The Mistress

by SweetJane21

Former high school sweethearts Spencer and Toby reunite after 3 years apart, when Spencer is forced to return to her small town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania. But neither one can forget the deep, passionate first love they once shared. Unable to fight their feelings for each other anymore, Spencer and Toby begin a beautiful love affair despite all forces trying to tear them apart.

1. Chapter 1

1. Coming Home

Spencer

I sat on the stone bench in the middle of Folger Park with my legs crossed, reading the letter that my best friend, Alison DiLaurentis, had sent me three days ago. I hadn't mustered up the courage to open it until now.

I glanced across the street at the terraced townhouses and luxury hotel buildings. Behind me rose the pristine White House. It was the early afternoon on a perfect, crystal-clear blue sky fall day in Washington D.C. The air smelled like cherry blossom trees and wildflowers, and the cold, but soft wind bit at my cheeks. I picked off a piece of lint from my black sheath dress, which was paired with my beige trench coat and black high heels. It was the best day to take a jog through the Capital Crescent Trail and the worst day to fly out to Rosewood, Pennsylvania for Charles DiLaurentis' hearing, the flawless small town where I'd grown up with my best friends.

Five years ago, my friends and I, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, and Jess Clarke had all been tormented with mysterious, twisted messages from someone who went by the initial letter A. Jess, an old childhood friend of Ali's, had been getting torturous messages from the evil stalker as well, prying deeper and deeper into her dark past. Jess had shown up in Rosewood eight dizzying months before our high school graduation, when everything had changed. But things only got more dangerous. It turned out that my mother's former tenant, Jonny Raymond, who had been living in the barn-renovated-loft next to our house, was actually Jess' older ex-boyfriend. He'd been stalking her and even sexually assaulted her a year prior to her arrival in town, and had used his position in the secret N.A.T. Club to spy on and videotape all of us.

At first, we all thought that A might have been Alison, our best friend who went missing a year before, but then workers found her body buried in her old backyard. The texts, emails, and notes continued, threatening to expose our biggest secrets. And then a year later, we found out that A was Mona Vanderwaal, our classmate in high school and Hanna's best friend. In ninth grade, Mona had been an intellectual dork who yearned to get Alison's attention in the hopes of being invited past the red velvet ropes of popularity. But once Ali disappeared, Mona transformed herself into one of the most popular girls at Rosewood High and became best friends with Hanna. Mona had stolen Alison's diary, read all the secrets she'd written about all her friends, and plotted to ruin our lives in as many ways as she possibly could in revenge for letting Ali tease her. She'd even tried to kill us, going so far as to hitting Hanna with her car and almost pushing me off the cliff past the city limits of Rosewood.

After Mona went to Radley Sanitarium for treatment of a multi-personality disorder, my friends and I thought we were finally safe. But when our senior year of high school started, we began receiving sinister messages from a new A. We followed someone to Ravenswood dressed in a red coat shortly after that, who we believed was helping A, only to find out it was Alison herself and that she'd been alive this whole time, hiding from A for the last two years. Then on the night of our senior prom, the new A had been revealed to be Charles, Jason's identical twin brother who he'd been separated from and Alison's long-lost older brother, also known as Charles DiLaurentis. The police arrested him for kidnapping and holding me, my friends, and Mona Vanderwaal hostage in a Dollhouse-themed building for three weeks, after he'd tried–and failed–to jump off the roof of Radley.

Five years had passed since Charles had been locked up in the Welby State Psychiatric Hospital and A had vanished for good. My friends and I hadn't gotten any more notes from A and we'd slowly adjusted to our new lives and dream careers. For a while, I was a mess after Charles was arrested–it was hard to believe A wasn't still out there lurking in the shadows, waiting until the next perfect moment to taunt me with another creepy text. But as time went on, I grew used to the silence and the custom of everyday life. The nightmares slowly faded away. I stopped sleeping with the lamplight on. I started receiving high marks in all my college classes again. But a big part of that had been Toby Cavanaugh, my first love.

We broke up in the middle of my sophomore year of college, which had in turn crippled me. The distance had been hard on both of us, with me being away at school and Toby's job as a police officer in Rosewood. And Toby wanted more in our relationship than I'd been willing to offer. Losing him was unbearable. I didn't want to admit that he was the reason I couldn't sleep anymore and that I could no longer breathe, but he was. The last time he'd stayed away for this long was when he'd left town after I found out he'd joined the A Team to protect me.

I missed Toby terribly. I missed playing Scrabble with him and seeing the smug triumph in his eyes when he beat me. It had made me so angry, but now I would give anything to have that back. And I especially missed him in light of what was happening with Charles. Toby knew about A and what Charles had done to my friends and I in the Dollhouse, and I needed him here with me right now to comfort me, to know that he cared. But instead, I felt alone and scared.

I went back to work in the days that followed our devastating breakup, but my head had felt too fuzzy to recall. It felt like time was moving fast and I was standing still, unable to move forward. That day with Toby in my dorm room felt like it had happened ages ago. All I wanted was to talk to him, really talk to him, and to see his face, but I knew that wasn't possible. This was the end; I could feel it. It was over between us. I turned to alcohol for solace, drinking my sorrows away until I passed out, crying nonstop throughout the night. I spent the rest of my time looking through old photos of Toby and I and slept all day. The nightmares returned, only I had them every night now. Toby would leave me, and I searched for him in an endless maze of hallways in the college dorms. I would get more frantic as more time wore on, trying to run faster through the halls to find him. Then I realized that Toby was gone, that I had nothing, and I woke up screaming.

Time went on. Even when it seemed impossible, even when it hurt too much to move. And it broke my heart all over again knowing that Toby was moving on without me, leaving me numb from the inescapable pain, with unhealed wounds that continued to bleed and throb. Even the sound of his name unleashed a sharp, dull pain inside of me that knocked me breathless with astonishing force. It was too much to handle. I couldn't breathe without him.

My behavior had been unresponsive for the last three years since Toby and I split up. Nothing had changed for me. Although I hadn't missed a day of work and my organization skills were perfect, my mind was elsewhere. I never went out anymore. The only person I did see was Caleb Rivers, Toby's best friend and Hanna's ex-boyfriend, who'd come out to D.C. on more than a few occasions. But even then, I was still missing Toby. I didn't have the appetite to eat anything, and when I did, they were leftovers from my refrigerator. Every time I imagined Toby meeting a girl back in Rosewood and falling in love with her, my heart broke all over again and I drank some more wine. My whole body was numb.

Now, I was living somewhat comfortably in Georgetown, Washington D.C., a city that sprawled with successful politicians and wealthy bankers. After graduating from the University of Georgetown with a Bachelors' degree, I'd quickly gotten a job as an organization lobbyist at the Canon House Office on Capitol Hill. But something felt missing inside, empty. It was like a huge hole had been punched through my chest, freezing my heart in the process. Waves of pain washed over me and pulled me down. After I lost Toby, I never resurfaced.

I looked back down at the letter in my hands and began to read:

Dear Spencer,

There isn't much time, but I wanted you to see these words on paper and not a screen. I wanted to know you were touching something I touched, that we were connected. We've been through things no other friends have experienced. We understand each other better than anybody else in the world can. But that all connects us to someone else. Someone I love. Someone who needs me.And I know you're coming back to Rosewood to speak to the court about Charles being released. I'm asking five minutes with you. Five minutes to explain. Five minutes that can change the whole world. Spencer, I need you. Please.

All my love, Alison.

I laid the letter in my lap, noting Ali's familiar, clear and flawless script on the page. I imagined Alison writing this, her hand trembling with each letter. I could see her frown as she wrote down the words onto paper, crumpling her forehead with worry.

My eyes glistening with unexpected tears, I stood up from the bench and made my way across the street to my Toyota Highlander. I fumbled for my keys in my purse and manually unlocked the door, then slid into the leather seat.

The large, modern houses flashed by as I drove to my street. The cobblestone pathways were covered in red and orange autumn leaves that had fallen from the trees, announcing the beginning of fall. And rich, flashy hotels towered over the other buildings. Finally, I pulled up in front of the red brick building of my small, one-bedroom apartment. On the front steps, I turned the key in the door and walked inside. The lights were turned off, empty glasses scattered around a half-full bottle of wine just as I had left it. The walls of the apartment were painted a soft beige with mahogany hardwood floors, had a guest and master bedroom, and a balcony that overlooked the Meridian Hill Park. There was only one small bathroom next to the master bedroom. The bentwood-style rocking chair Toby had made me sat in the corner by my bedroom window, carved and shined to fit my body perfectly.

When I finished packing my suitcase in my room, I headed to the bathroom to gather the rest of my things for the plane flight to Rosewood. I stared at my reflection in the mirror as I ran a brush through the thick curtain of my long, dark-brown hair. My cheeks were flushed with pink against my ivory skin, and my chocolate-brown eyes looked slightly bloodshot from crying. I'd always been lean and slender, but soft, with a pointed chin, supple pink lips, and a small chest. The only thing that had changed about me were the choppy-cut bangs that covered most of my forehead.

Charles' hearing was set to start next week. My friends and I would have to speak to the judge about his recovery at Welby Hospital, and if we felt safe enough for him to be released after everything he'd done to us in the Dollhouse. And while it would be scarier to talk about what each of us went through, at least this meant the ordeal would finally be over.

Maybe if I was tan, blonde, and had blue eyes with a bigger chest I wouldn't have lost Toby. But physically, I'd never stand out in Rosewood. I was just another preppy, Coach-toting brainiac that Rosewood boys were too intimidated to approach. But when I was with Toby, he made me feel beautiful and sexy. He brought out the best in me, making me more relaxed and care less about winning all the time, and compelled me to try to do the right thing even when it was hard. I discovered a part of me that I hadn't known existed. Someone that was alive and free. He'd even taught me how to cut wood with a power saw and how to jumpstart a car when my car broke down. Without Toby, I felt lost.

But none of that mattered now. I was no longer the same girl I was back then. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.

I sat at the bar of the lounge in the Washington National Airport terminal, drinking a Pomegranate Martini, dreading the trip to Rosewood. In one of the back tables inside the lounge, a group of handsome older men admired my long, shapely bare legs beneath my pink cape coat and snickered to each other.

I suddenly regretted changing into a black mini dress, thinking I'd sit alone at the bar while I drank martinis. Sighing, I took out my phone from my black leather Kate Spade purse and scrolled through my list of contacts, looking for Hanna's number, when I saw Toby's name at the top. Toby Cavanaugh.

There was a picture of Toby right next to his cell phone number. Tousled dark brown hair, deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, full pink lips. I stared sadly at the photo. I missed him so much, it made my heart ache. I considered calling him, but then quickly decided against it. He wouldn't want to talk to me after the way I'd treated him.

I fidgeted with the gold Scrabble tile necklace from around my neck. Toby had given it to me on our anniversary five years ago with the money from the lawsuit over his mother's murder at Radley Sanitarium, the hospital where she'd been admitted for depression. The letter S was engraved onto the tile on a delicate gold chain. It was the most romantic gift anyone had ever given me.

I pictured him sprawled out on his couch in his loft in Rosewood, where we used to spend hours making out. Across the terminal, an elderly couple held hands while they onto the moving sidewalk. A few feet away, a pretty blonde was kissing her tall, dark-haired boyfriend in the middle of the aisle. My eyes turned glassy with tears.

The speaker overhead inside the lounge announced that my flight was leaving soon. I took a deep breath and wiped away my tears with my fingers, trying to pull myself together. I pulled out a couple bills for the tab and walked down the corridor to the awaiting plane.

It was an hour flight from Georgetown to Philadelphia, and then would be another hour on the drive up to Rosewood. My mother, a successful lawyer in Rosewood, had been thrilled that I was staying in town, though the living situation wasn't permanent. She was running for state senator. Her campaign had kicked off only a few weeks ago, but it was already all over the news and she had a great chance at winning. Unless, of course, Veronica's competitor, Christine Phillips, took advantage of Charles' hearing this week and used it against her.

When I landed in Philadelphia, I hailed a taxi cab outside along the curb, climbed into the backseat, and gave the driver the address to The Brew, Rosewood's little café and bookstore that Aria's ex-boyfriend and former high school English teacher owned. My old friends and I had plans to meet there after each of our flights. "I need to get to Rosewood."

"Sure thing," he said.

I only had a few bags, stuffed with my most valuable possessions–my clothes, shoes, my laptop, books, and a few of Toby's shirts that I couldn't bear to part with. Most of my clothes were too political for social outings with my friends, in preparation for my mother's senate run appearances. Luckily, I had packed some of my warmer D.C. clothes. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cab.

I sat back against the seat, trying not to look out the window as the familiar town rushed past me. Everything in Rosewood reminded me of the past I wanted to forget. There was the Rosewood Grille, where I used to spend hours with my friends in high school. There was the stone-gated country club that my parents belonged to–I'd met Alex Santiago there, who worked at the Club, and asked him out on a date. Although, 2 months later, A signed him up for a tennis scholarship in Sweden pretending that I had done it, and he broke things off, furious that I would go behind his back. There was the stark white, triangular-shaped church that my older sister Melissa's deceased husband, Ian Thomas, had tried to push me off from inside the bell tower.

And then there was the Edgewood Motor Court Motel where Toby and I shared our first kiss. As the cab paused at a red light, I stared at the familiar motel. It was a two-story, U-shaped building painted in a bland beige, and small palm trees were planted along the exterior. Not much had changed since the last time I'd been here. I could only look for so long before cutting my eyes away. In D.C., there were days where I could almost forget about A, the secrets my friends and I shared, and everything that happened. I'd only been back in Rosewood for less than an hour, and already I could hear Toby's voice as clear as bells in my ears, whispering words of comfort, and see his face floating around in my head. I could see him shaking his head at me in disapproval as I poured myself yet another cup of coffee, or when I was about to commit a thoughtless, reckless act. It was like a punch to the gut.

I slumped down in my seat, willing myself not to cry. The cab driver continued down a few streets and pulled up to the curb on the Main Road.

"Here we are," he announced.

I handed him four twenties and stepped out of the cab. Then, suddenly remembering my bags in the trunk, I leaned over the window. "I'm going to be a while. Can you take my bags to my mom's house?"

"Sure," he answered. "But that'll be another fifty."

I gave him a fifty-dollar bill out of my purse. The cabbie slowly pulled away from the street and rejoined traffic, driving east.

I took a deep breath. I needed to clear my head first before facing my old friends again. I walked through Rosewood's streets, unsure of where I was headed, allowing my anxiety to push me forward. I looked around at the various hardware stores and coffee shops, including a few law firm office buildings that had signs out front encouraging people to hire one of their private attorneys. The town was filled with craftsman-style and ageless Victorian houses, tall, lush pine trees, and countryside family-run farms. It had upscale shopping boutiques, fancy restaurants, trendy spas, and gorgeous boys in that typical Abercrombie way. In a town where everything looked so pristine and perfect, it was hard to believe anyone could have been murdered here. Two little blonde girls ran through the park ahead, frolicking in an overgrown patch of grass. Outside Leon's Cupcakes, high school students loitered nearby.

Being back here made me a little nervous. Instantly, numerous emotions and memories overwhelmed me: The fall I thought I'd been betrayed by Toby, Mona stalking my friends and I when she was A, the fire at the Thornhill Lodge when Red Coat tried to kill us, the shocking revelation that Ali was alive, the book Ezra wrote to expose Alison for all her manipulation and lies and had used Aria to do it. I thought about Mona and Charles and Toby's step-sister, Jenna. I thought about Toby, remembering the spring we'd fallen in love, of him professing his love for me at the police station after I'd gotten arrested. It had been so long ago that I felt like a completely different person now in comparison to who I was back then.

Thankfully, I had gotten accepted into Georgetown University just before I graduated from Rosewood High and moved to Washington D.C. a month following the disaster of Charles' identity. I'd vowed not to think about A again the minute the JFK plane took off, and after living peacefully in Georgetown for a few months with frequent visits from Toby, Rosewood became a far off memory. Toby and I grew apart, but I never fell in love again after him. Nobody ever seemed good enough compared to Toby.

I walked around endlessly for fifteen minutes before realizing how far I'd gone, surprising myself. I followed my footsteps back toward Main Street hastily. After crossing the street, I began to glimpse the store windows along the sidewalk. I stood in front of the door to The Brew, beckoning me, promising caffeine and comfort.

But then a sob caught in my throat. The last time I'd been at The Brew was when Toby and I were dating.

Just as I was reaching for the door, someone else was going in. "Oops," the person cried.

"Sorry," we both said in unison.

Then I looked up. It was Aria Montgomery, wearing a gray T-shirt underneath a blue and white embroidered cropped jacket, black jeans, and black Chanel flats. Her dark brown hair was cut bluntly to her neck. We stared at each other for a few seconds then burst out laughing.

"Aria, hi," I said.

I leaned in to hug the small girl, and we held onto each other tightly. Although Aria was short and petite, she was pretty with her dark hair, hazel eyes, and pouty lips.

Aria pulled out of the hug and smiled at me. "How's D.C.?"

"Great," I lied.

Aria grabbed my hand and gave it a good squeeze. "I'm really glad you're here."

"Me, too." I smiled.

Finally, we entered The Brew. The coffee shop was filled with bookshelves of mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi novels and a large, long counter held jars of coffee beans and various desserts by the front door. Plushly lined armchairs and sectional couches and sofas were arranged around the staircase that led upstairs to the loft. Something squeezed at my chest thinking of Toby's old apartment. He'd moved in there during the summer before my senior year of high school started, landing a steady construction job in Rosewood so that he could live away from his messed up family. We'd spent nearly our entire existence in that loft, snuggling up on the couch as we watched old romantic movies, making love in the bedroom, and kissing heatedly in every inch of the place.

I heard three girls' familiar laughter bouncing off the walls of the café, breaking me out of my memory. I looked over and saw Hanna, Emily, and Jess hugging, shrieking with excitement. Hanna looked flawless and gorgeous in a cut-out white jacket and matching white print skirt, with a dove-colored camisole underneath. Her pale blonde hair had grown out again that cascaded in beautiful waves down her shoulders, and her ice-blue eyes were big and bright. Jess was traffic-stopping beautiful with her tall, slender frame, perfect olive-colored skin, doe brown eyes, pretty bow-shaped pink lips, and long, dark brown hair that spilled over her shoulders. She wore a long-sleeved, navy blue floral-print dress paired with black suede ankle boots, and her hair cut across her forehead in side swept bangs.

I turned to Emily and looked her over. Emily was tall with a thin, but curvy body frame, had caramel-colored skin, long, raven-black hair, and a perfectly prominent chest. She wore a denim jacket; ripped skinny jeans; and black folded-over combat boots, a dramatic change from her old wardrobe of hoodies and plain T-shirts. Emily always had large breasts–she and Hanna were the only two of my friends who could fill a C-size cup bra. Hanna always flaunted hers to catch the attention of cute boys, but Emily barely seemed to notice she even had boobs.

