possibility that Real Ali was still alive. She still could be New A and know everything.
Emily knew what her old বন্ধু would say if she voiced such a theory: Get over it, Em. Ali’s gone. আরো than likely they’d reverted back to their old assumption that Ali had perished inside the burning house in the Poconos. But there was something all of them didn’t know: Emily had left the front door unlatched and ajar for Ali before the house exploded. She could have easily escaped.
“Emily?” Mrs. Fields called out. “Can আপনি come downstairs?”
Emily sat up fast. “I have to go,” she told Aria. “I’ll talk to আপনি tomorrow, okay?”
She hung up the phone, crossed to the bedroom door, and looked over the railing. Her parents, who were still dressed in the matching gray sweat স্যুইটস্ they wore for their evening power-walks around the neighborhood, stood in the foyer. A tall, freckled girl with reddish-blonde hair just like Emily’s was পরবর্তি to them, a bulging duffel over her shoulder that ব্যক্ত বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় of Arizona Swimming in big red letters.
“Beth?” Emily squinted.
Emily’s older sister, Beth, craned her neck up and spread her arms wide. “Ta-dah!”
Emily raced down the stairs. “What are আপনি doing here?” she cried. Her sister rarely visited Rosewood. Her job as a teaching assistant at the বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় of Arizona, where she’d gone to college, kept her busy, and she was also assistant-coaching the U of A swim team, of which she’d been captain her senior year.
Beth dropped the duffel to the hardwood floor. “I had a couple days off, and Southwest was running a special. I thought I’d surprise you.” She looked Emily up and down and made a face. “That’s an interesting outfit.”
Emily stared down at herself. She was wearing a stained T-shirt from a swimming relay carnival and a pair of too-small Victoria’s Secret sweatpants with the word পরাকাষ্ঠা written across the butt. The pants had been Ali’s—her Ali’s, the girl who was actually Courtney, whom Emily had confided in, giggled with, and adored in sixth and seventh grades. Even though the sweats were fraying at the hems and had long পূর্বে হারিয়ে গেছে the string that cinched the waist, they’d become Emily’s go-to after school uniform in the past two weeks. For some reason, she felt that as long as she had them on, nothing bad would happen to her.
“Dinner’s about ready.” Mrs. Fields turned on her heel toward the kitchen. “Come on, girls.”
Everyone followed her down the hall. Comforting smells of টমেটো sauce and garlic swirled through the air. The রান্নাঘর টেবিল had been set for four, and Emily’s mother scuttled to the চুলা as the timer started to beep. Beth sat down পরবর্তি to Emily and took a long, slow sip of water from a Kermit the Frog tumbler that had been Beth’s special glass since she was little. She had the same freckles across her cheeks and strong swimmer’s body as Emily did, but her reddish-blondish hair was cut in a choppy bob below her ears, and she wore a small silver hoop earring at the শীর্ষ of her earlobe. Emily wondered if it had hurt to get it done. She also wondered what Mrs. Fields would say when she noticed it—she didn’t like her children looking “inappropriate,” piercing their noses অথবা navels, dying their hair weird colors, অথবা getting tattoos. But Beth was twenty-four; maybe she was beyond her mother’s jurisdiction.
“So how are you?” Beth folded her hands on the টেবিল and looked at Emily. “It feels like ages since we’ve seen each other.”
“You should come প্রথমপাতা আরো often,” Mrs. Fields chirped pointedly from the counter.
Emily studied her chipped nails, most of which were bitten down to the quick. She couldn’t think of a single innocuous thing to tell Beth—everything in her life was tainted with strife.
“I heard আপনি spent the summer with Carolyn in Philly,” Beth prompted.
“Uh, yeah,” Emily answered, balling up a chicken-print napkin. The summer was the last thing she wanted to talk about right now.
“Yes, Emily’s wild summer in the city,” Mrs. Fields ব্যক্ত in a half-touchy, half-joking voice as she placed a ceramic dish of lasagna on the table. “I don’t remember আপনি taking a summer off swimming, Beth.”
“Well, it’s all water under the bridge.” Mr. Fields sat down at his regular আসন and grabbed a piece of garlic রুটি from the basket. “Emily’s all set for পরবর্তি year.”
“That’s right, I heard!” Beth punched Emily playfully on the shoulder. “A swim scholarship to UNC! Are আপনি psyched?”
Emily felt her family’s gaze and swallowed a huge lump in her throat. “Really psyched.”
