Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily are all squished on the couch, Eisa sitting on a chair beside it, refusing to squish in with the already guilty looking girls. Detective Darren Wilden paces in front of the girls.
"So let's see..." He points at Spencer first. "You thought you heard her scream?"
"I said that, yeah," Eisa snippily think to herself that Spencer already sounds like she's worthy of suspicion.
"And when you four woke up in the barn, Alison was gone, and so was Spencer."
"Yes. I woke up before them and I realized that Ali was missing, so-" Even Eisa can hear the robotic lie that Wilden cuts off sharply.
"So you went to look for her."
"That's what happened."
"I got that," he nods, clearly not believing the girls. "So what's up? Was this a slumber party, or?"
"Is this an interrogation?"
"If it was, our parents would be here, and he wouldn't be asking leading questions, which would make any information gained inadmissible," Eisa cuts in to the conversation, paying more attention to her manicure than the detective.
"Good thing it isn't. Just a routine follow-up," he stares the girls down smugly. "Why did you guys fall asleep?"
"I guess we were tired," Aria's response sounds flimsy, even to Eisa.
"Tired? Really? Is that how you remember it, Hanna?"
"Yeah."
"Look, we've told you everything that we know, just like we did when she went missing."
"I know, I know," his mock pity annoys Eisa, so much so, she's tempted to do something, but chooses not to. "You see, the thing is, it's almost exactly what you said last year."
"Like Spencer said, we've told you everything we know," Aria holds her ground, while Hanna is mysteriously uncomfortable, and Emily clearly looks guilty for lying. The girls are let to leave, but before they can get very far, Eisa gets a text from their not so favourite mystery friend.
Gee babe, sure seems like you could help.
So here's your choice.
Help your friends and give up your ex.
Or let the cops doubt their alib-lies.
Choices, choices.
-A
"Is it A?" Eisa nods, still in shock. "What do they want?"
"For me to cover for your obvious lies."
"They want to help us?" Hanna seems surprised.
"Who knows what this psycho wants," Eisa takes a deep breath, then turns back in the direction they came from. "I'm having lunch with Noel today. I'll see you later."
Even as the girls call after her, she ignores them, already formulating a much better lie before she opens the door back in to the room they had sat in with Detective Wilden. He looks up in surprise.
"Miss Janusson? You have something you want to tell me?"
"You're right. The girls are lying about that night. But it's not what you think."
Wilden raises an eyebrow, gesturing for her to sit on the couch as he leans on the edge of a nearby desk. "Do tell."
"They're covering for me. It wasn't a random sleepover," lie. "We all got together because I had asked them to be my alibi with my parents for my whereabouts that night. My Dad had actually been around at the time, taking a break from writing, and he was wondering where I was going," surprisingly, not entirely a lie.
"And you couldn't tell him because?"
"I was dating an older guy. Like, college age older."
"You were, what, 14, maybe 15? Age of consent here in Pennsylvania is 16. You were covering for a boy."
"I still am. Our relationship ended that night anyway," another lie. It ended a week later. "And I won't tell you who he was now either. The point is, their speech sounds practised because it is. They fell asleep because they were tired, they were just there for me to say I was there when I wasn't. And when I left at 10, Ali was asleep with the rest of them," lie. "The rest of their story is true."
"Right..." Wilden moved now to sit beside Eisa on the couch. "So you like to date men, huh?"
Inside, she feels mildly disgusted by the man's tone of voice, but she refuses to show it. "Not exclusively. I've been in a monogamous relationship with a boy my own age for nearly six months now."
"Well... Thank you for your honesty, Eisa, and if that fact ever changes," he hands her his card, which has his private mobile number on it as well as his work number. The hand that gently caresses her back before he leaves may, from most angles, appear appropriate and friendly, she feels it dip too close to her ass for his meaning to be left in question. Her phone buzzes again.
You managed to help them without ratting him out.
I'm impressed but not pleased.
Next time won't be so easy Bitch.
- A
She sighs in both relief and brand new tension. As far as she could tell, A wasn't targeting the other girls nearly as much. She considers the fact that A is manipulating her, puppeteering her life, in a similar fashion that Eisa usually uses for her own amusement. Her classes go by quite normally, and she meets up with Noel and Mona at a table full of jocks for lunch.
"Hey babe," Noel greets her with a kiss, and when they sit at their lunch table, he pulls her to sit on his lap sideways, facing the rest of the cafeteria and Mona who sits beside them.
"Hanna is sitting with the old group again already? I can't believe she'd ditch us," Mona looks to where Hanna sits with Aria, Emily, and Spencer, all whispering about one thing or another.
"They're probably all discussing the 'interview' we just had with Detective Wilden. They're all a lot easier to shake than a professional liar like me."