Being apart for so long, I'd worried about how I would react to seeing my old friends again. After the rest of us moved away to college, Aria found her passion in writing and started working in publishing. And she fell in love again with a guy named Liam, who happened to be in the same publishing company as her, but was also working with Ezra on his new book. Hanna meanwhile moved to New York with Caleb to work in fashion. She interned for Zac Posen where she met her job mentor and boss, Claudia. After she and Caleb broke up, Hanna spent some time in Europe and met another fashion designer, Jordan, and they fell in love. After three months of dating, Jordan finally proposed, and he and Hanna became engaged. Emily went to school at Pepperdine in California, but during the middle of her freshman year, her dad died in the U.S. Army. And therefore, it took her a year longer to finish college than she had originally planned due to the grief over her father's death. Now, Emily became involved with medical research of cures for different diseases and began working there as a voluntary test subject. And Jess studied art at Yale after scoring a scholarship, and then later spent a year abroad in Paris, later becoming one of the most talented painters in Manhattan at the trendiest and prestigious art gallery in the city. She even fell in love…with the older brother that Ali and I shared, Jason DiLaurentis. As soon as the two moved to New York together, they decided to put the past behind them and forgot about A completely. As for me, Toby and I broke up for good, making me more determined to make it big on Capitol Hill. I kept telling myself it was a good distraction from my heartbreak. Toby ended up inheriting a ton of money after his old house exploded. But not even the three-acre property that he bought outside of Rosewood to build his dream home was enough to save our relationship. Toby stayed in Rosewood while I lived in D.C., and the distance between us became too much.

"Oh, get a room," I cried. "Ew!"

"We will need a bigger room," Hanna said, pulling out of Emily and Jess' hug.

As Hanna and I hugged, Emily moved over to Aria and wrapped her arms around her. I squeezed Hanna extra hard, and I could smell the scent of her Chloé perfume filling my nose.

I went over to Jess next, throwing my arms around her. She held me back tightly. "Ah, I missed you!" she cried.

After everyone finished hugging, Aria attached her phone to a selfie stick and snapped dozens of photos as we all squeezed in together, capturing every precious moment together. For the last shot, I held the camera, and we all hugged again.

Finally, Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Jess and I settled onto the sofa in the back of the café. I turned to Hanna. "Any hints about the fall collection?" I asked, referring to the Prada designer company where Hanna worked ambitiously as a fashion designer.

"My non-disclosure agreement is eight pages long," Hanna explained. "Claudia would literally chase me down the runway with an ax if I let anything slip."

"Let me see this." Aria reached for Hanna's hand with the three-karat diamond engagement ring resting on her index finger, glimmering with several sparkles under the overhead lights. "It looks bigger then when you posted it."

Everyone chuckled, and I peeked at Hanna. She looked flushed and happy.

"Jess is next," Hanna teased.

Jess blushed. "That's light years away."

"C'mon, you and Jason have been together for five years," she pointed out. "And you're telling me you two haven't at least thought about marriage?"

Jess' cheeks turned a deep shade of pink, looking serene and euphoric. "Hey, I'm happy where we are now."

"Yeah, but happy isn't going to get you a mansion and a trust fund. Jason's gorgeous, rich, crazy about you. What are you waiting for?"

"So I'm guessing we'll all need our passports to attend the wedding," Emily piped up, saving Jess. She shot Emily a grateful look.

"What we're talking about is several hot nations," Hanna said. "But Italy is a strong contender."

"I met a nice Italian girl once," Emily chimed in.

"No wonder it took you a year longer to finish college," Aria joked.

"How's the Salk Institute?" I asked Emily.

An uneasy look passed over Emily's face. "Uh, good. I'm still trying to find my way around."

"All that great Louis Kahn architecture," I said dreamily. "I want a tour."

The Salks Institute was a non-profit organization well-known for its involvement with molecular biology, genetics, medical research, and their picturesque architecture. Once upon a time, I'd wanted to be an architect designer, something that Toby and I both shared. But that had been so long ago…

"They're not doing tours right now, but…" Emily paused.

"How's Liam?" Hanna interrupted, turning to Aria with interest.

"Liam is adorable," Aria answered giddily. "But he hates when I tell people that." She turned to me. "Who is Spencer seeing?"

I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Spencer is too busy to see anybody," I lied.

The truth was, after Toby and I broke up, I didn't date anyone for a really long time, nothing serious anyway. It felt like my heart had stopped and I'd grown numb. Nothing ever measured up to him. I even tried dating the ambassador's son, Chad Chambers, who was known for his magnificent green eyes and charming and compelling personality. But ultimately, we called it off because he'd been with other girls while he was still seeing me. And I couldn't go through with dating. I couldn't feel anything with anyone else. Nothing ever stuck–my heart was still with Toby.

"What about the ambassador's son?" Hanna asked me.

"Regime change." I turned to Jess. "Did Jason come with you after you got the message?"

She nodded. "Yeah, but I told him he didn't have to. The gallery is being really nice about postponing my art show. We're staying at the barn until things with Charles gets settled."

"So this court thing, are we going to be under oath?" Emily asked suddenly.

"No oath," I replied. "It's just about how we feel about Charles getting out."

"No, tell the truth," Aria disagreed. "It is about A getting out."

"Five A-free years," Hanna mused. "You have to admit, that felt good."

"I mean, a lot has happened," I added, "good, bad and ugly, but all of it was uncontaminated by A." I thought of Toby torturously, old memories rushing back to the surface, and my chest ached with emptiness again. I still hadn't opened up to any of my friends about Toby and I falling apart. How could I when it hurt just to think about him?

"And now A wants to go home," Emily muttered glumly.

Everyone fell silent. Alison had been petitioning the court to release Charles out of the hospital since the day he was locked up. He did, after all, kidnap, starve, and torture us in that Dollhouse. But something about the hearing looming ahead still made me uneasy. After everything that Charles had put us through, I couldn't bare the thought of him walking around freely in Rosewood, even if I was thousands of miles away in Washington D.C.

"What are we going to do?" Aria asked after a moment.

I met her eyes directly. "We go drop off our bags and we go meet Ali at four o'clock and listen to what she has to say."

The girls couldn't see it, but on the inside I was shaking.

Later that afternoon, I stood at the granite-topped island in my parents' spacious kitchen next to my mother, Veronica Hastings, as her senator's campaign commercial came onto the TV screen.

The ad opened with a photo of Ms. Hastings from the pictures she'd taken for the campaign posters, set against a red, blue, and white American flag background. "Hastings for State Senate," Gil, Veronica's campaign manager and assistant, announced off-screen. "The clear, true voice."

"I'm Veronica Hastings and I approve this message," Ms. Hastings said into the camera.

The commercial ended, and my mom flipped off the TV.

"The flag's a really nice touch," I noted moodily, still feeling upset over Toby. "I never would have thought of it."

My mother met my eyes. "Don't be cynical, Spencer."

"Where's dad?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"In Harrisburg, raising money," my mother replied.

"The family that campaigns together stays together," I quoted bitterly.

After my parents decided to get a divorce five years ago, my mom kicked my father out of the house and he bought a loft in Harrisburg. Mona-as-A had exposed the horrible secret about my family: that my dad had an affair with Ali's mother and that Jason was my half-brother. I'd confronted my mother about it, only to discover that she'd known all along and hadn't done anything. Until, that is, she found out my dad had been keeping dangerous secrets from her, that Melissa had buried a girl alive, his secret conversations with Mrs. DiLaurentis and how he'd tried to pay her off to keep quiet about the night Ali disappeared. He'd claimed it was to 'protect' me from getting blamed for Alison's death. My family was broken and this time it wasn't because of A. It was all my dad's fault.

"Your father is a campaign twister and we won the cash," Ms. Hastings said. "It's an off-year special election, winning might come down, too, if it rains that day and people decide to stay home."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh, now who's being cynical?"

"It's your fault I'm doing this," my mom teased. "You got involved in government first. You inspired me."

"I watch the government. I keep it honest. That's what I do."

"Sweetheart, you work for a lobbyist."

"No, we are not lobbyists," I disagreed. "We work with grassroots political organizations to advance progressive legislation."

My mom looked at me skeptically. "Mm-hmm. You're a lobbyist. And your mother is going to be a state senator."

We smiled at each other, and something warm and tender passed between us.

I beamed at her. "I'm so proud of you." I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

Then my mother hugged me, and I wrapped my arms around her. And for the first time since being back, I felt safe.

I pulled out of the hug after a moment. "I have to go see Toby."

"Okay, sweetheart. Drive safe." She kissed my forehead.

"I will."

I didn't know what the hell I was doing as I drove along the wide, country road outside of town to Toby's home, twisting through the thick forest. Was I trying to get myself hurt again? I should be staying as far away from Toby as I could, but I continued driving towards him anyway. It wasn't until I crossed the river onto the bridge and turned onto an unpaved road that I realized my hands were shaking.

My heart capsulated in my throat thinking about seeing Toby again. I knew I should turn around and leave. I had no reason to see him. After all, it had been years–he'd probably forgotten about me and the love we once shared. And so much could have happened while we were apart, things I didn't even want to consider. But it had been a long time and I wanted to surprise him.

I knew that part of the reason I was going to see Toby was because I couldn't help myself. It was like a bad habit I couldn't break; no matter how dangerous it was, I kept barreling towards that irresistible lure, uncaring of the outcome. Now that I was really here, I could see him, touch him. Still unattainable, but he was there.

The other part was a memory I couldn't make myself forget–maybe if I hadn't stepped onto his front porch that day, none of us would be in so much pain. We could've avoided it all entirely. Maybe if I hadn't tutored him, things would have turned out differently. But I couldn't make myself regret falling in love with Toby; I couldn't lose my feelings for him.

His words echoed in my head, as if I was still there with him, reliving that horrible day.

I feel like when we're picturing our future together, we're not looking at the same picture anymore.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to abide the agony, but I felt my eyes fill with tears and the throbbing around the edges of the gaping hole deepened in my chest. I inhaled deeply, trying to breathe even though I had no lungs. I had to learn to breathe without them.

Breathe, Spencer.

I suddenly wished I could feel numb again. Anything would be better than enduring the unbearable pain of losing Toby. But the truth was that I wanted to see him again, to hear his voice again the way I used to. And when I was with him, I was able to remember who I was, not the pale echo of the woman I'd become.

It felt like the drive went on for hours rather than ten minutes, making me anxious. The towering, lush pine trees no longer looked familiar anymore. Now they were thick with overgrown moss draped over the trunks like a veil, and branches that seemed to stretch out crookedly for miles like long, gnarly fingernails. The dirt road wound itself in several different directions. And as I rounded a curve in the road, my heart lurched with old memories of sitting next to Toby on a rock boulder atop the hill that looked down at the town below, who had looked at me with such a longing in his eyes that it took my breath away.

And then I found the break in the trees and I finally saw him.

He was working with a chainsaw on a wooden frame, wearing a toolbelt that rested on his hips. Toby had always been good with his hands. When we were together, he used to remodel homes and replaced floorboards and put in new carpet. He even drew his own designs.

I parked my car–a silver Toyota Highlander–a few feet away and got out. I walked behind Toby slowly without taking my eyes off him.

Toby was a year older than me, tall and lean, but still muscular with a strong chest and well-formed abs. His dark wavy hair was tousled to perfection, making him look more like an Abercrombie model than he had a right to, and he had high cheekbones and deep blue eyes that would make any girl swoon.

When he turned around, his face broke out into a huge, beautiful smile. "H-hey!" he stuttered, and I knew he was as nervous as I was.

I grinned back. "Hey!" My stomach flipped over giddily with butterflies, happy to see him again.

Toby put down the chainsaw and started towards me. I went to him, and he pulled me in close, wrapping his arms around me in a big hug, squeezing me tightly. And when I buried my face into his hair, I could feel his heart beating against my chest.

Toby pulled away, though his hands rested on my shoulders, refusing to let me go. "When did you get here?"

"Uh, just a couple of hours ago," I answered. There was a short pause.

I moved over to a large drafting table and stared at the plan sheet that Toby was making, which looked to be of a house. A familiar blueprint drawing of a master bedroom caught my eye–it was the same design of the house we had talked about having one day.

"Wow!" I said. "This is really impressive."

"I–I, uh," Toby stammered bashfully, "I just wanted to see if I could do it."

"How's it going?" I asked.

"Ah, it's harder than I thought. I curse a lot. It's very therapeutic." He lifted his eyes to mine, and my stomach fluttered like a thousand butterflies were battering around in my ribcage. "How's Washington?"

"Um, I curse a lot," I joked back. "It's very therapeutic."

Toby chuckled, a deep, warm sound, and I found myself laughing freely with him. I'd forgotten how easy it was with Toby.

He hesitated. "Uh, Caleb said he saw you there."

"Oh, yeah? You guys talk?" My heart sped up, feeling a swarm of guilty feelings. Toby and Caleb became friends towards the beginning of spring in twelfth grade, when they worked together to find out who'd been flying the plane the night of the fire at the Thornhill Lodge, quickly bonding over their similar complicated feelings about their messed up families and the intense love they felt for Hanna and I, often relying on their stubbornness to drive them. Toby and Caleb had been inseparable ever since. Both boys were different, but alike in so many ways. While Toby was more level-headed and kind, Caleb was impulsive, acting before thinking things through. After that, Hanna and I made a pact to never date each other's exes. Hanna said it would make our friendship stronger and keep us from breaking apart.

Toby flushed. "Uh, now and then. We went, uh, we went fishing last summer."

I raised my eyebrows at him in surprise. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. We're the brotherhood of ex-boyfriends. We gotta stick together." He paused. "So, you're in town for your mom's campaign?"

"No, uh, I got a request from the State of Pennsylvania. They would like my opinion on something." For some inexplicable reason, I felt the sense that he was feeling guilty about something.

"Ali's trying to get Charles out of the hospital," Toby said.

"Yeah. We're here to talk to the court."

"We?" Toby crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing how muscular his chest was. The short sleeves of his navy-blue shirt were stretched out against his biceps, and his forearms were hard and more muscular since the last time I'd seen him. Had he been working out?

"Aria, Hanna, Em and me," I answered, trying to distract myself from ogling him.

He smiled. "All of you in one place at one time. When's the last time that happened in Rosewood?"

I smiled back. "Long time."

"But when Alison flashes the bat signal…" he trailed off.

I looked at him. "It's not like that. You know we're still friends and we're not just, 'let's go see a movie and have dinner' kinda friends, but the 'I saved your life and you saved mine' kinda friends."

Toby shook his head yes, understanding.

"You know," I pointed out. "You were there."

"How long are you gonna be here for?" Toby asked, changing the subject.

"Well, the hearing's tomorrow, and then…" I peeked at him curiously. "And then I don't really know."

Toby's eyes gleamed. "Can I…buy you a dinner before you leave?" He looked nervous.

My heart thudded. Was he asking me out on a date?

"Yeah. Sure, we can do that," I stuttered. "Um, I–I should go, though. I'm supposed to meet Ali. And I'm already late. So, I'll call you, okay? Still the same number?"

"Same number," Toby smiled.

"Cool," I said awkwardly.

But as I started to head back for my car, the nagging suspicion that had been plaguing my thoughts resurfaced, and I stopped and looked back at Toby.

I gave him a knowing smile. "Toby, who are you building the house for?"

He turned around and looked at me quizzically. "What makes you think I'm building it for somebody?"

I plastered a smile onto my face, hoping he didn't notice the sadness in my voice. "Because I know you."

The corners of Toby's lips slowly spread up into a sweet grin in response. Then his smile faded and he opened his lips, looking like he was about to say something else. But I turned and walked away before Toby could see me cry in front of him.

It feels like we're not looking at the same picture anymore. The words echoed in my head again, cutting through me like a knife. It had been so long ago, yet they still had the power to hurt me so deeply.

I didn't know how much longer I could bear this. Losing Toby was like losing a part of myself. Maybe someday the pain would lessen over time and I would look back on those memories and remember him as the greatest, big beautiful love of my life. And when I could finally breathe again, I might actually feel grateful for the precious gift he'd given of loving me. Which was more than I deserved.

But what if the pain of that heartbreak never went away? What if I never fully healed?

I tried to hold myself together. We didn't see the same future anymore, I thought in despair. What a stupid and ridiculous thought! How could he think we weren't meant for each other? He could build a house and pretend our relationship didn't mean anything to him, but that would never change how I felt about him. It wouldn't make me stop loving him. And then it became clear to me that I couldn't live without Toby. He was the best thing I ever had. Living without Toby was like trying to survive without an arm or a leg, and when the pain was throbbing so bad, you had to numb yourself just to feel normal again.

Over the years, I'd become the kind of person I could hardly recognize. I couldn't breathe, eat, or sleep except when I thought of how Toby and I fell apart. I even started drinking to try to numb the sharp, dull pain, but it only slowed it down. Drinking was the only thing that kept me going. And I looked different, too. My face was sallow and zombie-like now, white except for the dark circles under my eyes from my nightmares. I was not beautiful, and Toby didn't want me anymore.

With the loss of my moral compass, what was the point of doing the right thing or staying safe? Who cared if I got hurt? I was a lost cause now. I had no reason to care about what happened to me anymore. And Toby certainly wasn't going to stop me.

So what if I had to act a little reckless to feel better? Anything would be better than the raw, empty numbness. I was tired of being Spencer Hastings–perfect, smart, in control. That girl was safe and organized in everything she did. I didn't want to be safe anymore. It wouldn't be hard to be reckless in Rosewood. It hadn't always been a quiet and harmless little town. On the outside, Rosewood looked picture-perfect with gorgeous million-acre mansions, rambling old farms, their quaint village shopping center, and expansive seventeenth-century estates. But on the inside it was filled with darkness and blood. I was sure I could find danger some way…

I stared out the windshield of my car on the drive to meet Ali and the girls, not really looking at anything–I couldn't seem to make my thoughts of Toby go away. When I arrived at Rosewood High's entrance, the school where my friends and I had all gone since ninth grade, I pulled into one of the vacant lots at the end of the building and cut the engine. Parked a couple spots away, I noticed a silver Mercedes-Benz. I recognized the car from The Brew–it was Hanna's. I checked my Apple watch. I was fifteen minutes late.

Ali was going to kill me for sure.

I stepped through the front doors inside the school and my buried memories of the past overwhelmed me: excitement over Toby sweetly surprising me at school with lunch, the tender way he'd brush the strands of hair out of my face before putting his helmet on my head before taking me for a ride on his motorcycle, joy over seeing him when he'd pick me up from school, kissing him passionately in the truck I'd bought him until it felt like my lips would fall off.