She knew she should be happy about the swim scholarship, but she’d হারিয়ে গেছে a friend, Chloe Roland, because of it—Chloe had assumed Emily was hooking up with her well-connected father in order to score a spot on UNC’s squad, but the truth was that Mr. Roland had come on to her and she’d done everything she could to avoid him. There was also a part of Emily that wondered if she’d even get to go to UNC পরবর্তি year. What if A told the police about what they did to Tabitha? Would she be in jail দ্বারা the time freshman বছর started?
Everyone worked their way through the lasagna, their forks scraping against the plates. Beth started talking about a tree-planting charity group she was working with in Arizona. Mr. Fields complimented his wife on the sautéed spinach. Mrs. Fields chattered about a new family she’d visited as part of the Rosewood Welcome Wagon committee. Emily smiled and nodded and asked her family questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to contribute much to the conversation. She couldn’t manage আরো than a few forkfuls of lasagna, either, even though it was one of her পছন্দ dinners.
After dessert, Beth jumped up and insisted she’d do the dishes. “Wanna help, Em?”
Truthfully, Emily really wanted to go back to her room and burrow under her covers, but she didn’t want to be rude to a sister she rarely saw. “Sure.”
Together they stood at the sink, both of them staring out at the dark cornfield that bordered the backyard. As the basin filled with suds and the smell of লেবু Dawn wafted around the room, Emily cleared her throat. “So what are আপনি going to do while you’re home?”
Beth glanced over her shoulder to make sure she and Emily were alone. “I have all kinds of fun things planned, actually,” she whispered. “There’s a costume party tomorrow that’s supposed to be awesome.”
“That sounds . . . nice.” Emily couldn’t conceal her surprise. The Beth she knew wasn’t into partying. From what she remembered, Beth was a lot like Carolyn—she never broke curfew, never skipped a swim practice অথবা class. Her senior বছর at Rosewood Day, when Emily was in sixth, Beth and her prom date, Chaz, a wiry swimmer with white-blonde hair, hung out at the Fields house after the dance instead of going to an after-party. Ali had been sleeping over that night, and they’d snuck down the stairs and spied on Beth and Chaz, hoping to catch them making out. But they’d been sitting on opposite sides of the couch, watching reruns of 24. “No offense, Em, but your sister’s really lame,” Ali had whispered.
“Good, because you’re coming too.” Beth splashed Emily with soapy water, getting some all over her U of A hoodie as well.
Emily quickly shook her head. Going to a party right now sounded about as fun as walking over hot coals.
Beth flipped the switch to the garbage disposal, and the water in the sink began to bubble. “What’s up with you? Mom ব্যক্ত you’ve been mopey, but আপনি seem catatonic. When I asked আপনি about your swim scholarship, আপনি looked like আপনি were about to burst into tears. Did আপনি just break up with a girlfriend?”
A girlfriend. The chicken-silkscreened dish towel slipped from Emily’s grasp. It always jolted her when one of her prim-and-proper family members mentioned Emily’s sexual orientation. She knew they were trying to be understanding, but their chipper it’s-okay-to-be-gay attitude sometimes made Emily feel embarrassed.
“I didn’t break up with anyone,” Emily mumbled.
“Is mom still being really hard on you?” Beth rolled her eyes. “Who cares if আপনি took a summer off swimming? That was months ago! I don’t know how আপনি deal, living under this roof all দ্বারা yourself.”
Emily looked up. “I thought আপনি liked mom.”
“I do, but I was dying to get out of here দ্বারা the time senior বছর was over.” Beth wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Now, c’mon. What’s bugging you?”
Emily slowly dried a dish, looking into Beth’s kind, patient face. She wished she could tell her sister the truth. About the pregnancy. About A. Even about Tabitha. But Beth would freak. And Emily had already alienated one sister.
“I’ve been stressed,” she mumbled. “Senior বছর is harder than I thought it would be.”
Beth pointed a fork at Emily. “That’s why আপনি need to come with me to this party. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Emily traced her fingers over a plate’s scalloped edge. She desperately wanted to say no, but something deep inside her made her pause. She missed having a sister to talk to—over বড়দিন break, the last time she’d seen Carolyn, Carolyn had made every effort to avoid being alone with Emily. She’d even slept on the পালঙ্ক in the den, saying she’d gotten used to falling asleep in front of the TV, but Emily knew it was really to avoid their shared bedroom. Beth’s attention and affection felt like a gift Emily shouldn’t refuse.
“I guess I could go for a little bit,” she mumbled.
Beth threw her arms around her. “I knew you’d be up for it.”
“Up for what?”
They both turned. Mrs. Fields stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Beth stood up straighter. “Nothing, mom.”
Mrs. Fields padded back out of the room. Emily and her sister faced each other and burst into giggles.
“We’re going to have so much fun,” Beth whispered.
For a moment, Emily almost believed her.
