Aria Montgomery stared at herself in the mirror hanging over the closet door in her bedroom. She was surrounded by cardboard boxes, waiting eagerly to be unpacked. It had been a year since Aria had even set foot in this bedroom, and still no sign of Alison DiLaurentis had been found. She smoothed the creases in her dress as she reminisced about the countless memories this room held. She could remember exactly what she and Alison had done in this room in the rare moments they weren't with the other girls. It was still hard to believe that out of nowhere, none of those things would ever happen again.
The last time she had stood in front of this mirror, her hair had been dyed pink in a single stripe amongst her dark brown hair. Alison had always said she looked like one of those emo girls on MTV with that style of hair. Aria had thought it was kind of mean of her to say at the time, but looking back she couldn't really disagree. After all, that was kind of what she had been going for. Her lips turned down and twitched at the thought of Ali.
Aria's mom leaned against the doorway of her daughter's bedroom. "Aria? Are you okay?"
Aria turned to look at her mother. She must've noticed the slight tremor on Aria's lips while walking by. Aria swallowed the ball rising in her throat and said, "It's weird to be home."
Mrs. Montgomery nodded. "Well, we were gone a year. When you're sixteen, that's a long time," she said.
Aria sat on one of the many boxes piled up in her room and picked absentmindedly at a piece of packing tape sealing it shut. All of the things that had happened in the past year flooded into her mind. Alison officially being declared missing by the Rosewood Police Department, her family up and moving to Iceland for her father's year abroad, falling in love with Europe (not to mention a few of the boys there). She had found her own sense of style, and she found herself missing the way it felt to be away from Rosewood and all of the memories she had managed to tuck into a corner of her mind in Iceland. Ali had missed so much. "I still think about her every day," Aria said, shaking her head. Mrs. Montgomery strode into the room and held out Aria's cell phone. "Why don't you call your friends?" she suggested, sitting on another of the many boxes in Aria's room. "They don't know we're back from Dad's sabbatical."
Aria dismissed this suggestion. Aria hadn't spoken to any of her old friends since before the big move to Iceland. She had changed so much since those last few tearful phone calls about Alison, and Aria didn't know how to even approach them at this point. After spending so much time overseas and falling in love with the atmosphere in Europe, coming back to Rosewood felt like a setback. Rosewood didn't feel like Rosewood anymore. "On the news, they're calling it the anniversary of Alison's disappearance. Like it's a party or something," Aria said.
Mrs. Montgomery sighed. Everyone in Rosewood had seen the news broadcast that morning. A year to the day Rosewood got its biggest news story ever, big enough to even be talked about on the major news stations instead of just the local ones. For exactly a year, anybody who could had been looking for the missing girl, but no one cared more than her family and the four girls who had been with her that night. "Why don't you give them a call?" Mrs. Montgomery suggested once again. Aria rolled her eyes. "You five were inseparable. Those feelings don't just go away."
A loud thumping of footsteps approached Aria's room. Her brother, Mike, out of breath, stopped outside the room. "I need a ride to lacrosse," he announced before practically sprinting down the hallway.
Aria laughed as she took her cell phone from her mother. That was the kind of moment that could pull her out of almost any bad mood. She loved her family dearly. "I'll take him," she said.
Her brother was obsessed with lacrosse. All of the popular boys at Rosewood High played it, and Mike desperately wanted to be one of them, though he would never admit that to Aria. It was the same kind of desire that she had had to be included in Alison's circle of friends, one that she couldn't believe she had found her way into.
As Aria walked down the stairs of the Montgomery house, she breathed in the familiar scents of the wood panelled walls and the candles that had been set up all around the house before the boxes and furniture had even been brought in. Mike had found his way downstairs and was digging through every box he could get his hands on. Her father was talking to him, watching him scavenge and sifting through a box in the kitchen. "You got lacrosse today?" he asked sarcastically.
Mike, too preoccupied with finding his equipment, didn't notice the sarcasm. "It's first tryouts and all my stuff's in about a hundred boxes," he said, ripping into yet another box.
"A hundred?" Mrs. Montgomery asked as she came down the stairs.
"You know what I mean," Mike said with a shrug.
"Come on, let's go look in the garage," Mrs. Montgomery said, gesturing for him to follow her. Mike put the box down and followed her out into the (probably very dusty and spider filled) garage.
Aria picked up her bookbag and looped it over her shoulder as she grabbed her car keys. Mr. Montgomery came up to her, holding a cup of coffee and not quite looking at her. "Listen, I know being back here brings back a lot of memories," he said. "You okay?"
Aria looked at him in disbelief. Of all the things that she had buried in the most hidden parts of her brain, her father's secret was probably the one thing she'd rather forget about completely. The fact that he was even bringing it up on their first day back home was enough to blow Aria's mind. "Dad. I'm still keeping your secret, okay?" she snapped.
Mr. Montgomery paused, his cheeks turning a little red. "I meant, are you okay with Alison?" he said.
Aria didn't get a chance to answer. Mike had just come back with a sports bag filled to bursting with his lacrosse equipment, and Aria released a sigh of relief that he had shown up when he did. That conversation with her father was heading down a road she wasn't ready to walk down. Aria followed Mike out the front door as quickly as she could. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery stood in the doorway of the house, watching their children get into the car and drive away.
The streets of Rosewood were exactly the same as they had been a year before. The same trees lined the same black pavement and grey sidewalks, and the same people walked the same dogs as before. Aria could probably walk down this street with her eyes closed and be perfectly fine. At every corner, she could hear Alison's laugh or see the whole group laughing and eating frozen yogurt.