I walked down the wide hallway of the east wing. Ali's classroom was in the middle of the hall, across from rows of grey metal lockers. Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Jess all turned as I hesitated in the doorway.

Ali's huge blue eyes lit up when she saw me. Her long blonde hair was pulled off her face in soft beach waves, and she was wearing a powder blue sweater tucked underneath a floral-print A line skirt. Ali was an English teacher at our old school after she'd graduated from Hollis College with a bachelor's degree in high school education. She'd been living in Rosewood for the last five years while the rest of us had gone our separate ways. Ali used to be the Queen Bee of Rosewood High. She was perfect, beautiful, witty, smart, popular. Girls would have killed to be Alison, and practically every boy in school wanted to kiss her. But when A started hunting Alison and terrorizing her, being the Queen Bee suddenly didn't seem so important anymore.

The corners of Ali's mouth curled into a smile. "You're here. I didn't think you were coming."

"Yeah, sorry," I said. "I got distracted and lost track of the time." I moved to stand beside Hanna, who was leaning against one of the desks.

Ali fidgeted nervously. "Charles is getting the help he never had when he was little," she started. "Five years of treatment, undoing all the damage. I visit him, I spend time with him. He even stayed at my house for a weekend last Christmas."

Hanna looked at her disbelievingly. "They let him out?"

"It was a supervised visit," Alison explained.

"So Charles is all better now," I said. "What does this have to do with us?"

"At the hearing tomorrow, the judge will decide if he should be released," Ali replied. "And they want to hear from people who were involved."

"Victims statements." It wasn't a question.

"Statements of support," Ali corrected. "Statements that he isn't a threat to anybody. That you guys are not afraid of him anymore."

A long, awkward silence fell over the six of us. Finally, Alison spoke again.

"There is no reason to be afraid," she went on. "You know him. You heard his story. We all went through this together."

"Yes we did," Aria said strongly. "We have the scars to prove it, too."

"You're asking us to give a get-out-of-jail free card to someone who tried to kill us," Hanna said right after.

"He's in a hospital, Hanna," Ali reminded her. "He's not in jail."

"He's lucky," Aria said bitterly, referring to the many times we'd been arrested because of A.

"And we're lucky to be alive," Emily added.

Ali looked into her eyes. "That's why your statements would mean so much."

"Who else is speaking?" I asked her.

"Mona demanded to be heard," she answered. "She's going to talk to the judge about the Dollhouse and being tortured."

"What about Sara Harvey?" Hanna questioned.

Sara Harvey was a girl who Toby and the police had found trapped inside the Dollhouse the night they'd rescued us from Charles, seemingly one of the victims that Jason's twin brother had kept captive for two years. But in a shocking twist of events, Charles revealed to Ali that Sara had secretly been helping him the whole time, spying on us, stealing information from our phones. Sara had even gone as far as to implant microchips into the back of our necks while we were sleeping in our fake bedrooms inside the Dollhouse. And what was worse: Charles paid her to stir up trouble for our parents just to keep the police off his radar.

But Emily was the one who had been hurt the most. She cared about Sara, as more than just a friend, and Emily thought Sara felt the same way about her, only to have her heart broken once again. Just as Sara was about to set off a bomb inside the basement at Radley, out of anger and betrayal, Emily punched her and Sara fell onto the battery, electrocuting her. Sara's hands became paralyzed afterwards, and she blamed us for what happened to her. The girls and I felt a mixture of relief that we'd finally stopped Charles and also guilt that we'd hurt someone in the midst of it all.

Ali frowned. "What about her?"

"Well, suppose we do talk to the judge…" Aria began slowly. "They march in Sara Harvey. She gives a few choice words about what happened to her that night at Radley?"

"She's not allowed to testify because of how her criminal charges were resolved."

"Why isn't Jason here?" I asked.

"He doesn't agree with Dr. Rollins and me," Ali responded.

Jess nodded knowingly, but didn't say anything. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet.

"Okay, you realize what you're asking us to do," Emily told her. "You want us to forgive Charles."

"I don't care if you forgive him," she said honestly. "I'm asking you to give me my only chance at a real family."

I exhaled softly through my lips, feeling uneasy and queasy about the seriousness of this situation. Ali was asking us to lie for her again. And this time it was for A. There were things I'd done that I wasn't proud of, but there was no way I was going to lie for the person who'd stalked and tried to kill me. My life was finally normal now, and I had no intention of screwing that up just so Charles could walk freely in Rosewood.

Ali turned to Jess, who still hadn't spoken yet. "Jess, you haven't said anything."

It took Jess a long time to respond, her expression twisting with a conflict of some sort. Ali looked at her hopefully.

"Ali, you're my best friend," she finally said. "And I would do anything for you, you know that. But your brother tormented me in the worst possible way and I don't want him hurting the people that I love. I understand that you want a family, but what about me? What about your friends? This psycho tried to kill us and you want to let him out? I'm sorry, I can't do that." It seemed as though it was hard for Jess to say.

Ali's face fell in disappointment. "I understand," she mumbled sadly.

Hanna lifted her serious blue eyes to Ali's. "Alison, we're here to say how we feel and you're asking us to lie."

"Please, do this," Ali pleaded. "Do this for me."

"Pretty please?" I taunted, suddenly irritated. "With sugar on top."

Ali looked confused. "What?"

"That's what you say on a playground to exact a favor." I stared at her through narrowed eyes. "We're not on the playground anymore, Alison. We haven't been for a long time."

After a long moment passed, Ali looked between me and the others. "Please?"

Everyone had gone quiet. Jess bit her lower lip, looking like she was contemplating a life-altering decision. Aria glanced uncertainly at each of us. Hanna chewed on her nails. Emily released a small sigh. Then, giving up, Alison wordlessly walked out of the room.

Aria, Hanna, Emily, Jess and I looked at each other hopelessly. And suddenly, I wanted to disappear.

"I am not one of those candidates who runs for office telling you how much I hate the government and want to take it apart," Mrs. Hastings said in a strong, sure voice. "Like you, I understand that the size of the problem dictates the size of the solution needed."

Hanna leaned in close to me. "If being honest and truthful is so damn purifying, why do I feel like the bottom of somebody's shoe?"

Aria, Emily, Hanna and I stood among the crowd in City Hall as we watched my mother speak. It was five o'clock, and she was giving her campaign speech for Rosewood's citizens to drum up interest for her senate run. Mrs. Hastings was gaining in the polls, and the hope was that the Pennsylvania state tour and fundraiser she was holding next week would give her an advantage over Christine Phillips.

"Government does the job that only government is big enough to do," Mrs. Hastings continued. The crowd broke out in applause. "Our courts are not the enemy of freedom."

"Look, they have the reports, okay?" I whispered to Hanna, continuing our conversation about Charles' court hearing tomorrow. "They know what Charles did to us when he was A. We don't need to talk about that. All we have to say is that we're not afraid of him. That's all Ali wants. Then we get the hell out of here."

Aria turned to us, looking skeptical. "Is it the truth? That we're not afraid?"

"Maybe it is," Hanna said. "I mean, look at us. We did get away. We won. Maybe we didn't kill the dragon, but we definitely tamed it."

I glanced anxiously at my mom on stage, fidgeting with the large VOTE FOR VERONICA HASTINGS button on the lapel of my navy-blue blazer jacket–I'd worn a professional outfit for my mom's speech with the hopes of appearing put together and not a fragile victim who'd been kidnapped and tormented by a cold-blooded killer. In just a few moments, she was going to be introducing me to the entire Pennsylvania state. I felt faint from nerves. I wondered if any of the people voting for Mrs. Hastings were only doing it because they pitied me.

A hot, uncomfortable feeling swelled in my stomach. After the story went public of Charles' real identity, I couldn't step out of the house without people staring at me and whispering behind my back, exaggerating the rumors beyond proportion. Charles, had not only abducted me and my friends and tortured us with twisted chose-or-lose games, but he'd also impersonated Jason so he could steal Jess away from his twin brother. How could you ever get over something like that? And A knew about my drug addiction. Two years after Ali disappeared, I'd finally discovered what had really happened the night I'd seen her alive, recalling my long-suppressed memory of chasing her in the woods with a shovel, the alleged murder weapon. I'd swung the shovel at her in anger–hard enough to kill her. I'd been so furious with her for threatening to tell Melissa about the kiss her then-boyfriend Ian and I had shared. Then, after my bottle of Adderall pills fell out of my pocket, Alison told me to go back to the barn where the rest of our friends were sleeping obliviously, and I walked away. By the next morning, Ali had gone missing, and since I was the last person to see her alive, the police had pinpointed me as the prime suspect. Any of those things could ruin my mother's campaign.

I turned to Aria and Hanna. "I'll be right back," I mumbled.

As I made my way through the throng of people, I heard a girl's familiar smooth, lilting voice. A pretty girl about my age stood a few feet away. She was short and thin, with long dark hair in contrast to her caramel-colored skin, honey-brown eyes, and luscious lips. The girl wore stood out in a red lace dress, a black blazer, and black six-inch heels. I recognized her as Mona Vanderwaal and stopped.

"Your mom's doing well in the polls for such an untested candidate," Mona complimented.

"Hi, Mona," I said curtly.

She smiled at me sweetly. "I waved at you at the Kennedy Center reception. You didn't see me."

"I'm sorry," I answered unapologetically.

Suspicion stirred in my stomach. Mona may have been tormented by Charles like the rest of us, but I still didn't trust her. During the time that she was A, she'd tried to tear Toby and I apart, ran over Hanna with a car, and tried to frame my friends and I for Alison's murder back when everyone thought that she was dead.

"Look at us, all this time and we both end up in the same business," Mona went on.

"Um, not really," I replied flatly.

"We both sell policy," she pointed out.

"Different kinds of policy," I corrected.

I turned and started to walk away, but Mona stopped me.

"Do you still have nightmares?" she asked.

I looked at her and my skin iced over. How did she know about that?

When I didn't answer, Mona continued. "I do. Three shrinks and a whole lot of prescriptions, but I still have bad dreams. How about you?"

I couldn't bring myself to answer without giving myself away. Ignoring her question, I tore my eyes away and turned back to my mother's speech.

I was having nightmares, but they weren't about Charles or the Dollhouse. They were always of Toby, forgetting about me, being trapped in an endless building of rooms and he couldn't hear me, Toby leaving. Forever leaving me. And the pain in my chest–sharp, raw–reopened the gaping hole the second I fell into unconsciousness. I could dream only of him. Every night, I'd fall into a deep sleep of nothingness, finally succumbing to nightmares of Toby.

There was one dream, however, that was different from all the rest, more real somehow. In it I saw Toby's face and his angry, hurt eyes. He was sitting on the edge of my old bed in my college dorm, staring into his coffee cup as if the dark liquid could magically change his future.

I moved towards him hesitantly. "Toby?"

Toby wouldn't look at me. "I don't know how to feel after…" he trailed off.

My chest tightened in panic, and I could see what he was going to say next. "What are you saying?"

Toby finally lifted his somber blue eyes to mine. "I can't do this anymore."

"No, Toby, please," I cried, tears flowing down my cheeks. "Please don't do this. I know I hurt you, but don't leave."

"How can we be together if you keep pushing me away? All I cared about was helping you." He held up a gold-plated positive pregnancy stick. "We could've had a future together."

"But I love you," I wept.

"I don't love you anymore." His eyes were blank–no love, no emotion, nothing.

I could feel my heart breaking all over again. Then Toby dropped the pregnancy test at my feet and walked away. I ran after him, calling his name, pleading him to come back, but he disappeared into darkness without stopping.

"Now, I'd like to introduce one of the reasons why I'm running for office," Veronica announced, jolting me out from the memory of my dream. "My daughter, Spencer Hastings."

My stomach clenched, and the crowd clapped.

"Don't miss your cue," Mona said.

Steeling myself, I walked up to my mom at the podium. Then we hugged, holding each other tightly. As Veronica waved goodbye to her supporters, I scanned the crowd, looking for Toby's face, hoping to find him waiting for me. I was aching to see Toby, even though it had only been an hour since I'd last seen him. I realized sadly that he wasn't here, and I felt stupid for hoping he would be. Of course Toby wouldn't be here. Why would he show up to support his ex-girlfriend at her mother's campaign speech? It was not something an ex-boyfriend would do. But his absence hit me with a sense of loss and longing nonetheless.

Feeling drained, I slowly stepped off the podium. Waiting off to the side were Aria, Hanna, and Emily.

My mouth was drawn in a grim line, and I could feel the tears coming. I didn't want my friends to see me cry. My eyes darted from left and right, searching for a quick escape.

I quickly ducked through a group of people clustered together, dodging a mother and her child as I fought my way through. There were no buildings nearby to hide in, no exits or pathways. I pushed against the bodies furiously, trying to avoid being seen by my friends.

Then the throng moved, jostling me in the other direction, and I was greeted by the sunlight out on the empty street. I risked a peek over my shoulder and let out a sigh of relief. Nobody had noticed I'd left.

I walked down the block to The Brew, paying little attention to the people walking by. I was in desperate need of some coffee. Five minutes later, I strode through the café's fiber-glass wooden door. Other than a pretty brunette washing off the tables, the only person working the cash register was Sabrina, one of Ezra's employees. She'd been taking marijuana for migraines, but Toby had mistakenly eaten some of her pot gummy bears the night we'd tried to catch Charles, when he'd found them in Jess' bag, intended for me.

"What can I get you?"

Sabrina stood at the counter in a black halter top and dark jeans. Her dirty blonde hair, which was used pulled back, now spilled down her shoulders. There was something very magnetic and comforting about her heart-shaped face, crystal-blue eyes, and pretty pink lips.

"Um, just a coffee to go." I handed her my credit card from my purse.

Sabrina nodded. "It'll just be a minute."

She walked off behind the counter and began to pour a carafe of coffee into a cardboard cup. After swiping my Visa, she handed it back to me along with the receipt.

I shoved it into my purse, then grabbed my cup of coffee. "Thanks."

When I looked up, my heart pounded. Toby was standing at the counter holding a latte. I struggled to keep a straight face as the tears in my eyes threatened to spill over. "Toby?"

His face broke out into a huge smile when he saw me. "Hey."

"Hi," I said back. I looked into his eyes, forgetting the rest of the world for a minute.

Toby's eyes shined. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

I smiled again, thinking of our date tomorrow night. "Yeah. I'm really excited."

Toby gazed into my eyes with probing intensity. The smile had faded from his lips into a serious expression. "I can't wait to see you."

"You're seeing me now," I whispered.

His gaze lingered on my lips. "Not enough."

A churning ache that hit me with crippling strength churned in my stomach, and my heart grew hollow and went cold like ice. I love you, I wanted to scream. I wanted to press my face into Toby's chest, feel his warmth and inhale his wonderful scent.

Gazing back into Toby's eyes like a lovesick idiot, I realized that I loved him even more. The one thing I was positive of in this world–knew it from my head to my toes, could feel it in the pit of my stomach and deep inside my empty chest–was that I would never stop loving Toby, and it killed me. Love had the power to break someone.

I was broken beyond repair. There was no fixing me.

But I needed Toby, needed him like a drug. I'd been using alcohol as a crutch for so long that I'd fallen in deeper than I realized without him. I could not bear to be hurting like this.

Toby was my soulmate. I would always love him, but it didn't matter because I could never be with Toby without hurting him again. It would never be enough.

Toby's eyebrows knit together in concern. "Spence, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

My cheeks reddened. "I have to go."

Then I pushed through the door, bolting down the street even as he called after me, feeling on the verge of tears. Staying away from Toby seemed like the smarter option.

Jess

That same evening, while Spencer and the girls listened to her mother's senator campaign speech at City Hall, I sat by the Hastings' fireplace inside the barn-remodeled guest house, sipping a glass of red wine. I stared gloomily at the flames, thinking about my conversation with Ali earlier.

Spencer's mom, Veronica, had graciously invited my boyfriend and I, Jason, to sleep in the guest bedroom next to Spencer's while we stayed in town for Charles' hearing tomorrow. Spencer had renovated the barn the summer before eleventh grade started, building bay windows along the exterior that looked out on the encroaching trees outside the family's backyard, a staircase that led downstairs to the basement, had high beamed ceilings, a cedar-wooden platform front porch, and sliding double doors throughout the house. The kitchen was modern and spacious, updated with the latest appliances. Spencer had even put in an open-hearth fireplace and a guest room with a walk-in bathroom, and repainted the barn in soft, light colors to make the place nicer.

For as long as I could remember, I'd had the most torturous, unbridled, full-blown crush on Jason. And I knew the family well. His sister, Alison, was my best friend. We'd bonded in instant friendship the moment our mothers had gotten pregnant with us; Ali was born in March, and my mom had me nine months later. I sought out every opportunity I could to see Jason, pining over him as I stared at him longingly from across the street at the movie theatre, talking and laughing with his friends. In sixth grade, I'd sneak over to hide behind the tall bookcases in the Rosewood public library to watch him check out mystery books, or drool over his well-formed abs as he worked out in his bedroom shirtless. I would sit on the little hill on the high school campus to swoon over Jason's muscular legs as he ran laps around the soccer practice field, taking a break from sketching in my sketchpad. I used to flip through pages in Ali's family albums, admiring photos of him. It was the only thing I ever kept from Alison. But when Ali made brightly colored string bracelets for us to symbolize our friendship, saying secrets were what would keep us close forever, I couldn't help but feel guilty. Because there was one thing that I was keeping from her: my feelings for Jason.

But then finally, on the night we were supposed to catch Charles, Jason admitted he'd loved me all along and kissed me. In the moment, I'd been too conflicted to confront my true emotions, knowing I had strong feelings for both Jason and Josh–my best friend since childhood, whom I'd always known I loved deep down. Ultimately, I realized Jason was the one I wanted to be with, and so I returned those feelings back to him and we'd been together ever since.

I'd spent five blissful and wonderful years with Jason in New York. After I got accepted into my dream school Yale for an art major, Jason and I packed up and we moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where we rented a small, but cozy apartment together close to the university. And after living in Connecticut for six months, I'd almost forgotten all about Rosewood and the bad things that had happened there. A new start had been just what we'd needed.

Jason would drive me to school in the red Honda Civic that we both shared, giving me a quick kiss before dropping me off, while he worked with a non-profit organization to help underprivileged kids. The first few weeks at Yale flew by and I'd been flourishing with my studies in flying colors. The teachers were brilliant, my classes were inspiring, and my arts professor had even recommended me for an internship at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They'd offered me the job a few days after the interview. It wasn't a paid position, but it gave me the chance to meet legendary artists and show my work to the world. Never did I imagine I'd be able to pursue my dreams of becoming an artist.

