A Pretty Little Parody [PLL]

29. Hookup Trees Make Great Last Dates

The next day at promptly nine AM, I hopped off my bike and adjusted my polo dress nervously. It was heather gray, possibly one of the most drab and yet most fabulously stylish color ever. I’d worn it because I didn’t feel like going home and changing if I got dirty. And chances were that I wasn’t going to stay clean.

I stared up at the giant oak tree with reverence. It was the unofficial hookup spot for every upper schooler (and daring middle schooler) in Rosebush Day history, because its branches were low and stretched out, making it the perfect love seat for a couple who wasn’t afraid of heights. Various initials with hearts around them had been scraped into the trunk and parts of the branches. MS+IC. JW+JS. GZ+KH.

I walked closer and squinted at one particular heart that looked like it had been freshly carved. The initials read OP+...something else that I couldn’t quite make out. There had been initials there for sure, but someone had taken the effort to scrape parts of it out and render it illegible. I groaned. O.P.--that had to be my mother, Olivia Peterson. But who was she hooking up with, and behind my school no less?

“Was this what you wanted me to see?” I asked the silence around me. Being at school on a weekend was spooky. No one was there. “Because I don’t know what the other initials say.”

There was no response. Frustrated, I climbed up onto one of the branches and sat there, feeling like an adventurous little kid ready to enjoy a good book, not sent here on a mission from some random person in order to get her brother back. The whole thing was was totally shady, and I knew it, but at that particular moment I didn’t really care. I just wanted something to happen already.

“Sasha? Sasha Peterson?”

I almost fell off the tree in surprise. Actually, I almost did, startling so far backwards that I slipped and ended up hanging off the branch by my legs, like a monkey. Was that…

“Ivana?”

She laughed, her face coming into view. Her hair was in perfect waves that tumbled down her back and she was wearing a pale green dress, looking like a Lolita Barbie doll. A hot Lolita Barbie doll. “Surprised to see me?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“I got some random call at, like, six in the morning today from a stranger saying that you’d be waiting for me by the hookup tree. I was bored, so I decided to check it out.” She shrugged. “She was right.”

“Did she happen to have a scratchy voice?” I asked, still hanging upside down.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

She smiled. “So anyway, since I’m here and you’re here, I thought I’d come in for that kiss.”

“Spiderman style?” I gestured to my current position and laughed. I was starting to get a little dizzy.

She studied me. “You know, that could actually be cute.” Then she shook her head. “Nah. I’m too tall for it, and I don’t want to kneel down.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then could you please help me get off?”

She winked. “I’ll help you get off, all right.”

“No, I mean off the tree!”

“Oh! That. Um, sure.” She crossed over to where I was hanging and helped me down. The blood rushed back to wherever it was supposed to be and left me feeling temporarily stunned.

“Hello? Earth to Sasha?”

I blinked a few times. “Yes?”

She looked at me impatiently. “Do you want to kiss me or not?”