After about fifteen minutes of Mike fussing about his lacrosse junk and practically taking Aria's head off with a stick, she was about ready to kick him out of the car and make him run the rest of the way to tryouts. Fortunately for him, they had just pulled into the long driveway of Rosewood High School. The building was old and rustic, like just about every other building in Rosewood. The blinds in all of the classroom windows embedded in the white brick face of the school were all shut, and the Rosewood High insignia was proudly displayed above the front doors. Aria suppressed a whole new flood of memories as she parked in front of the doors to the school.
Mike opened his car door and got out, almost whacking Aria in the head again. "Hey, what time am I picking you up?" she called out to him before he took off inside.
"Six?" Mike answered.
"Okay, I'm gonna go grab some food," she said.
He barely acknowledged what she said before running off into the school. Aria glanced at the digital clock on the stereo of the car. 4:15. She took a deep breath and flipped open her phone. Her parents did have a point. Seeing Rosewood again brought up a ton of memories, and it would be a lot easier if she had her friends to talk to. No matter how hard she had tried to forget about this town and Alison, she knew it affected her way more than she let on. She debated calling her friends. Instead, Aria snapped her phone shut and decided against it. It was stupid of her to think that they'd just fall right back into old patterns. It had been a year since any of them had spoken to each other.
The Hollis Bar & Grill was a dingy little pub, a quick drive away from the high school and Hollis College. The bar was dark, and bottles were stacked on shelf upon shelf throughout the bar. The stools along the wooden bar were made of black wood that was comfortable to sit on for a little while but quickly became unbearable. A jukebox stood just inside the restaurant. When Aria walked in, the restaurant was almost completely empty. After all, it was four in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The only other person sitting in the restaurant was a guy with curly brown hair, reading a book and drinking a glass of what Aria guessed was scotch. She sat down a couple of stools away from him. "Can I get a cheeseburger please?" she asked the bartender behind the bar, cleaning glasses.
"You got it," he said.
Aria hadn't eaten meat since a bad experience in Iceland where she ate an Icelandic meal that ended up being made of puffin meat. She couldn't eat meat after that without seeing cute little animal faces looking up at her, but old habits die hard in Rosewood. She looked around the bar, free to let her mind wander for the first time since they had gotten back. There was a billboard set up on one of the walls of the bar, where an old poster of Alison was pinned up.
MISSING
ALISON DILAURENTIS
WOULD NOW BE 16
ALISON DILAURENTIS, W-F-5'6"-120LBS. BLONDE HAIR/BLUE EYES
ROSEWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA
ANY INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
DETECTIVE DARREN WILDEN
AT ROSEWOOD POLICE DEPARTMENT
Aria's appetite died right then and there. She looked down at the watermarks from sweaty beer glasses and scratch marks from idle hands and plates scraping against the wood as they were set down. The realisation that her best friend would probably never come back crashed down on her like an avalanche, and her eyes threatened to overflow onto the dark wood. "You alright down there?" a man asked.
Aria looked over at the guy that was reading earlier and saw that he was looking at her, concerned. He was kinda cute, in a dorky kind of way. Of course she would get a crush on a guy who spent his time at a bar reading. Aria swallowed her tears for the millionth time that day. "I'm a bit jet lagged," she said. "I just got back from Europe."
His eyes widened in interest. "Where in Europe?"
"Iceland," she answered. Usually she was super reserved about talking to guys in bars, but for some reason, all inhibitions were down. She hadn't even had anything to drink.
The boy nodded. "I spent some time in Reykjavik before I went to Amsterdam. It's a great city," he said.
He spoke with the same kind of excitement about Europe that Aria did. She was liking him more and more with every second. "So do you go to Hollis?" Aria asked.
"Just graduated," he said. "I'm gonna start my first teaching job."
"Yeah? I think I'd like to teach," she said with an excited smile.
The song on the radio changed. The opening notes of one of Aria's favourite songs filtered through the speakers in the restaurant, and Aria's heart leaped. She had had this song practically on repeat since it came out. "God, I love this song," she said.
"B-26," the boy said. Aria looked up at him, shocked. Did that mean he had picked the song on the jukebox? Of course he had, how else would he know the number? "What's your major?" he asked.
She hesitated before answering. He must not have realised that she was still in high school. "Uh, well, I'm leaning toward English," she said. It wasn't a total lie, and, judging by the book sitting in front of him, that was the best answer to keep the conversation going.
"That's what I'm teaching!" he said, his smile travelling up to his blue eyes.
Aria laughed. Nailed it, she said to herself. "And I write too," she said. "But so far, it's mostly personal. Just for me."
"I'm impressed," he said.
"Why?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, I tried writing," he said, moving to the stool next to Aria and bringing his book and drink with him. "I didn't get very far. You're lucky. If you're writing for yourself, it's true passion." He smiled at her, a real genuine smile, not the sympathetic ones she had been receiving from everyone who recognised her as one of Alison DiLaurentis's friends. "Maybe you'd let me read something of yours?"
"Yeah? You want to?" she asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, you're smart, you've travelled. Great taste in music." Aria chuckled a little bit at that one. "I'd like to know more about you."
"I'd like to know more about you, too," Aria said, smiling.
Next thing they knew, they both found themselves in the women's restroom, making out with an intensity that Aria thought only could be found in Iceland. The boy had sat her up on the bathroom sink, and she wrapped her legs around him as they kissed. They pulled away and flirted a little bit, Aria learned that his name was Ezra, and then started kissing again. Aria's return to Rosewood hadn't started off all that great, but things were sure looking up now.