As for Jason, we spent every waking moment together in our apartment, falling easily into a routine. In the mornings, Jason would rise from bed as I slept to brew coffee. And then when I finally woke, he'd greet me with a kiss and we'd make breakfast together. On other days we'd lie in bed together with hot cups of coffee, talking and reveling in each other's presence. It was those moments where I felt deeply connected to Jason in a way that I'd never felt with anyone before. And it made me wonder why it'd taken us so long to finally be together.

During Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'd gone back to Rosewood to visit Ali and my family. The two of us spent hours rolling around in the snow until the cold winter air turned our cheeks red, snuggling together by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot cocoa. After Jason and I helped Ali decorate and put up the tree, I used the free time to study for finals. And when we came home, we stayed in bed in each other's arms, kissing until the sun went down. We would talk into the early hours of the morning, only to make love some more. The passion we felt for each other was undeniable and consuming. It was a connection that went far beyond physical; it was mental, spiritual, a perfect kind of love. The feeling of his bare skin against mine brought my body to life. In between kisses, Jason would whisper over and over how much he loved me. His favorite thing to do was gently tracing his fingers over my scars, making me shiver with delight. I'd never felt completely and utterly safe and so loved by anyone before him.

I'd also begun to work on my portfolio. Sometimes Jason would watch me draw as the sunlight streamed in through the huge bay window, occasionally playing with my hair and brushing his lips along my face. After I was finished, we'd take moonlight strolls along the loopy trails in the woods, pausing only to lie together in a little meadow and look for constellations in the night sky. He'd always point out one of the stars that he had named Jess, the most beautiful name he knew. We'd stay there for hours, stargazing and just being with each other. Saturday nights found us in our bedroom, surrounded by romantic candles as Jason and I each took turns massaging one another.

But I hadn't shirked my responsibilities in the art program at Yale or forgotten my passion for painting–I attended lectures twice a week and practiced sculpting and sketching in my free fine arts activity class. Though we didn't spend much time together on campus, Jason would often take me out to dinner and a movie, and once, feeling bold, we went to a jazz club where we listened to a band play the saxophone, dancing and drinking cosmopolitans at the bar. The world became brighter in color and more vivid somehow since being with Jason. Having him in my life changed everything. All the ups and downs I'd endured, through the pain and struggles, had all been leading me to Jason.

Suddenly, an unsettling memory swirled into focus in my mind: the night of my senior prom. Charles DiLaurentis, the maniac who'd kidnapped and tortured me, my friends, and Mona Vanderwaal in a demented life-size Dollhouse for his own twisted games. And Jason's identical twin brother.

Even though five years had passed since it happened, the memory still haunted me, waking me up in the middle of the night like ghosts looming around at every corner. Like how Charles had drugged Jason and left him unconscious in one of the old patient rooms at Radley Sanitarium. How Charles had kissed me, pretending to be Jason, and tried to make me think that Spencer, Aria, Hanna, Emily and Ali were all secretly deceiving me. Or how he had tricked me into coming to Radley with him, violently attacked me, forcefully injected me with a syringe of an Ether drug, and locked me in the downstairs basement while the room filled with overpowering gas in an attempt to kill me.

He had revealed himself to be Charles, Jason's twin brother, and the real A who'd been stalking and tormenting my friends and I for years. Charles hated Jason for what happened to him, driven insane by jealousy that Jason had the life that he wanted. And he blamed me and my friends for what happened to him. when Charles was only six years old, his father, Kenneth DiLaurentis, hid him away at Radley for years without telling a single soul, after he'd purposely tried to drown his own twin brother in a bathtub. He was A, he was the one who'd sent all the threatening text messages, he'd murdered his mother and my godmother, Jessica DiLaurentis, and planned on killing me, Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Aria next.

I had escaped from the basement just before Charles could set off the bomb inside the building. But shortly after that, he had been arrested and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. The media had gone abuzz with the story, especially about the twins. Now, Charles wanted to come home, claiming to have changed. I tried not to think of him walking around Rosewood, free to hurt me whenever he wanted. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face, the mirror-image identical to Jason's, right down to their shared genetic markers. It terrified me remembering how Charles had hurt me, not knowing he wasn't Jason.

Even though I knew I was safe from Charles, I couldn't help but fear that the court would let him out, and he'd go right back to impersonating Jason again and I would have no idea. Or worse: he'd finish what he'd originally started and kill me. I shivered.

I heard footsteps outside and when the front door creaked open, Jason walked into the living room. He looked amazing as always, in a pair of faded blue jeans and a white long-sleeved, button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his forearms hard and muscular. His skin was a few shades darker than his hair, tan from spending so much time out in the sun. I couldn't help but admire him–his tousled golden blonde hair and the scruff on his chin and cheeks, his ocean-blue eyes, perfect full pink lips, and his muscular chest and strong, broad shoulders.

Jason kissed the top of my head as he approached and sat down beside me on the hearth. "Hey, what are doing in here alone?"

I didn't look at his face. "Just tired, I guess."

Jason gently squeezed my knee. "Does this have anything to do with Charles' hearing tomorrow?"

I could feel his eyes on me. I didn't want to think about this now, especially with Jason watching me with those familiar deep blue eyes–the same ones as his twin brother. "It'll all be over by tomorrow," I finally muttered, but my hands were shaking.

Jason looked at me unconvinced, noting my pensive gaze. "Jess."

"I'm fine," I insisted.

As he leaned closer to me, I could smell his pleasant, minty soap. "No you're not. Look, I hate him, too."

"Why do you care?" I snapped. "Is this some kind of ploy to get me to move back to Rosewood?"

"No!" Jason's mouth fell open. "Of course not!" He took my hands in his big ones. "Jess, I only want you to be happy."

I sniffled. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. Ever since we came back here, I haven't felt like myself."

Jason put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him. I breathed in and out deeply and leaned into his chest. Being with him felt like home.

Spontaneous tears leaked from my eyes. "I don't want to go to the hearing," I wept. "If I tell the court that I'm afraid of him, I'll be hurting Ali. But if I say I feel safe with him being let out, it'll make me a liar. I don't know what to do."

"You don't owe Alison anything," he said gently. "After what Charles did to you, I can understand if you don't want to lie. We don't have to stay here, we can go back to New York."

Although it was no secret how I felt about Charles, it was the first time I'd said out loud why I couldn't bring myself to tell the court the real reason why I was afraid of him–not my parents, not my friends, not even Jason. "There's something you don't know."

Jason stared at me, furrowing his brow deeply. As he waited for me to explain, I took a deep breath, gathering as much courage as I could, and finally met his eyes. "When I was trapped in Radley with Charles, he tried to…he tried to touch me."

I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, trying to gauge his reaction. Jason stared vaguely at the fireplace, a blank expression on his face, and then blinked. "I don't understand."

I swallowed deeply. "We were in the basement," I explained. "It was before I knew it wasn't you. And Charles told me he had something important to tell me about A, but he had this look on his face, like…I don't know, something just felt off. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what until he told me who he really was. So I tried to get out, but Charles grabbed me and started taking off my dress and…" I put a hand over my mouth, choking back a sob.

Jason sat still, waiting patiently as I continued, listening to my story with caring and understanding eyes. He reached over and touched my hand, stroking my fingers.

"He was rambling on about how he wanted everything you had, your life, your family, me. And how he wanted to have me. I was able to stop him before he got too far, but..." I squeezed my eyes shut as more tears slid down my cheeks, trying to push out the awful memory. "I didn't really understand what was really happening until he pushed apart my legs. I thought he was trying to punish me for his dad sending him away, but he was being too rough. And then I pushed him off me and he drugged me."

"Jess," Jason whispered.

"I was so scared when I finally woke up." My voice cracked. "I thought he'd… And when I thought he was you, someone who looked exactly like you, and tried to violate me in the worst possible way, it just wreaked me. I couldn't sleep for months."

"I'm so sorry, Jess," Jason whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

My lower lip trembled. "I was too scared. Saying it out loud would make it more real. And I've tried so hard not to think about it."

Jason gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I realized that our hands were still touching, but I made no movement to pull away. He gazed intensely into my eyes with penetrating force. I stared back, my heart racing. Jason moved closer and closer until his face was only inches away from mine, and I could feel his hot breath in my face. He smelled like eucalyptus.

I broke the moment. "Please don't tell Ali. She's been trying so hard to get Charles out. I don't want her to find out that her brother tried to force himself on me, too."

Jason's blue eyes blazed. "How can you protect that monster?"

"Promise me," I pleaded urgently.

Jason let out a deep sigh. "Fine. Just promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"Stop worrying so much about everyone else for once and start thinking about yourself, okay?"

I couldn't answer. In the next instant, Jason's mouth was on mine. I crushed my lips back against his in response and tangled my fingers through his hair. He groaned, delving deeper into the kiss.

I grabbed his chin and parted his lips with mine, exploring the wildness that was emanating from him, wanting more. Jason moved his lips against mine softly, yet fiercely. He pressed his thighs against my hips, and I could feel the contours of his chest. I sighed breathlessly.

I flattened my palms against his chest, pulling his shirt over his head. Smiling, Jason glided his hand underneath my outer thigh and looped it around his hip.

His hands followed the curve of my back to the middle of my shoulder blades, pulling down the zipper on my dress. When he realized I wasn't wearing a bra, he tugged my dress all the way down and we sank down onto the soft carpet by the blazing fireplace. I gasped, and his lips were sucking on my neck.

I ran my hands up his bare, muscular chest, and then trailed them down to the waistband of his jeans. Jason shimmied them off his hips, kicking them aside until he was in only his tight, sexy boxer Polo briefs. I was naked except for a pair of lacy pink panties that rested dangerously low on my hips, but soon Jason took those off, too. A whimper escaped my lips.

I rubbed my feet against his legs as he moved on top of me. Jason's body felt hot and wonderful against mine, yet I'd never felt safer or more comfortable than I did with him. I twisted my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing myself closer to him as I kissed him slowly and deeply. Jason groaned, digging his fingers into my bare back. I could feel him getting closer and closer.

His lips molded against mine, the heat of bare skin on skin overwhelming me. Jason threaded his fingers through mine against the carpeted floor as our bodies entwined and moved together by the fire.

Toby

Later that evening, I sat on the top steps of the Fields' front porch, drinking my second bottle of beer next to my best friend, Emily Fields. Tonight, Pam Fields had put up the army's service flag in the bay window to commemorate her husband's death. Last year, Emily's dad, Wayne, had died from a heart attack while fighting ISIS in Syria. I'd come over as soon as I found out that Emily and her mom were honoring his memory.

I peeked a glance at Emily, whose normally demure face now looked drawn and sad. She hadn't said a word since we'd settled onto her porch. For a moment, I didn't know what to say. But then I recalled running into Spencer at The Brew earlier, and my heart wilted. After I'd told Spencer I couldn't wait for our date tomorrow night, a nervous look passed over her face and she'd bolted out of The Brew without so much as an explanation. My stomach twisted as I came up with a conclusion for her strange behavior. Spencer could see that the dinner date meant more to me than it did to her. She didn't want to be with me anymore…because she didn't love me. So we couldn't even have dinner together.

I missed Spencer. I missed playing Scrabble with her and speaking French with each other, and making love. I'd heard her mom, Veronica, was running for senator. When we were dating, we'd always supported each other with whatever family drama was going on in our lives. But now it felt like we were worlds apart.

I exhaled a deep breath. "Spencer and I just…went out of sync. It happens. I–I–I–like this town, but everywhere she went, it was like she saw something that she wanted to forget." Misery swelled inside my chest.

"I wouldn't have pictured you and Ali to be the ones to stay," Emily finally said.

I shrugged. "Different reasons, same results."

Alison DiLaurentis was one of Spencer and Emily's best friends back in high school. She was beautiful, smart, popular, and the first girl I ever crushed on. But one spring day in ninth grade, Ali shot a firework into my parents shed. Just after she lit the firework, she saw me with my stepsister, Jenna, through the door. No one else saw what happened except for Ali. My shirt was unbuttoned, and Jenna was forcing herself on top of me. Then she moved her hand to my jeans and started to take them off.

Ali had been so shocked, she ran. The spark sped rapidly up the wick of the firework, and the stinkbomb exploded. Then there was a bright flash, followed by a loud crash, and the shed burst up into flames. The firework had hit Jenna in the face, blinding her. When I confronted Ali about it, she told me she'd seen me fooling around with Jenna. She threatened to tell my parents if I didn't take the blame for Jenna's accident, not knowing it was Jenna who'd been raping me, so I confessed. By the next school year, my parents sent me away to a reform school in Maine. Although being marked as a creepy psycho in Rosewood had been brutal, I was happy to finally be free from Jenna. In a way, Ali had saved me. And the last remaining sparks of my crush on Ali dissipated.

"You got your degree, didn't you?" Emily asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Took a while, mostly nights, but I got it. Didn't do much good this year. Got passed over for promotion." I took another sip of my beer, still tipsy from the first one. The liquid slid down my throat and burned in my chest, but the pain felt minuscule compared to the much sharper one.

I paused. Just three years before Spencer and I broke up, I'd decided to take online classes at Marywood University, making the long commute to the campus for exams, until I finally graduated with a bachelor's degree. The hope had been to get promoted to detective at the Rosewood Police Station where I worked as a policeman. Unfortunately, I'd gotten passed over for the promotion to my former partner, Lorenzo Calderon, when I failed the yearly physical fitness test at the station–my key into getting the job–due to one of my many sleepless nights. All I'd been able to think about the night before was Spencer and how I could get her to love me again, and the nightmares of her that plagued my mind whenever I closed my eyes. Since losing Spencer, my life hadn't turned out the way I'd expected.

Emily looked thoughtful. "College wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I look at Aria, Spencer, and even Hanna. It all seemed to click for them."

"Not for you?" I asked.

"No," she answered quietly. "I had a hard time. When my dad died, I just couldn't see a point to it."

I frowned. "To the college?"

"To anything." Emily gazed unseeingly at the night sky, her mind seeming to be elsewhere.

When I looked at her, I noticed a hint of sadness and anxiety in her expression, as if she was remembering something very painful. But before I could ask her about it, Emily turned to face me again and the emotion was gone.

Images of Spencer's face filled my mind as I headed home, and I couldn't get her out of my head. There was one memory that stood out from all the rest.

It was the winter of what was supposed to be my senior year of high school, and Spencer stood outside my door on the front porch. It was the first time we'd ever spoken. She was wearing a black wool cape coat paired with black leather skinny pants, and her hair was pulled back into a braided bun with a few wisps of dark hair framing her face. I remembered staring back at her, immediately feeling mesmerized by how beautiful she was.

"I'm here to tutor you," she'd said, and frowned the only way Spencer could–like the world was coming to an end. "Someone from the school called to tell you, didn't they?"

The school had called, leaving a message on the voicemail machine saying that my new tutor would be coming by that afternoon to help catch me up in all my studies. When I heard who would be tutoring me, I thought it was a joke.

I looked at her guardedly, then shut the door to unchain the lock that was keeping us away at a safe distance. I hadn't known she would change my life forever. "Why you?"

"Because I'm in AP French," Spencer said smugly. Her eyes suddenly softened. "And I volunteered."

It went on like that for three months, sparking a connection that grew from stolen glances and tutoring lessons, to sleuthing for A and playing games of Scrabble, quickly blossoming into something more. And the more I spent time with Spencer, the more I began to fall for her and realized she wasn't at all like Alison. Though our relationship was forbidden by our families, nothing could keep us apart. We fell deeply and irrevocably in love.

When Spencer came onto my doorstep that day, my whole life had changed. I couldn't live without her. These past few years without her proved that.

I exhaled sharply in agony as something stole the oxygen out of my lungs, overwhelmed by the intensity of the memory. The houses blurring past me grew smaller and farther apart. And then I was driving through the thick woods, carefully maneuvering along the unpaved road, twisting at every turn.

After a few miles, the encroaching trees on either side of me began to thin. I heard the familiar crunch of gravel underneath the tires of my truck as I neared, and I stopped underneath a weeping willow tree. I looked at my trailer. It was a silver single-wide trailer located at the end of a gravel road just on the outskirts of Rosewood, nestled against a grove of oak and pine trees in the middle of the forest. With a metal hinged door that was constantly getting jammed, the trailer sat on stacked cinder blocks, a temporary foundation until I could finish the house I was building twenty-five feet away. It had a small bathroom with just a shower, a dining area, and a singular bedroom with a queen-size bed. The kitchen barely had room for a mini refrigerator, but the trailer was furnished with a leather couch and a small TV, including a dining booth and a built-in coffee table, and the sale price had been a bargain. Insulation was almost nonexistent, and during the hot summer days I had to pop open the windows just to get cool. I'd put in a new carpet and repaired cracks in the linoleum kitchen floor with supplies I picked up from the hardware store to keep away rodents and insects. And the only photographs I had were in albums. It was less of a home than a place where I ate and slept and showered.

It was much quieter than in Philadelphia or New York or Washington D.C., with the endless rush of traffic and noises and people shoving their way by on the sidewalks, and I preferred it that way. In the mornings, I could smell the fresh dewy grass and honeysuckles, and in the evenings, I'd watch the sunset. It would remind me too much of Spencer, so I'd retreat back inside the trailer, forcing the memories away. I was miles away from town, and I had no close neighbors. The trailer wasn't much, but it was the only thing I had right now and out of the way. Since I'd exchanged my loft above The Brew for the trailer, I'd spent most of my time cutting and sawing wood for my dream house.

I'd started the project three years ago after I lost Spencer, wanting to prove to her that living together would be wonderful and we could have a family together. I wanted Spencer back more than anything, so I bought all the necessary parts and supplies needed and took out most of my inheritance money to build the house for her, much to my father's disapproval, to surprise her with it. I drew the blueprints in great detail, trying to make it perfect. I nailed the wooden structures together for kitchen counters until they were leveled and secure, I spent hours building in walls, I sawed and sanded frames for the house until they were smooth, I'd added cement into the flooring and then used plaster. I was going to paint the exterior of the house a light blue once it was finished, and next week, I would be buying some shingles for the roof.

When I took a break from working on the house, I liked to rest in my bedroom in the afternoons and read classic books, like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I had no other hobbies aside from jogging and lifting weights at the gym and tinkering on my motorcycle. I took long strolls through the woods when the moon was out, occasionally stopping by the hill that overlooked Rosewood where Spencer and I used to sneak away to be together when we dated in high school. Every now and then, I went fishing with my best friend, Caleb Rivers. I read every night and looked over the love letters I'd sent to Spencer while she was in D.C. Every single one of them had been returned. In five years, I'd never been to Paris or gone up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I never shared French pastries with Spencer or sipped coffee at the Café Du Monde, or took a romantic boat ride along the river and admired the beautiful paintings in the famous art museum. Nothing had turned out as I had planned. I was twenty-four years old and I never fell in love again.