Mona laughs, picking at her salad as the two chat for a while, before Noel cuts in with a surprising question.
"Why the hell are they inviting Jenna Marshall to sit with them?"
"How would I know?"
"Yeah Noel, Eisa doesn't have ESPN you know," Eisa closes her eyes to suppress the eye roll at her friends idiocy.
"It's ESP Mona. Besides, it's not like it's a crime to be nice to a blind girl," Eisa peeks at what is clearly an awkward conversation at the table of her friends and Jenna Marshall. Jenna takes a sip of her juice, and for a while there, Eisa spies, out of the corner of her eye, the fact that the girls are on their own world. Likely remembering what they did. Their phones go off at the same time, and a minute later, so does Eisa's. She checks it immediately, not even registering Mona also being on her phone, given the girl is almost permanently fused to the thing.
Your friends look so guilty.
Good thing you were somewhere else that night.
Careful E, give me too much rope and I'll hang you with it.
-A
Eisa wonders what the cryptic message means for a moment, before she remembers where she was that night and withholds a grimace, and part of her knows that this means A will try to make her do something else soon. She just doesn't know what.
After lunch, all of the girls have lunch together, all taught by Mr Fitz. The bell rings for all of them to settle down, a moment later, Mona makes her entrance, the sound of her heels announcing her.
"Am I late?"
"Uh, you're Mona right?"
"That's right Mr Fritz," the whole class laughs at her blunder, even Ezra has a hard time withholding a chuckle. "What?"
"Take your seat Mona, please."
Hanna whispers a correction to the short fashionista once she sits, in front of her is Eisa. Once Fitz hands out a short in class assignment, Eisa spies Aria dropping a mysterious piece of paper on their teacher's desk. Thinking nothing of it, she pays attention to her own work. The rest of the day passes with nothing more exciting happening to the girls.
The next day is barely cause for excitement, Eisa picking up Hanna in her Porsche convertible with coffee, the two of them chatting when they come upon a bunch of the boys hooting and hollering at Emily and Ben making out in his car.
"Looking good Emily. You two are looking good too."
"I'm sorry, are you talking to me?"
"Yeah, shoo little boy."
Eisa and Hanna's twin responses to the gross boy send him practically running.
"You okay?"
"Not really," Emily's response is unsurprising, as girls who feel comfortable getting caught like she did, don't generally get caught with their 'boyfriend'.
"You know, I never thought of you as someone who would be comfortable with PDA," Eisa wants to hit Hanna for the obviously inflammatory statement, but she withholds it, because it's not like she knows what Eisa knows.
"Maybe I'm not who everyone thinks I am."
"Who is?" Eisa makes eye contact with the Amazonian bombshell as she speaks, hoping to convey comfort as much as possible as they walk up the steps to yet another day of school.
That afternoon, after a grueling cheer practice, or at least it was grueling for Eisa's underlings, given she's a hard task master, Eisa decides to drop by Emily's place. It's time they had a chat about Emily's secret after all. She jogs up to the Fields' porch, knocking on the door, which is opened to reveal Pam Fields.
"Hey Mrs Fields. Sorry to intrude, I really need to talk to Emily, if that's alright?"
"Eisa! You've known me long enough, you can call me Pam dear. It's good all you girls are being friends again. Of course you can, just be quick, it is a school night."
"Of course Pam," now past the gatekeeper, Eisa turns off her sickly sweet cover personality as she jogs up to her friends room. "Knock knock?"
"Eisa?"
"Yeah. I was wondering if you wanted to talk about... The secret Ali told me," Emily's panicked face causes Eisa to walk further in to the room, closing the bedroom door behind her. "Emily, it's okay. You don't have to worry."
"Yes I do! It's sick!"
"Emily Fields," Eisa turns on her stern voice for this. "You know I've been out for years. I'm bi. Liking girls, only or as well as boys, is not sick."
"You don't get it, my parents... They'd disown me."
"Like my mother reacted at all well when I told her? Look. I get how hard this part is, trust me, and if you need someone to talk to, someone who understands, you know you can come to me."
"I don't want hard. I just want to be normal again! Just, don't tell anyone, don't insinuate it at school, nothing."
Eisa looks sadly at her friend, but recognizes her need to be in denial, and respects that. She kisses her on the cheek, hugs her, and as she leaves, she promises not to say a word. She then goes home, the house empty and quiet as it always is. Alone, she goes to bed, hoping tomorrow might be a better day.
Emily, left behind, reconsiders her previous thoughts regarding the heartless nature of Eisa, considering the difference between what she broadcasted, and how she acted behind closed doors. Upon this consideration, she think that maybe, just maybe, she likes the secret Eisa that she just met for the first time.