Most people would tease me for it, but they didn't know what I had been through or what had happened. Three years later, and I was still in love with Spencer Hastings.

I'd had trouble sleeping since I lost Spencer, tossing and turning throughout the night. It was always the same dream every night; a big, empty building filled with an endless maze of rooms, so deafeningly quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat echoing down the halls. It was dark, with only a few flickering overhead lights to guide my way. Then I would hear Spencer's voice calling my name at some point in the dream, crying nonstop, pleading for me to save her. I hurried through the darkness not knowing where I was going, only running to where the sound of Spencer's voice led me to, searching for her. Getting more panicked and worried with each minute that passed, moving faster and faster. Finally, I'd stop in front of a singular door and the crying grew louder, more insistent. "Toby!" she'd scream. "I'm sorry, please let me out! I'm scared."

I'd try turning the door handle, but it wouldn't budge, even as I jiggled it and used the weight of my body to break it open. And that's when I'd see a puddle of water start to form around my feet, and I realized it was Spencer's tears leaking out from underneath the door.

I yanked on the door handle even harder, feeling more frantic. I could hear Spencer's voice breaking out in endless sobs. "Don't leave me. I miss you, Toby. Please forgive me."

"I'm coming, Spencer!" I'd tell her through the door. "Just hold on."

As I tried to pick the lock in the door, it was there that it'd hit me fast and hard, when I realized I couldn't get inside and never would. It was over; beyond the thick wood was an impenetrable force keeping Spencer and I apart. And I felt powerless to do anything while the woman I loved remained trapped in the dark room all alone, suffering. I never had a chance and there would never be anyone else for me for as long as I lived.

The nightmare didn't end until I woke up gasping for air, sweat on my forehead and bare chest. Agony ripped through me from the memory of my dream.

I got out of the truck and unlocked the door to my trailer. The dew of the grass moistened the soles of my shoes, and I caught the scent of honeysuckles like I did every night. I was exhausted as I stepped inside, and my muscles were sore. After crossing the kitchen, I dragged myself to bed.

Wearing only a pair of black Calvin Klein boxers, I moved to the wooden box by my bed and lifted the lid. Inside were several photos of Spencer and I when we were together, including a French translation copy of Catcher In the Rye that she'd given to me during our first tutoring lesson, a small white bear I'd given her, my love letters to her, and the cards we'd exchanged on our anniversary.

I pulled out the gold pocket watch from underneath a framed photograph of a younger Spencer when she was sixteen–it was one of the first pictures I'd taken of her. She looked young and flushed, her brown doe eyes looked alive and feisty, and her long, dark thick hair cascaded down her shoulders in loose waves. Even back then, she was still so breathtakingly beautiful.

I pressed the button on the top of the watch, and it popped open.

You're my once upon a time – S

Spencer had given me the pocket watch after I'd graduated from the Harrisburg Police Academy. I'd joined the police force to protect her. Then she'd said she loved me in the most tender way, and we held each other.

The photo album Spencer and I made together sat at the bottom of the box. I lifted the cover. Photographs of the two of us filled the pages. They were arranged neatly in two-page layouts along with descriptions underneath of each place we visited, and scrawled messages that we'd written to each other.

I flipped through the rest of the pages. One snapshot was a photobooth strip of Spencer and I kissing, smiling, and making silly faces. Another was a photo of me with Spencer for our first Christmas. We were both standing in front of the tree with our arms wrapped around each other tightly, grinning from ear-to-ear, happy and in love. Below that was a photo of just Spencer sitting in the passenger seat of my truck, staring back at me in the picture with warm brown eyes. She wore a mint-green tulip blouse, and she was facing me with a tender look on her face. Spencer looked just as perfect as she did now.

I touched my favorite photo in the center of the page, the one of Spencer and I at her parents' lake house during our first summer together as a couple. We were drenched, kissing in the water of the lake. Spencer was wearing her magenta-strapless string bikini, revealing most of her cleavage, and I had on a pair of navy-blue trunks.

The last one was a picture of Spencer curled up on my bed in my old loft, wearing one of my oversize shirts, dozing peacefully. Her eyes were closed and her expression was serene, all the muscles in her face loosened and relaxed. She seemed so peaceful, as if she was dreaming pleasant things. She looked like a goddess. At the bottom of the photo was a caption in my handwriting titled, My sleeping Angel.

Guilt hit me like an avalanche and my heart swelled, thinking about the way Spencer and I fell apart. I missed everything about her–her smell, the way her lips spread into a huge grin and her eyes would light up like a Christmas tree every time she saw me, her cute little laugh, her pessimistic view of the world, her witty sense of humor, when she'd give me random facts on medicine and preservation. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I started to break out into sobs. The world that had once seemed so beautiful and vibrant, was now drained of color. And the worst part was I knew it was my fault we broke up. If I hadn't left, if I hadn't let her go the way I did, we'd still be together. I wished more than anything that I could change what had happened between us.

When I was with Spencer, my heart was beating like it was supposed to, pumping hot blood through my chest. I felt whole again. The last three years without her meant nothing. And the words she'd said to me in her dorm room didn't matter, because I would fight for her until she was mine again. I would never want anything but her until the day I died, no matter what.

Then, in the darkness of the trailer, I took out a pen and a piece of stationary paper and started to write…

Jess

Early Saturday morning, I sat in the back row next to Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Spencer of the Rosewood courthouse as we listened to Alison talk at the front of the room. Today we were speaking to the judge for Charles' hearing, about whether or not we felt safe with him being released from the Welby State Psychiatric Hospital.

The courtroom smelled like dust and floor wax, lit up by fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling. A set of identical cherry-wooden chairs were arranged in neat rows in front of the big, dark mahogany table, where each of us would have to sit in front of the judge and tell her how we felt about Charles. I shivered with dread–the last time I'd been here was when I'd testified against him at his trail. And now I was here to lie on his behalf. It made me sick to my stomach.

"My family has always had a missing part," Ali went on passionately. "What's missing is my brother, Charles. Over the past five years I've come to love this missing part of my family. And now, I want to bring my brother home."

When it was my turn to speak, I pulled out the paper that I'd written down of what I wanted to say to the judge. I looked up nervously at Judge Cooper sitting on the bench and straightened. "For the last seven years, I didn't know what a home was. Until I came here. And Alison's brother deserves to have that too, despite what he did to all of us." I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat.

Then suddenly, a familiar memory flashed across my mind. Before I could stop the wave of bad memories, they pulled me under, without any control of my own. The memory of being trapped inside Charles' Dollhouse raced through my head and made the room spin. I could see it all so clearly now–the terror I'd felt from waking up in the dark basement and realizing there were no doors or windows to escape, the excruciating pain when Charles repetitively stunned me with a horse prod, nearly torturing me to death. My bloody fingernails, stubbed down to the bone as I desperately clawed my way through the thick soil from underneath the foundation with haste to get out. Charles hadn't known I would escape. Just as I hadn't expected to find Charles waiting for me in the woods, attacking me from behind, trying to drag me back to the house. I'd driven my fist hard into his face, making blood spurt out from his nose, before finally running for my life.

I was certain I must have been having some sort of hallucination, triggered by the memory of being in this room again. But there was one memory that I couldn't shake. It was five years ago, when Charles had locked me downstairs in the basement at Radley with the sick, twisted intent to steal me away from Jason. I remembered seeing the cemented basement floors, the dank walls covered in cobwebs, filled with files scattered all over the room. Two dirty clawfoot bathtubs sat in the center of the basement. Then Charles appeared, looking exactly like Jason, and when I looked into his eyes, I realized he wasn't who I thought he was. When I tried to reach the door, Charles had yanked me back and shoved me up against the wall. He'd pinned my wrists back over my head so I couldn't move and pressed his body roughly against mine.

"What, I'm not good enough for you?" His hot breath blew in my face, making me cringe. "What does my brother have that I don't?"

Charles' movements were forceful and his body was heavy. "Stop it," I said weakly.

His rough hand reached for the hem of my dress. He stroked my knee, then slid his hand all the way up my leg. "My brother can never give you what you want," he'd said in my ear. "Just give yourself to me, and I won't kill you in front of him."

Tears brimmed over my eyes as anxiety tightened my chest. "No," I whispered, struggling against his firm hold on my wrists. "I love Jason. It's always going to be him."

Charles pushed his body against mine in a hot rage and ripped the skirt of my dress, squeezing my bare thigh hard. He was getting closer and closer to my underwear. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from crying.

"Please stop," I whimpered. But then I thought of my ex, Jonny Raymond, how he'd hurt me the same way Charles was right now, and fury bubbled through me. I wasn't going to let him do this to me; he would never have me.

I pushed back against him. Then I brought up my knee and drove it straight into Charles' groin. Hard.

"Umff!" Charles staggered backward, holding his groin. He screamed in agony. "You stupid bitch!"

Charles stumbled and hit the far wall. His knees buckled, and he slid down until he lay crumpled on the floor. "You're going to regret this," he'd threatened.

"Stay away from me," I'd shot back. "And stay away from Jason, or I'll kick your ass."

I leaned down to grab the key that had slipped out of Charles' pocket and turned it into the door's keyhole. It clicked open, and I was free.

Judge Cooper's voice broke me out of the memory. "Miss Clarke?"

I thought for a minute about what I really wanted to say. Not for Ali, not for my friends, not for the court. But for me.

I glanced at Ali. I'm sorry, Ali, I thought silently to her.

Then I turned back to Judge Cooper. "Yes, I'm afraid of him. I'm afraid of Charles DiLaurentis. I don't care what the doctors say about how well he is recovering or that he's integrated himself into society, he put me through hell. Every time I close my eyes, I'm back in that place, getting burned and shocked by every prod, taser, and jumper cables that A could get his hands on. And I get scared that he'll show up at any given moment and he'll do those things to me again. As long as Charles is free, I'll never feel safe."

I stood and walked back to my seat next to Spencer, Emily, and Hanna. It was finally Aria's turn to talk to the judge. She glanced at her paper of what she was going to say.

"Alison and Dr. Rollins have told us how well Charles has been doing," Aria began. "How rapidly he's been able to integrate himself into the General Hospital population. They feel strongly that–"

Before Aria could finish, she was interrupted by someone entering the room. I looked at the wooden doors to the lobby. Ezra Fitz walked to the other side of the courtroom. "I'm sorry," he mumbled to the judge.

Without even glancing once at Aria, Ezra turned his gaze to the front of the room. Long gone was the lanky and attractive, young high school English teacher that girls lusted over. In his place was a guy with wavy dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a white button-down Henley shirt and dark jeans. There was some overgrown stubble on his cheeks, and a couple buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned sloppily. I hadn't seen him since the night Charles had gotten arrested, and I wondered what he was doing here in the courtroom now.

Aria had hooked up with Mr. Fitz at a college bar a year after Alison went missing, before either of them knew he was going to be her AP English teacher. He was the one who'd ended it, but when they tried to stay away from each other, Aria and Ezra realized their feelings for one another were too strong, and so they continued their illicit affair. Then, after Aria discovered the horrifying truth–that Ezra was using Aria to exploit Alison's lies and manipulation in a book he'd written about her–she broke things off for good.

Judge Cooper stared at Aria sternly. "Miss Montgomery."

"Sorry," Aria apologized, turning back to her paper. "They feel strongly that now is the right time for Charles–"

Judge Cooper cut her off. "Miss Montgomery, I've read the same reports you have."

"Well, the doctors–"

"The doctors can speak for themselves. You're here to tell me if you'd feel safe, should Charles DiLaurentis leave the hospital."

As Aria looked down at her paper, a haunted expression passed over her face, as if she was remembering something horrible.

"Miss Montgomery?" the judge pressed.

Aria stared at the front of the room with wide, scared eyes, looking at nothing in particular. She blinked a couple times, then turned back to the judge.

"No," Aria answered after a minute. "No, I would not feel safe." She looked at Ali guiltily sitting in the back row. "I was on the Redline going to Braintree…and the train stopped in the tunnel between the stations. The power went out a-and it was dark. No, not dark. It was black. And I was back in every box, in every tight space that A ever put me in, and I couldn't breathe. Then I heard a girl crying. Good I thought, somebody else is scared out of their mind. Then…the power came back on and every single person on that train was staring at me. Because I was the girl who was crying. I don't want Charles released. Ever."

By the time Aria was finished, there were tears in her eyes.

When I looked around the courtroom, I gasped softly. Mona Vanderwaal was standing off to the side, waiting to talk about Charles. She fidgeted uncharacteristically next to Ezra, toying with the diamond Tiffany bracelet around her wrist. Then, suddenly, she looked up and her honey-brown eyes found mine. She smiled at me and waved. I gave her a meek smile.

When the judge called Mona up next, she slid into the chair at the table. She looked over the paper she held in her hands. I could only imagine what she'd written–scrawling down angry words onto the page, pressing the pen so hard that the ink nearly leaked through, trying to calculate and examine each sentence until it made sense. I pictured her eyebrows knitting together and creasing her forehead in concentration, her hand trembling as she wrote it.

The room was dead silent, as though it was anticipating this moment before taking one last final breath. It was the last nail in the coffin, as Hanna would say. Mona seemed to be rereading the words on the page. Then suddenly, she crumpled up the note.

Mona's forehead crinkled in sympathy. "I thought I could do this, but I can't. I've been listening to my friends, how they've managed to forgive Charles. I wish I could hate him, but I can't. I can't because I know what he went through. I was in the Radley Sanitarium. I was there for months. Charles was there for years and years. Being in that place is what twisted him all out of shape. Let him out. Let him go home. That's all any of us want. Is to have a home. I'm sorry."

Then wordlessly, Mona stood up from the table and walked out the door, a solemn and scared look on her face.

My throat went dry. I exchanged a look with the girls, boring the same shocked expressions on their faces. Charles had been stalking and spying on my friends and I for years, playing twisted games for his own amusement. And now he wanted to come home.

Except now the prank was on him. And this time we were making the rules.

Later that night, Jason led me over to the top of a small, round hill at Rosewood Community Park, a wicker basket in his free hand. The September air was warm and there was a light breeze, and it smelled like apples and wildflowers. When we reached the hill, we settled onto the soft grass.

The hill was rounded, giving the appearance of a meadow. And there were wildflowers everywhere–violet, pink, light blue, and soft white. I could see the valley of trees below. Beyond that were the vast acres of grassy hills. It was just past 7 P.M. and the golden sun hung over the western horizon, slipping into a glittering sunset. I'd come back to the barn a half hour earlier to find Jason with a bouquet of flowers and a picnic basket in his hands. He'd wanted to surprise me for a romantic picnic dinner. And after the day I'd had, I could use something to take my mind off things. I didn't want to deal with Charles right now.

"It's beautiful up here," I breathed.

"Yeah, it is." Jason's gaze was steady on mine.

I blushed. He pulled out a red picnic blanket from the basket and spread it on the ground. His tanned upper arms bulged as he twisted the champagne bottle open with a satisfying psst.

I opened up the basket and pulled out some crackers, kalamata olives, fancy grapes, a wedge of Brie cheese, two containers of parmesan couscous with rosemary, and Greek salads. The salad looked pretty good, so I started to spoon some onto a plastic plate. I could feel Jason watching me.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You've been kinda quiet." Worried lines formed around his eyes.

I nodded. "Yeah. It's just been a long day."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

I shivered, thinking about Charles being released, and shook my head fiercely. I'd had to take a bunch of Advils just to stop thinking about it. "No. Definitely not."

Jason smiled and took my hand. "It's okay. I don't feel like talking anyway."

I flushed with pleasure at the way he was touching me, reminding me of when we first fell in love. Then Jason leaned in and kissed me softly. His lips hardened, becoming more urgent. It was one of those earthshaking kisses that girls dreamed about, the kind that took your breath away. I'd been longing to kiss him all day.

My heart fluttered as Jason's hand moved beneath my blouse, stroking along my back. The familiar touch of his hands on my skin sent jolts of excitement through my body. I grabbed his face in between my hands and kissed him harder.

"I love you," Jason murmured. He pressed my hand against his cheek, kissing underneath my palm tenderly.

"I love you, too," I answered, then kissed him once more on the lips.

"Do you want some champagne?"

I smiled. "Yes, please."

Jason grabbed the champagne bottle and poured it into two glass flutes before handing one to me. I took a sip, the bubbling liquid warming my chest. Jason's gaze remained fixed on my face.

"What?" I asked.

"How are you feeling after…" Jason trailed off, and I knew he was referring to Charles' hearing.

I shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I just want it to be over."

Jason stared into my eyes, his face soft. "You know I'm here for you."

"I know," I answered, but I wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Hey." He moved in closer to me. "You can tell me anything."

I picked up a fork to stab at a chunk of lettuce mixed in with mozzarella cheese and olives, and put it in my mouth, pondering how much I should tell him. I stared at the playground below the hill as I chewed, watching as two children scrambled to climb up to the monkey bars. "I told the judge about Charles. How I really felt about him." I swallowed, feelings of guilt piercing my chest. "Ali is never going to forgive me."

"She'll understand," Jason said gently, holding my hand. "Anyone would given what you went through." He paused suddenly. "My sister thinks that Charles will somehow fill in the broken pieces of our family."

There was a protective edge to his voice, and his face was brooding. It made me love him even more for it.

I leaned into him and rested my cheek against his shoulder, gazing up at him. "You're a good brother."

He gave me a tight, half-smile. "Maybe I'd be a better brother if I'd seen what was really happening. Then Ali wouldn't have left home in the first place."

"You are," I insisted. "No one looks after Ali than the way you do. You let her go when the police were going to arrest her for Mona's fake death."

Jason frowned. "I know. She's just so tough that I forget sometimes she's trying to put on a brave face. I know Charles' hearing is hard for her. Ali wasn't even able to come home until after our mom was found." His voice cracked on the word mom. A pained look crossed his face.

A deep ache swelled inside my chest. "I miss her," I murmured.

When Jessica was alive, she'd loved me like a daughter, treating me as though I were one of her own. During the months that followed after discovering Mrs. DiLaurentis' murder, I'd been hit by a heavy weight of grief–confusion, anger, regret, longing, fear, love. She was the only mother I really had after my mom had left to go to rehab for her alcohol addiction, caused by my abusive step-father. It turned out that Gabriel Holbrook, one of the younger detectives on the State Police Force, was my biological father, chased away by my other dad, William Clarke, in an attempt to keep my mother and I in his control. Now, five years later, my mom and Gabe were happily married and living in an impressive three-story, Craftsman-style house in Philadelphia, four towns away from Rosewood.

I fidgeted with the gold, heart-shaped locket around my neck. My mother had given it to me at birth, saying it was a special locket. The initials G.H. were engraved onto the front for Gabe, my real father. It felt good to wear it.

Jason sighed and put his face into his hands. "When my mom died, I kept reliving that moment when they'd found her over and over. She was the only person in my family who didn't treat me like I was a freak." His lips pressed together grimly, his blue eyes somber. "My dad hated me because he knew I wasn't his real son."

I looked at him, my heart breaking a little. "Don't say that."

While Spencer was still a junior in high school and Jason counseled students there who were struggling with addiction, a dark family secret that the Hastings and the DiLaurentis' had been hiding unraveled. That Jason was Peter's biological son and Spencer's older half-brother, a result of when he'd had an affair with Jessica DiLaurentis years before.

"It's true." He locked eyes with mine. "Everything else in my life is complicated and confusing. But the one thing I am sure of is you." His eyes were wonderfully smoldering and intense as he uttered those last few words.

"I'm yours," I professed.

Jason reached into the bottom of the picnic basket and pulled out a small black velvet box. My heart pitter-pattered. When he opened the lid, two silver Claddagh rings stared back at me. "It's a promise ring. I want you to have it."

His fingers traced over the hands of the ring clasping the heart, surmounted by a crown. "The Claddagh ring represents loyalty and love," he explained.

My hand flew over my mouth in shock and happiness. I couldn't breathe.

"Will you wear my promise ring?" he asked, his eyes still intense.

I nodded, tears of joy brimming over my eyes. "Yes."

Jason took out the smaller Claddagh ring and slid it onto my ring finger of my right hand, pointing the heart towards my wrist. I placed the bigger ring on Jason's right hand in the same position.

Jason pulled me in close and pressed his mouth against mine. His lips felt warm and gentle, and he tasted like sweet grapes and fizzy champagne. I gripped his shoulders, clinging onto him as I parted my lips for him. Jason stroked my mouth with his tongue, deepening the kiss and making me dizzy. I knotted my fingers in the tousled mess of his golden blonde hair in response.

When he pulled away, his eyes were filled with emotion. I laid my head against Jason's chest, smelling his eucalyptus scent, feeling his heartbeat begin to slow. His hand stroked up and down my back. And suddenly, the rest of the world faded away and it was just the two of us.

Then Jason pushed the container of couscous toward me. "You should eat something."

"I am eating something." I showed him my salad plate, grinning playfully.

"Eat," he ordered.

I scooped some couscous onto my spoon and popped it into my mouth, chewing slowly. The couscous was good. I took another sip of my champagne and swallowed before turning to Jason. "This is really good," I complimented.

"It was my mom's old recipe." Jason picked off a grape and popped it into his mouth.

Both of us tipsy, we kissed some more and drank the champagne as we watched the sun melt behind the horizon. Jason wrapped his arms around me and I snuggled in closer to him. It was in that moment I knew that I wanted to marry him and we would be together forever. Everything was perfect.

After finishing off the bottle of champagne, we packed up the empty food containers and stood up to leave. I held Jason's hand in mine as we walked home, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.

Spencer

Sunday night, I inspected my reflection in the large, full-length mirror in the barn's bathroom. Tonight was my date with Toby and it was just a little before six, the time he'd said he would pick me up for dinner.

I'd tried on three different dresses before finally settling on a bright red, tight bandage dress. It was backless, stopping at my mid-thighs with thick shoulder straps. I'd put on a push-up bra underneath, making my chest look bigger and more appealing. It fit snugly around my body, emphasizing my hips. And the dress dipped slightly below the top of my breasts, pushing them up seductively.

I slid my feet into a pair of black stilettos and slipped on a teensy, light-blue lacy thong. Although I'd sprayed myself with Stella McCarthy perfume, my stomach was still full of butterflies. I hadn't gone on a date with Toby since high school, and so many years had passed between us–fighting with him, loving him, missing him, trying to forget about us, losing him. I wasn't sure if he still felt the same way I did. All day, I'd been jittery with nerves, thinking about tonight. There was so much I wanted to say to Toby, but I had no idea where to begin.

I applied a coat of burberry mallow-colored pink lip gloss on my lips and tugged at my dress nervously, trying to adjust it so that not too much of me was exposed. After carefully styling my hair in elaborate voluminous curls, I stared back into the mirror and smiled with satisfaction.

Perfect.

A few seconds later, the doorbell rang. I grabbed my purse and jacket, and headed out into the hall. When I opened the front door, my heart sped up. Toby stood on the porch, looking gorgeous in a silver grey button-down shirt and dark pants, and his wavy brown hair was tousled to perfection.

Toby stared at me and his lips parted, looking stunned.

I smiled at him. "Hi."

"Hi," he said. His eyes moved over my dress and long, bare legs appreciatively. "You look…wow. You look stunning."

I blushed. "Thank you. You look very handsome."

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

I locked the door behind me, and we walked over to his truck, which was parked in the driveway by the barn. Tears filled my eyes when I realized it was the same gold Chevy pick-up truck I'd bought him years ago. He opened the passenger door for me as I stepped in, shutting it behind me. I still had to pinch myself to make sure this was real.

Toby walked around the front of the truck and got in. And then he started the engine and pulled out onto the road, slowly driving into town.

We were both silent as Toby entered the oncoming traffic. I stared at my hands. I half-expected him to reach for my hand out of habit, and feeling disappointed when he didn't.

I stared out the truck window in an attempt to calm my nerves. The courthouse, where I'd been only hours before, passed by. It was right to the Rosewood Memorial Hospital, giving a clear view of the hospital's front entrance. I remembered staying by Toby's bedside all night after he'd gotten into a car accident on his way to his Police Academy graduation ceremony. And I had even perfected the star-shaped neon sign outside of the motel to memory, the one where Toby confessed that he was secretly working with Mona to keep me safe from A.

I wished I could go back to that day inside my dorm room and change everything that had happened between Toby and I–go back to before I'd left for college. When things had been perfect between us. The day Toby sat with me in my dorm at Georgetown University, I'd been a mess. I sat on my twin-size bed across from him, scared of what was going to happen next. Little did I know that I would lose him two weeks later. It was that fateful day sophomore year, when Toby had shown up in Washington D.C. to try to help me through the hardest decision I would ever have to make. And I wished so badly that I could change what I did next.

I had the most perfect boyfriend, and I'd thrown it all away.

I quickly looked away, turning back to Toby as he continued driving. And then he parallel-parked against the curb. I looked out the window to see the lights of Rive Gauche, the French and Italian restaurant that I loved. Toby and I used to go there every Saturday night when we were dating. It always reminded me of Paris, with their rich wine and strong-flavored cheeses. I unbuckled my seatbelt while Toby stepped out of the truck and came around to my side.

He walked to the door of the restaurant and held it open for me. "After you."

"Thanks." I swooned.

He put a hand on my lower back as I walked in. The restaurant was intimate, and the lights were dim and romantic. There were small tables with linen tablecloths and banquette booths, gold-colored walls, and Shakespearean oil paintings of his tragic plays hung around the rooms. It was very romantic. And most importantly, the restaurant wasn't crowded.

The hostess waiting for us was a pretty, young blonde. She was tall and slender with a much more prominent chest than mine, wearing the white button-down Rive Gauche uniform. She greeted Toby a little more warmly than she needed to. I was surprised by how much that bothered me.

"We have dinner reservations for six-thirty under Cavanaugh," Toby told the host.

Her eyes flickered to Toby's hand on my back, dissatisfied by the closeness between us. She led us to the back of a private area, a small table for two. A lit white candle and a small vase of red roses sat in the center of the table.

After settling in, the hostess turned to us. "Your server will be right with you." She left, disappointed.

I looked at Toby. "She's pretty."

Toby noticed the look on my face and smiled, catching my meaning. "You're the prettiest girl here." He reached across the table to squeeze my hand, and my insides turned over. It felt like he could intuit my every thought and desires. And it didn't help how hot he looked. Every girl in the restaurant was checking him out.

But Toby was looking at me like we were the only two people in the room, that familiar tenderness evident in his deep blue eyes. I stared back as he continued to gaze intensely into my eyes.

Then the waiter arrived, interrupting our intense gazing. He was about average height, with bright green eyes and wavy dark hair, and had the body frame of an athlete. When the guy saw me, his eyes lit up with interest.

"Hello, my name is Adam, and I'll be your server tonight. Are you ready to order?" He gave me an alluring smile, seeming to forget that Toby was there.

Before I could order, Toby said, "She'll have spaghetti Bolognese and a cherry soda with crushed ice, and I'll have the eggplant lasagna." He glanced at the menu. "What do you have for the wine list?"

"The Pinot Noir red wine is a popular choice," the waiter answered.

"Two glasses of the Pinot Noir red wine, please."

"We only sell that by the bottle."

Toby nodded. "Then we'll have the bottle."

The waiter grabbed our menus and he left. I stared at Toby, feeling touched. He'd ordered my favorite meal without even having to ask; I didn't think he remembered. In many ways, he was still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago.

Toby looked back at me. "What?"

"You remembered my order," I replied.

"I know you." He smiled at me with amusement, hinting to our earlier conversation about the house.

I blushed. "It's funny, so many things have changed." I leveled my eyes with his. "Except you."

For a minute, neither of us spoke, and I worried that I'd said something that had upset him. But then Toby gave me a beautiful, half-crooked smile. "I was just thinking the same thing about you."

I couldn't help but laugh, and then paused. "Do you remember that night we spent together at the motel?"

His eyes shined. "Of course I do. That was the first time I beat you at Scrabble."

"It was not a complete ass-kicking!" I protested. "I got Glyceraldehyde."

"Only you would try to win with a word like Glyceraldehyde," he teased.

Toby's playfulness brought back a wave of memories that washed through me. "Hey!" I cried. "I was going to win that game until you came up with goofball."

Toby snorted. "Sure."

I smiled. It felt so good to talk to him like this again.

"I miss this," he finally said.

"What?" I asked.

"Us." Something in his gaze told me that I should leave, but his presence was so comforting.

Then unexpectedly, Toby stared deeply into my eyes. "I'll never forget the summer we spent at the lake house. Those were the best days of my life."

My breath caught in my throat. "Mine, too," I breathed.

For a moment, I didn't know what to say. I remembered our time together at my parents' lake house well. It was the first summer we'd spent together as a couple. Toby and I had taken weekend trips out there, making love in the master bedroom before falling asleep, and then waking up in each other's arms. Toby would make me breakfast every morning, and we even had picnics together outside by the apple trees. Then, at night, we'd go skinny dipping in the lake beneath the silvery glow of the full moon. I remembered feeling so safe and loved, and happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.

The waiter finally arrived with our wine as Toby and I sat staring at each other, both of us filled with reminiscing memories. The label on the bottle implied that the wine was French. The waiter removed the cork with a flourish and filled both our glasses, placing the bottle on the table before returning to the kitchen. Toby hadn't taken his eyes off me. I picked up my glass and took a big gulp, breaking eye contact. It tasted like rich grapes with a hint of cherries.

Toby took a sip of his wine. "Are you happy?" His blue eyes pierced mine, compelling me to tell the truth once again.

I sighed, tracing the ridge of my wine glass. "I don't know. Nothing turned out the way I expected. Are you?"

He shrugged. "Most of the time."

"I'm really glad you're here," I said. "Lately, it feels like I'm all alone." I stared into the candle's flame, lost in thought.

I'd fantasized about going to college to become an interior designer, with dreams of one day having my own company to decorate homes and businesses. And then my father intervened, pressuring me to be a politician. No matter how hard I tried to be perfect or how high my grades were in college, nothing was ever good enough for my rich, proper parents. And it didn't help that they'd always favored Melissa over me. My dad had high expectations of me to be a successful politician and to give our family a good name after the Charles incident, so I changed my major to politics instead, minoring in interior design as a backup plan. I'd taken the lobbyist job after I finished both of my degrees in politics and interior design, when I was passed over for the political advisor position. Now, at twenty-three, I sometimes found myself wondering if my life would've turned out differently if I had followed my dreams rather than my parents.

Somewhere along the way, I'd lost sight of who I really was and the person I wanted to be, and I didn't know how to get her back. When I lost Toby, I'd lost who I was. And for a long time, I'd fallen hopelessly into a dark place.

After I finished the required college courses to get my political science and government degree at Georgetown, I'd suddenly lost interest in politics altogether and decided to fall back on my plans of pursuing my dreams of being an interior designer. I even looked into a couple of open positions close by Georgetown, thinking I might apply. But when my mother announced that she was running for state senator following my graduation, my career choice was put on hold. Being a political advisor and campaign manager seemed like the right way to go. My mother's campaign cemented my decision not to apply for the designer job. I'd set aside my portfolio and put away my application form at the bottom of my desk drawer. By then, I'd already started my job as a lobbyist at the Cannon House, and the Feminist Majority Organization kept me busy and distracted me from missing Toby.

In some ways, Caleb helped me forget the pain of losing Toby and the numbness that came along with it. It wasn't just the easy way we bantered back and forth, or that he didn't watch me out of the corner of his eye the way everyone else did because he thought I was crazy or depressed. Caleb was funny and one of the smartest guys I knew, which I liked. And he didn't sugarcoat the truth. Most guys were intimidated by me, but not Caleb. He always told it straight to me. Whenever I was near him, I felt happier and unconcerned about what the future held. It was enough to make me forget about Toby and our devastating breakup. Almost.

We didn't see each other for a while after high school until I'd run into him unexpectedly in Madrid while I was waiting for my train at the station. I was just finishing up my year studying abroad in Spain, and Caleb was backpacking through Europe. But just before I boarded the train, I heard my name being called, and when I looked up, I saw him standing on the opposite platform. We'd ended up taking the train together and we caught up with each other. And when Caleb and I got off the train, he bought us drinks and dragged me to a bullfight, where people screamed at the Matador to kill the bull. Amidst all the chaos, I'd called the drunken crowd savages. But in the end, the Matador had plunged his sword straight into the bull's heart, killing him. Furious, I'd fled the arena and ran out into the street in tears. Caleb found me later and snuck us into Retiro Park with bottles of Sangria that he'd stolen from one of the stands. I'd gulped down the liquor until the early hours of dawn, wasted in the park. Then Caleb dropped me off at my motel room, and by the next day, I took the plane back to D.C. alone.

After that, Caleb came to D.C. to see me every six months. While he ran a security company in New York, I immersed myself in my work, though we still continued to see each other as friends. Other than my phone, Caleb was the only person I had a relationship with. Over the years, I'd slowly isolated myself from people and the rest of the world, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Caleb's success in the company grew rapidly. He wanted to make enough money to build a life with Hanna. So he took advantage of the spyware and continued his illegal hacking, until eventually the head CEO of the security company finally had to let him go, leaving Caleb with no real job and no money. Fed up with Hanna's passionate commitment to her job, Caleb left her in New York and his visits to D.C. became more frequent. Most of our evenings out were spent drinking at bars all night, with Caleb crashing on my couch. After that, my drinking habit settled into a predictable pattern.

If anything, my depression reawakened the craving to drink, and I threw myself into the Feminist Majority Organization to keep my misery at bay. I plastered a smile onto my face every day to try to pretend everything was fine, even though I was dying on the inside. I had to appear perfect and normal. Any cracks in the armor I'd worked so hard to build up around me would show the world that I was spiraling out of control, and I couldn't let Toby see that. So I had to pretend that I was okay. Every time I felt like I was about to lose control, I inhaled deep breaths to keep myself calm.

The years passed, and the only contact I had with Toby was through occasional emails and text messages. Not seeing Toby or talking to him hurt worse than watching him walk out of my life. Whenever I found my thoughts drifting back to him as they often did, I busied myself with work and eventually turned into a full-blown alcoholic. There'd been several occasions when I'd have a glass of wine with dinner. What had originally started as a way to numb the pain, quickly morphed into something I could no longer control. But the numbness was better than the aching, throbbing agony I felt every time I saw Toby's face floating around in my mind.

By the time I reached our anniversary in November, of when Toby and I first became a couple, I was already drinking excessively. I went through bottles of wine and beer each night until I blacked out and passed out on the couch of my living room, even when I had to work the next morning. Yet, I still came into work right on the dot and I always paid the rent. I didn't know who I was anymore. Whenever I let myself slip back into the bad memories, I'd walk forward and invite the demon inside. And the same questions remained: why couldn't I shake this? Why couldn't I stop loving him?

I never knew the answer. The only thing I did know was that it was excruciating. I didn't want my friends and my family to worry about me, to see the pity on their faces when they realized I was a heartbroken mess. Or that my mom and dad might begin to suspect my downward spiral as I escaped into more alcohol.

Every day without Toby was harder than the next. I felt sad and alone, and I couldn't help wondering how my life had turned out this way.

When I noticed Toby staring at me, I realized traitor tears had trickled down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away with my hand.

"What about college?" he asked, holding his glass of wine. "Did you get your degree?"

I paused, thinking of my life back in Georgetown, unsure of how to answer his question. "I did," I answered slowly. "But I didn't get the interior design job I wanted."

Toby raised an eyebrow at me in surprise. "Oh?"

I took a gulp of wine. "I never finished the required college courses for that. I took a lobbyist position instead at the Feminist Majority Organization after graduating with a degree for political science and government."

I reached for the bottle of wine and poured more into both of our glasses. "But what about you?" I asked abruptly, desperately trying to change the topic to something more pleasant. "What have you been up to since the last time I saw you?"

We filled each other in on our lives, going into full detail about what was really going on with us. Toby was working hard trying to finish building his dream house, and I was stressed and anxious from helping my mother with her campaign. I was surprised by how easy and natural it felt to talk to Toby. I told him about my life in D.C., my job, and the people I worked with who had inspired me the most. I admitted how empty and meaningless my life was since we broke up. I talked about running into Caleb in Spain, though just saying his name made me feel strangely guilty, almost like I was cheating on him, and I never mentioned him again. And it was much better that way. I told Toby about the places I'd visited, of my adventures in Spain. And when he asked me questions about my career, I told him about my future plans of becoming an interior designer. He seemed genuinely interested in my life, as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

When I was finished, I'd ask Toby what his life was like now that he had decided to stay in Rosewood, what it was like moving out of the loft and into a trailer, and how things were going for him at the police station. And then he started talking about how he had been studying architecture in his spare time. I listened intently to him, watching his perfect mouth and listened to his beautiful, deep voice, feeling myself get more tipsy as he talked.

A few minutes later, the waiter came back with our food. He set down our plates in front of us and retreated back to the kitchen.

The aroma of my spaghetti smelled heavenly, and I realized how hungry I really was. I twirled some noodles onto my fork and took a bite as Toby chewed his food–it was really good. And I suddenly found myself wondering if he was seeing someone, but then shoved the thought away.

"Wow," I said. "This is amazing."

Toby smiled. "It is, isn't it?" He reached out and took another sip of wine. "I know it's your favorite."

I shoveled another bite into my mouth, trying to keep my feelings for him locked up tight. After swallowing, I stabbed at the spaghetti again. As I ate, I could feel him watching me.

"What?" I asked.

"I just can't get over how beautiful you look."

My heart fluttered. "Toby…"

"I mean it," he said sincerely. "You've always been beautiful to me. You still are." Toby leveled his eyes to mine, and I couldn't breathe.

The way he was looking at me brought back a whole flood of memories, the past, the way things used to be between us, who I was when I was with him. I wanted to kiss him so badly.

Toby hesitated. "Do you remember our first kiss? After we spent the night together at that motel?"

Millions of butterflies fluttered around in my stomach at the mention of our first kiss. "Of course I do. That was when I first realized that I was falling in love with you."

Toby looked surprised. "I thought it was when you turned back and ran into my arms at the carnival?"

I shook my head, smiling at the memory. "That kiss we shared just confirmed everything I was feeling. I'd never met anyone like you before. You were…different. With you, I never know what to expect, and when you kissed me, I knew I was head over heels in love with you."

"I've never met anyone like you, either." Surprising me, Toby reached across the table and took my hand, stroking my skin. His hand felt large and warm wrapped around my own. I closed my eyes and sighed softly.

Another memory suddenly came into clear focus across my mind, as though it had happened yesterday.

"You're the only guy I've ever been with," I admitted. "That was my first time."

"I know," Toby whispered, and he squeezed my hand.

"I remember the day you came back, and I was so happy," I went on. "I was so scared that I was going to lose you when you left. It was in that moment that I realized I was ready, that life was too short. You were the only person I ever wanted to give my virginity to because I loved and trusted you more than anything. And you were so patient and good to me about waiting." I stroked the back of his hand gently with my fingertips. "When I told you I wasn't ready, you never pressured me. I felt so comfortable with you."

"Did you regret it when you found out I was working with Mona?" He looked at me beneath his lashes guiltily.

"No," I answered automatically. "Deep down, I knew you would never hurt me and that you really loved me as much as I loved you. You were always protecting me. When we shared ourselves like that for the first time, it felt like you were a part of me. I'll never forget it. That moment between us will always be special to me."

Toby absentmindedly played with my fingers while still rubbing my hand lovingly. I didn't want him to ever stop touching me.

The low, flickering glow from the candle made the room feel dark and intimate, and shivers of anticipation trembled through me. I wanted Toby so much; I wanted him more than my own oxygen.

His eyes gleamed playfully. "After the first time, we both wanted more. It was even more incredible the second time. We couldn't stop."

I swallowed the big lump that had formed in my throat, biting back tears. I would not let myself cry in front of him. Not now, when we were having such a good time together. "I remember. I felt so close to you. I suddenly wanted to be with you all the time, more than usual. It was like we were forever connected."

"When I first told you that I loved you, I knew that I wanted to marry you, more than anything."

My eyes welled up with tears. "And have a baby with a six-pack."

Toby laughed, then turned serious again. He lifted my hand up to his lips and kissed it, pressing his cheek into my inner palm. Light spread throughout my body and I leaned in to grab his hand, kissing his fingers.

Still holding his hand, I studied him. "Why am I here, Toby?"

Toby ran a hand through his hair and then his face became very serious. "I miss you, Spence. I've really missed you. Not having you in my life has been unbearable. You're not just someone I loved back then; you're my heart, my best friend. You make me feel alive. And I want to be with you till the end of time." His face softened, looking more vulnerable than I'd ever seen him. "I love you, Spencer. You've always been my soulmate."

I melted at his words. "I love you, too," I whispered. "I never stopped, and I don't think I ever will."

My connection with Toby had always been deep and powerful, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was the person I was meant to be with for the rest of my life. He was my soulmate.

We talked all through dinner, the pale moonlight glowing through the window and illuminating Toby's face. We held hands and talked some more. It was like neither of us never wanted to leave each other. I sipped some more of my wine, stared into his eyes, and felt myself falling even more in love with him. The wine bottle was empty by the time we finished our meal, and I felt warm and buzzed. When it was time for dessert, Toby got me my favorite, chocolate truffle cake.

I looked at the piece of cake in front of me. It looked divine, with swirls of chocolate syrup on top and had shaved chocolate chips on the sides.

"Eat," he ordered, his eyes warm.

I picked up my fork obediently and took a bite. I smiled. "This is perfect. And not just the cake, you being here."

Toby smiled at me sweetly and said nothing.

I rolled the delicious chocolate over my tongue, slowly savoring it. Toby leaned in closer to me, rubbing his thumb across my hand in small, gentle circles. The extra attention he was giving me during dinner made me feel loved again, and I was enjoying every minute of it.

Finally, he looked up, his eyes getting bluer by the second. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes," I said, feeling sad that the night was almost over. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him yet.

The waiter appeared as if on cue.

"How are we doing?" he asked me.

"We're ready for the check," Toby told him, ignoring his blatant ogling of my exposed long legs.

"Sure." He had a small leather folder ready for him.

After Toby paid the check, I stumbled out of my chair drunkenly, but he was right there to catch me. I fell into his arms, and he held me tightly against his chest. His wonderful, intoxicating scent rolled off him and swirled all around me. I closed my eyes against the beating of my erratic heart. He smelled of leather and sandalwood. This is where I belong.

Toby slid an arm around my waist as he walked me to the door, his touch electrifying. We reached his truck, and he opened the passenger door for me for the second time that night. I watched him walk around the front of the truck to his side, in disbelief that this was really happening. I was probably imagining all of it, and by tomorrow morning, this all would have been nothing more than a dream. I was like Cinderella, but without the carriage and a prince to sweep me off my feet. It was depressing to realize that my love story was over, I wasn't the princess anymore.

As Toby drove back to my parents' house, I'd catch him watching me from the corner of my eye, and I found myself gazing right back at him. It seemed our hearts had reconnected that night, and it didn't feel weird or awkward between us. And even though Toby and I had been apart for years, it felt like we'd never disconnected at all.

Toby was quiet on the way back to my parents' house, and I wondered if he had changed his mind about us. The thought made my heart constrict. He'd rolled down the window inside the truck, hoping the cool air would subside the rolling aches of nausea in my stomach. I'd had one too many to drink, while Toby remained sober. I grimaced.

When he pulled into the driveway, he helped walk me back home to the barn, holding me up so I wouldn't fall. I inhaled long, deep breaths. Drunk from the bottle of red wine I'd shared with Toby, beads of sweat started to gather at my forehead and the trees bordering my parents' backyard spun around me.

Toby kept his arm around me as I walked unsteadily toward the barn's front door. I held my stomach, coughing as I struggled to hold back the bile that was threatening to rise in my throat.

Toby quickly led me over to the bathroom inside, and I immediately dove for the toilet. I felt so horrible that I didn't even care that he was watching me while I crouched over the toilet, vomiting violently.

"Shhh," Toby soothed. He rubbed my back.

I could barely concentrate on what he was saying. He held back my hair as my stomach heaved again. I moaned miserably.

"Are you okay?" He sounded deeply concerned.

"Toby," I moaned again. "I don't want you to see me like this."

"I'm not going anywhere," he insisted.

After Toby helped me up gently to wash out my mouth, he picked me up in his arms and carried me over to the bed in my room, setting me down gently. I collapsed onto the pillows, my head aching. Then he dug through the top drawer of my dresser until he found something more comfortable for me to wear to bed, one of his oversize T-shirts and a pair of blue plaid boxers that I'd pilfered from his loft a few years ago.

Toby slowly took off my dress and heels, leaving me bare and naked in only my thong. I didn't bother trying to cover myself; I felt so comfortable and safe with him. He was the only person that I could be naked around.

When Toby was finished dressing me, he pulled the thick comforter over me, tucking me into bed. The wine I'd gulped down earlier came rushing back to my head, making the room around me spin. Not only was I drunk on wine, but I was also drunk on Toby. Although it was tough to be back in Rosewood again, he made the rest of the world melt away. And after having dinner with him and finally being with him again, I couldn't remember a time when I'd been happier.

"I miss making love with you," I slurred.

Toby's lips spread up into a big smile. "I miss making love with you, too."

He kissed my forehead, then turned for the door. Panic squeezed my chest at the thought of him leaving me.

As he started to walk away, I grabbed his hand. "No, don't leave," I begged.

Toby stopped, looking at me softly.

"Please don't go. I don't want to be alone." Tears brimmed over my eyes and slid down my cheeks.

Toby sat down on the bed next to me and touched my cheek. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you. I'll stay with you for as long as you need me."

I let out a breath of relief.

He stroked my cheek tenderly. "I'm going to go get changed for bed, okay? I'll be right back."

I nodded. "Okay."

I watched Toby as he walked down the hall to the bathroom, hearing the door click as he shut it behind him. Just being away from him for even a few minutes made me ache.

When he returned, he'd stripped down to a pair of black Calvin Klein boxer briefs that were so tight that I could see the shape of his butt. My cheeks grew very hot, and I had to force myself to look away. I hadn't seen Toby like this since we were dating.

Toby crawled underneath the covers next to me and snuggled with me, burying his face into my neck and wrapping his arms around my body from behind. I closed my eyes, but I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck and his heartbeat thumping slowly against my back. How could I possibly fall asleep with Toby right next to me?

Suddenly, his lips were at my ear. "Are you asleep?"

"No," I answered.

"Why not?"

"I'm not tired."

It was true; I was wide awake. It felt like I was on hyper drive, my skin electrified. And having Toby's half-naked body pressed up against mine didn't help matters.

"Do you want me to rub your back?" he offered. "That always used to help."

My heart throbbed. "Sure."

Toby touched his hands to the middle of my back and started rubbing slow, gentle circles in between my shoulder blades and along my spine, moving down to the area below my waist. I sighed, leaning into him slightly and relaxing a little. The feeling of his hands rubbing my back felt so soothing and comforting.

"How's that?" he whispered.

"Amazing," I sighed. I paused in the darkness. "Toby?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you going to still be here when I wake up?" I asked anxiously. I wanted to make sure.

"I'll never leave you," he promised.

After a few minutes, my eyes grew heavy and I found myself drifting off to sleep with Toby's arms around me.

Toby

"Toby."

My eyes fluttered open in the darkness, waking up the sound of my name being spoken. It took me a few moments before I realized where I was. The digital clock on the nightstand said it was 3:00 A.M., and the morning sun outside filtered in through the window. I was in a clean, bluish-gray bedroom. There was an oil painting of a couple cuddling in bed on the wall, contrasted in shades of dark and light, and I immediately recognized it as the painting I'd given to Spencer right before she'd left for college. Spencer had entangled herself in my arms and legs in her sleep, and her head was resting peacefully against my chest.

It all made sense now. Spencer was talking in her sleep. I'd always been a light sleeper, so it was no surprise that her sleep-talking would wake me up this early in the morning.

"Don't leave me," she said quietly. Spencer suddenly became restless, moaning and mumbling. I stroked her hair softly, wondering if she was still worried that I would leave her sometime in the morning. To comfort her, I hummed to her and she grew still in my arms.

Last night, after Spencer had gotten sick from drinking too much at dinner, I put her to bed and watched her sleep, too afraid that she'd get sicker if I left. She had a difficult time falling asleep. The constant visits to the bathroom vomiting emptied her stomach and I had to rehydrate her with water. This was the first time I'd slept and stayed over with Spencer since we broke up. But the truth was, I had other reasons for staying. Being separated from Spencer was more painful than anything I'd ever known. Every time I was away from her, it felt like a part of me was being ripped out. The void in the center of my chest never ceased to lessen over time. It cut wide open when I was away from her, and healed instantly when I was with her.

Holding Spencer in my arms filled me with pure happiness–to watch her chest rise and fall with every breath, to feel her warm body molded against mine as she dozed, to hear her talking in her sleep, smelling her lovely scent. And it had felt so good to hold her in my arms all night. I didn't realize how much I'd truly missed her until now. Whenever I looked at Spencer, I was overcome with the strongest desire to trace her lips with my fingertips, to touch them. I wanted to kiss her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and lower, along her neck and breasts, and the tempting curves below that. I imagined removing her shirt and pressing my lips against her bare skin, holding Spencer against me as she opened up her legs at my hips, begging me…

Spencer suddenly shifted in my arms, breaking me out of my fantasy. My heart pounded. She was so beautiful.

I gazed at Spencer's relaxed, slumbering face. Her long, dark-brown hair spilled across my chest in twisted waves, and her ivory skin was flawless. There was a freckle on her left cheek near her lips, she had a perfectly pointed chin, and beautiful deep brown doe eyes, and smelled like lavender and vanilla.

Just then, Spencer whispered, "I love you, Toby."

My heart jumped inside my chest. She loved me.

At the restaurant, I'd told Spencer that I still loved her and she wanted to be with me, even while knowing how much pain I'd caused her. It seemed that she'd been fighting her love for me as I had all those years we'd been apart. A sharp, agonizing sensation of guilty feelings seared through me as I remembered walking away from Spencer that fateful day in Washington. She couldn't possibly want me. I didn't deserve her after everything I'd put her through. She was too good, too caring and selfless for me. I didn't want to hurt Spencer, but as long as she was with me, I would end up hurting her again one way or another. I couldn't handle losing her again.

Some time through the break of dawn, Spencer started mumbling in her sleep again. "I want to marry you."

In that moment, I realized everything about our relationship–leaving Spencer alone in her dorm room, the panic and fear of that day, Spencer pushing me away, not fighting for her soon enough–had been a mistake, and I never should have left. As I gazed upon her face again, I felt my heart beating fast and vibrantly again. I quickly rejected the pain of trying to stay away from her so I could start focusing on becoming the kind of man she deserved.

I slowly detangled myself from Spencer and gently slid my arm out from underneath her. Then I tucked the blankets around her and I padded out into the barn's spacious, modern kitchen to make breakfast. Spencer had remodeled it during the summer before 11th grade so she could live there for the remaining years of high school, putting in a sleek marble-topped island, massive stainless-steel fridge, and state-of-the-art kitchen appliances.

I decided to cook Spencer some pancakes and opened the fridge, where I found a carton of eggs wedged in between a jug of orange juice and a bag of grinded coffee beans. I smiled to myself. Spencer had an unhealthy addiction to coffee, and needed to have at least some caffeine in her body or else she would become cranky and irritable. It felt nice to know some things hadn't changed.

I took out the eggs and some bacon, and set aside a bowl from the overhead cupboards for the batter. I concentrated on whisking the eggs, making myself busy around the kitchen.

Cooking allowed me some time to think, dwelling on the memory of the last time I saw Spencer in Washington. The image of her sitting cross-legged on her dorm room bed, tears streaking down her face. I saw how scared she looked, and tiny pieces of my heart broke off. I should have comforted her when she needed me most, when I thought she needed space, instead of running away like a coward. I couldn't even bare to look at her face as I walked away. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to hold it together. It hurt just to think about.

I'm not ready for this. My head spun as Spencer's words played through my head once more, sounding fuzzy and incoherent, like I was listening to them underwater. But they ripped open my gaping, bleeding heart nonetheless. This was the last thing I wanted to be thinking about right now; I didn't want to remember this.

Spencer had said she didn't see the same future with me anymore. But did she still feel that way now? I wondered if she'd just said it in the heat of the moment, or if she really wasn't looking at the same picture that I was. Of being married someday and having kids of our own, living happily together in a big house somewhere. My stomach twisted at the thought that she wouldn't want the same things I did with her. If that was true, the dream house I'd been building for the last three years would all be for nothing. I blocked the images from my mind, shuddering away from the memory.

I added flour and the rest of the ingredients to the pancake batter, beating them in, and got started on the bacon. I put the bacon on the hot stove, and while those cooked, I poured the bowl of egg mix into another pan.

"Toby?"

When I looked up, Spencer stood out in the hallway by her room. She was still wearing the T-shirt she'd slept in, and her bed-hair made her look even more beautiful. A look of relief washed over her face when her eyes finally settled on mine.

I grinned. "Good morning. How did you sleep?"

"Good," Spencer said. "I think that's the first time I was able to get a good night's sleep."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes," she answered, eyeing the pancakes in the frying pan.

I turned over the bacon, the greasy, cackling aroma filling the room. Spencer walked over to me behind the stove, and I kissed her on the forehead. To my surprise, she leaned into me.

I pressed my nose into her hair, inhaling her scent deeply. Sweet, delicious, intoxicating, the scent made me want more. I wanted to breathe it in.

"Mmm," I sighed. "I've missed your smell."

I felt Spencer shiver with delight in my arms as I stroked her soft hair with my fingers. She looked up at me, her eyes hungry with a desire that made my lower belly quiver and sent my heart pounding. We stared at each other for a moment, not saying anything, but feeling the sexual tension between us tightening and threatening to explode. I knew what she wanted and I longed so much to satisfy it, but I knew we couldn't. It wasn't right yet.

Spencer's hands slowly slid down my chest, seeming to understand what I was thinking, and she moved towards the refrigerator to take out a carton of fresh orange juice. It felt like she could read all of my thoughts like a book, but that's how it'd always been with Spencer. The realization comforted me. Nobody ever made me feel the way that Spencer did. She was the moon to my sun, fire to my ice, a river to my sea. She was every part of me as I was of her.

While I served the pancakes onto a couple of plates, Spencer poured some orange juice into two glasses that she found from the cupboard. Then she skidded over to the coffee machine on the opposite side of the kitchen counter island and started making coffee. I pressed my lips together to hide the smirk on my face.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked.

"I'd love some."

I set the food on the kitchen counter island and then added the glasses of orange juice. Spencer joined me a second later with two cups of hot coffee. She handed one of them to me and sat down at the table.

I watched Spencer intensively as she took a bite of pancakes, examining her face for any signs of nausea. All throughout the night, I'd worried endlessly about her vomiting and the amounts of wine she'd had during dinner. She was so fragile. I never wanted to leave Spencer's side; I would worry about her too much.

I continued to stare at her, my forehead puckering with deep concern. But Spencer's face was pink and flushed, her eyes bright.

She caught my gaze. "What?"

My breathing quickened, and the comfortable silence between Spencer and I hummed. The cackling electricity pulsed between us again, strengthening my desire to touch her. To press my lips against every inch of her bare skin, to hold her smooth and soft, perfectly-shaped breasts in my hands, to feel our bodies together again, to see her naked again. The throbbing electricity made me feel alive, and my body sang with the sensation. I struggled desperately to find the strength to control my raging hormones that Spencer pulled out of me.

Finally, I swallowed. "How are you feeling? Are you okay after last night?"

"I haven't been okay for a while," Spencer answered truthfully. "Everything's been so scary and confusing, and I don't know how to face it alone." Her chin wobbled.

I reached over to hold her hand in mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I will never, ever let you feel alone like that again," I promised.

I kissed the crown of her hair.

Spencer sighed deeply. "Everything is always better when you're here."

I smiled. "I had a great time last night."

She returned my smile. "Me, too. We should have dinner together more often."

I paused. "When can I see you again?"

She pursed her lips. "I don't know. I'm supposed to have drinks with the girls at The Radley tomorrow night."

I was surprised by how much pain it caused me to think of her leaving. I didn't want to say goodbye to her.

"Oh, right," I said, even though I didn't recall her telling me about having plans with her best friends until now.

Spencer must have heard something in my voice because she said, "But I can see you the morning before I leave."

"But I don't want you to go," I whispered.

"Then ask me to stay," she whispered back.

"Stay." I gazed fiercely into her eyes, begging her to stay.

We held each other's eyes, and the atmosphere between us charged with electricity. I realized Spencer and I were unconsciously leaning towards each other, moving closer and closer, and I couldn't breathe. She was so close, I could touch my lips to hers. I wanted to kiss her more than anything.

But instead of going in for a kiss, I stopped myself. I had made a commitment to someone else that I would soon have to break, and I couldn't be with Spencer until it was resolved. It wouldn't be fair to her.

I leaned back a little, swallowing hard. "Um, are you happy to be back in Rosewood?" I asked roughly, still recovering from the tension between us.

Spencer blinked, as if waking up from a dream. "I don't know," she said quietly. "When I'm here, it's just another reminder of all the bad things that have happened. I wish I could go back to when things were normal."

I stared at her, finding myself relate to those same feelings.

"I get it." I sighed. "I like it here, but when I first came back to Rosewood, it felt like everyone was constantly judging me, like they didn't get me. And if you're not as perfect as they are, then you're a freak. But I think being different is good. I like different." I purposely lingered my eyes on hers.

Spencer's eyes softened. "I miss talking to you."

"You can always talk to me," I assured her.

Spencer smiled. "I love knowing that."

Then she speared another piece of pancakes with her fork and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly. "This is delicious."

I flushed. "It was nothing." I looked away so she couldn't see my eyes and took a forkful of the pancakes, savoring the syrupy and buttery goodness.

"You always say that."

"Well, you deserve the moon and all the stars in the world."

An appealing blush colored her cheeks. As Spencer continued to eat, I gazed at her lovingly. My eyes moved over her face, slowly memorizing her features. The depth in her warm brown eyes, her long, soft brown hair, the slight dimple in her chin, her soft, plump lips, the lovely shade of pink in her cheeks, the beauty mark on her left cheek. I couldn't stop staring at her; she was so beautiful. I loved everything about Spencer.

I stared at Spencer's lips, filled with the strong temptation to kiss her, thinking dreamily what it would feel like to have the heat of those luscious lips connecting with mine once again. My feelings for Spencer flowed throughout my body like fire, making me feel buzzed and happy, growing stronger with each passing minute.

She turned her gaze to mine, distracting me from my dangerous thoughts.

"I miss you," I whispered, unable to control myself. "And I want us to be together again, to have a fresh start. Will you give me a second chance?"

Spencer's mouth gaped open at my words, her eyes widening with surprise. I could tell from the emotion in her eyes that she wasn't expecting me to say it.

My heart stopped beating as I waited patiently for her answer.

Finally, her lips pulled up at the corners into that breathtaking smile I loved so much. "I would want that more than anything. I could never love anyone else like I love you. You're the light and love of my life."

My heart leapt with joy. She wanted to be with me! But it scared me to think that I could let her down again. I should protect her from herself, as well as from me. And I knew I should let Spencer go on with her life, fulfill her dreams, maybe even marry someone. I could see Spencer getting married, dressed in a white gown, walking down the aisle towards her beloved with her arm through her father's.

Though the image caused me immeasurable pain, it was the right thing to do. But I wasn't good enough to stay away from Spencer. Maybe she didn't need me, but I needed her. I was that selfish.

We finished breakfast slowly while we talked, watching the sunlight streaming in through the windows, not wanting our time together to end. I brought the dishes to the sink and Spencer stood next to me as I washed while she dried. Occasionally, I'd catch her staring at me when she thought I wasn't looking, studying me with an unreadable expression.

When we finished in the kitchen, Spencer walked me to the door. We stood at the doorway in silence. The sun had finally risen up behind the horizon, casting a pinkish-golden glow over the ground. The dewy grass dampened the soles of my boots, and the smell of pine and grass hung heavily in the air.

Suddenly, a car whooshed by, breaking the spell. The curse was broken. I wasn't a prince, and I wasn't going to whisk Spencer away to my castle so we could live happily ever after.

Spencer looked up at me hopefully. "When will you be ready to get back together?"

I loved her, so I would try to be good for her again. "I don't know yet."

A flicker of disappointment resided in Spencer's eyes.

"I'll always love you." I took her hand and placed it against my chest, over my heart. "There's no one who could ever take your place in my heart."

"I love you, too," she whispered.

I pressed my hands to her face and leveled my eyes with hers. "Nothing will stop me from being with you. I can't live without you."

"I'll wait forever if I have to," she responded, and I knew she meant it.

Out of habit, I reached out to brush a few stray hairs away from her face. And then slowly, Spencer stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. Her lips were soft and gentle, and they lingered there for a minute longer. When she pulled back, my eyes settled on hers for another moment. Spencer looked like she was about to say something else, but then turned away, heading back inside the barn. And then she was gone.

Inside my truck, I sat back against the seat for a few minutes, replaying Spencer's kiss on my cheek over and over. My mind spun and I felt buzzed, like I was drunk, even though I'd only had a few glasses of wine the night before. I touched my cheek with my fingers in awed amazement, still feeling the heat of her kiss. I must have imagined the whole thing. But then I thought of what Spencer had said and the way she looked at me, and I knew it was real.

As I drove home, I found my thoughts drifting back to Spencer. I thought about her again at night before I went to bed, and then soon after I woke the following morning.

It became clearer than ever that Spencer and I never should have broken up.

Spencer

At 7 P.M., I sat across from Emily at the glass dining table in the lounge of The Radley Hotel, the new luxurious hotel that Hanna's mother had bought and renovated from the old Radley Sanitarium. It was a day after Charles' hearing and we were waiting for Aria, Hanna and Jess to arrive so we could start celebrating the five of us being together again. Best friends, reunited at last.

The Radley had once been a hospital for depressed and insane teenagers…like me, when I'd been admitted there, after having a meltdown thinking Toby was dead. It turned out to be just a sick, twisted scheme of Mona's to make me go crazy and join the A Team. She knew the only way I would turn on my friends was if I could be with Toby. Though, after finding out Toby was only helping Mona to protect me from A, we both went undercover on the A Team to take them down. That, of course, ended in a disaster since Red Coat set fire to the Thornhill Lodge with my friends and I still inside. But just before we could burn to death, Ali had fought through the smoke and flames and pulled us out.

I took another sip of my red wine and looked around at the charming brick walls, the tile floors, and the grand stone steps leading up to the vintage wooden door. The Radley lobby was filled with crystal chandeliers and modern glass wall sconces, and tufted couches and armchairs were arranged around in the lounging area with round and elaborate plush ottomans placed in the center as coffee tables. I saw a metal art sculpture of some sort hanging on the far wall, and the interior was redone with lines of black and gold deco art wallpaper. Guests were gathered in the bar and sitting at the tables, and off to the left by the front lobby desk were the elevators, and a sign to the spa and the pool.

All traces of the Radley Sanitarium were now gone, replaced with luxury hotel suites and bathrooms, a sleek and modern lobby, and a rejuvenating spa. It felt strange to be here after all this time and it still unnerved me knowing that the basement below remained untouched from the old sanitarium, aged with history of former patients and dark secrets.

For a split second, I was reminded of my time at Radley when it was a sanitarium, where I'd been confined to sleep alone in my room, screaming at night from nightmares of finding Toby's dead body in the woods, nurses rushing in to inject me with sedatives to calm me down…

I shook the memory away. I wouldn't let myself go back to that place. I'd locked the lid on those memories years ago, and I wasn't about to relive them now. I was better. The more I told myself that I was better, the more I could believe it. But the truth was, I would never be okay without Toby.

Emily turned to me. "Are you okay with this?"

"It's a little bit strange," I admitted, snapping out of my Radley memories.

"We can go somewhere else when they get here," she offered.

"No," I said bravely, "if you are going to chase away the demons, you have to go where the demons are."

Emily paused, looking thoughtful. "You know who I thought was going to walk into that hearing room?"

"Who?"

"Sara Harvey."

"They said she wouldn't be there," I told her, but chills raced down my spine at the mention of her name.

"Or what if she did show up?" Emily asked.

"We tell our little white lies, and in she walks," I replied. "'Those bitches are lying, Your Honor. Let me show you what they did to me.' And she shows everybody."

Then my iPhone rang and Emily's phone vibrated. I reached into my Michael Kors handbag and pulled it out. A new message from Alison in a group text flashed across the screen.

Em, Han, Aria, Jessie, Spence–great news!

A sour feeling ached in my stomach as I read the text. Did this mean Charles was coming home for good?

"So that's that," I said dryly.

"The judge says Charles can go home," Emily said.

"Thanks for your help, Ali." I angrily shoved my phone back into my purse.

In that exact moment, Aria, Hanna and Jess walked in through the hotel's front doors and joined us inside the lounge. "Did you guys see?" Hanna asked Emily and I as she approached.

"We saw," Emily answered flatly.

"Everyone, say hello to the only honest women in town," Hanna said, gesturing to Aria and Jess.

Jess and Aria each exchanged guilty looks.

"I'm sorry," Aria said apologetically.

"I'm sorry, too," Jess said right after.

Emily's eyes turned empathetic. "No, we're sorry."

I looked at Aria and Jess. "You're small, but you're mighty. Put us all to shame."

"Alright, everyone turn off your phones," Hanna instructed, breaking the tension. "No silent. No vibrate. Off."

My chest tightened. Since our date last night, Toby hadn't called or left me any messages. What if he called while I was having drinks with the girls and I couldn't answer because I had my phone turned off? There was no way I was going to miss Toby's call.

"I can't turn my phone all the way off," I told her.

Hanna gave me an annoyed look. "Spencer, one of the lifesaving pieces of information I've learned is that these things actually have an off button."

"Do it, Spencer," Aria ordered.

"Okay!" I cried in surrender. I pressed my iPhone's on/off button, and watched anxiously as the screen went black.

Hanna grinned. "The coven of the sacred cocktails is now in session."

Everyone settled onto the couch and chairs of the lounge, and Hanna ordered all of us six cocktails. The bartender returned a minute later, dressed in the hotel's white button-down and black vested uniform. I grabbed a cranberry vodka from the tray, a redish-looking drink.

Hanna smiled broadly, flashing her pearly white teeth. "Bottoms up!"

I pressed the glass to my lips without hesitation and took a huge sip, letting the tart liquid slide down my throat. It burned in my chest, but I quickly took another drink.

The others finished off their drinks, too, and fifteen minutes later, Hanna flagged down a bartender and ordered another round of martinis and cocktails. I took a long swig of my vodka, and my limbs felt loose and free. The last time I'd felt this good was when Toby and I made love.

I looked at my friends drunkenly. "You know, if you didn't know what this place was, you would never know what this place was."

"Said the old real estate agent showing you around The House on Haunted Hill," Aria teased.

"I miss your faces," I blurted, my words slurring. "You guys have such excellent faces." The alcohol had definitely gone to my head.

Everyone chuckled.

"Or we should plan on seeing each other more often," Hanna chimed in.

"Yes, but not here," Aria said quickly.

Hanna closed her eyes and sighed. "Ugh, we can finally make a list of beautiful cities and go to each of them."

"And that can get expensive," Emily reminded her.

All at once, I started listing the beautiful and exotic cities I dreamed of traveling to one day. "Paris, Rome, Sweden, Rio. We can party in every one of them. And Ali and Charles can sit in that big, ugly house and they can bake cookies."

"You'd think a place like this," Hanna said, "they'd have…special drinks."

"What kind of special drinks?" Emily asked her.

"We're sitting in a bar that used to be a squirrel factory. But there's nothing like an Electro Shock Margarita."

"Manic Depressive Mai Tai?" Aria suggested.

"You think that's impressive?" Jess said. "I'm one cosmo short of seeing pink elephants."

I took another big gulp of my vodka. "You guys are seriously lacking in any good taste. That's why I love you so much. I love each one of you."

Aria turned to Emily and smiled playfully. "Spencer loves us."

Emily smiled back. "So I heard."

"Hey, uh, can we get any other bipolar martini for my friend over here?" Hanna said, gesturing to me.

I shot her an evil glare, and the others burst into laughter.

I stared out at the masses of bodies dancing to the music in the ballroom at the back of the building. There was a greedy crowd clustered by the bar, and a bartender cleared four bottles of beer from the adjacent table. My head pounded, and the room spun wildly.

When I downed the rest of the cranberry vodka, I started to feel fuzzy and my mouth was sticky. I wondered if Toby was at the site in Bucks County right now, working on the house. Maybe he'd call me when he was done. But then I remembered the reason he was building it in the first place and I swallowed another cocktail, trying to push the thought away.

I leaned in closer to Jess on the couch and squeezed her hand. Somehow, despite Charles' horrifying release from Welby and Toby's romantic gesture for another girl, I still had my friends.

Jess

I adjusted the spaghetti straps of my red cocktail dress and handed the bartender my ID for another dirty martini at The Radley hotel, the four-story building that used to be a mental institution for troubled kids. The bartender studied it and handed it back to me, saying he would put my order in at the bar.

I gave him a dazzling smile and turned back to my friends. I'd styled my hair for tonight so that it hung in loose waves over my shoulders and slipped into a pair of sexy, silver strappy heels, and the surface of my skin gleamed and sparkled from the foundation I'd applied on, as if I had brushed on diamond dust. I looked over at Spencer sitting next to me on the smoky-white couch inside the lounge. She looked surprisingly casual, but sexy in an indigo bodycon dress. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and her chocolate-brown eyes shined underneath her thick, dark eyelashes. Hanna had called me the night before, inviting me for a girls' night out at The Radley with her, Spencer, Aria, and Emily to celebrate the five of us being together again. I'd called Ali to invite her to come with us, too, but she said she was busy preparing for Charles' return home that night. I had tried to make my voice sound sincere and jubilant about the news of Charles' release from Welby.

Hanna and Emily sat on the opposite couch, tipsy from all the cosmos and Mai Tai's they'd drunk. And Aria had her feet resting comfortably against the tufted coffee table, where a tray of empty glasses sat. When the bartender returned with my drink, I took a greedy sip. The strong and salty liquid slid down my throat, making me feel warm and buzzed.

Just then, a bunch of twenty-something-year-old guys passed by, checking out Spencer's long legs, Hanna's chest, and the way my dress skimmed my thighs. I rolled my eyes.

"Last call in Rosewood," Aria announced.

Emily gazed longingly at the ballroom at the end of the building. "Can we just go someplace and dance?"

"That's why God invented the mini bar, Em," Hanna said. "We can go back to my suite. Tis but the crack of the evening."

Emily reached into her purse for a steel flask, ignoring Hanna.

"Hey, don't," Hanna scolded her. "My mom runs this joint."

"You guys wanna hear something funny?" Spencer slurred, interrupting Hanna and Emily's bantering.

"I'd love to hear something funny," Emily answered.

"I thought Toby and I would get back together. I thought we would be together forever. But no, I had to screw that up, too." Spencer tipsily shook the ice around in her Sex On the Beach drink. "And you know what's really sad? How we're not with our first loves. Me with Toby, Hanna with Caleb, Aria with Ezra, Emily with Ali."

The four of us were silent for a moment, exchanging uneasy glances with each other. It was no secret that Spencer was still in love with Toby; she hadn't been herself since they broke up. Toby was the love of her life. To lose the guy she was going to marry someday must have been devastating.

"I thought it wouldn't matter what we said to the judge," I blurted, breaking the silence. "Because I thought they would never let him out. I thought if we could lie one more time for Ali, it wouldn't matter. But they did. They let A out."

"Wouldn't it just be the biggest cosmic joke ever if Charles gets to live a happily ever after?" Aria said bitterly.

"If he can do it, so can we." Emily raised her glass. "A toast to Charles."

"To Charles," Spencer and Hanna said in unison.

Then I clinked my glass against the girls in cheers, even though celebrating Charles' freedom was the last thing I wanted to be doing. I couldn't remember a time when I had this much fun, of feeling so carefree, so I didn't notice the hotel's security camera watching us from the elevators, the little light blinking cherry-red.

Spencer

When I heard the sound of ice clinking together the next morning, I opened my eyes and looked around.

Aria and Jess were sleeping on Hanna's bed in her hotel room while Emily slept in a heap of blankets on the carpet. Hanna stood at the mini-bar, holding an ice bucket. I sat up slowly on the sofa where I'd crashed the night before, too wasted to go home and change clothes.

"Why can't they make quiet ice cubes?" Hanna said when she saw me approaching. "Here, hydrate." She handed me a water bottle.

"Thanks." I twisted off the cap and took a sip, and then drank more deeply, surprised by how thirsty I was.

"Are you going to see Toby?" she asked.

"I already did," I responded robotically. "He's building a house."

"He's building a house?" Hanna looked at me incredulously. "With tools? By himself?"

"Yup."

"Wow."

"Yeah," I said, feeling the powerful burn of jealousy return. "Wow indeed. All I got was a chair and some lucky girl is gonna get an entire house."

Before Hanna could respond, her cell phone rang in the bedroom. She quietly moved out into the room, trying not to wake the girls. Jess and Aria stirred in their sleep. Jess lifted herself up from her elbows sleepily, her bed-hair a tangled mess.

"Sit," Hanna told her. "Stay."

Jess slumped back onto the bed, almost as if obeying Hanna's orders.

Hanna dug her phone out of her bag and pressed it to her ear. "Hi, Ali," she answered.

My heart sped up. Why would Ali be calling at this hour? Wasn't Charles supposed to be at home with her?

"Hm, no he didn't," Hanna said after a minute. "What's wrong?" She frowned. "You don't know where Charles is?"

As I listened more intently, I heard Ali's anxious voice on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, you should." There was a pause. "Yeah, I will, but Ali, don't wait. Call the police." Hanna hung up.

She turned to the girls, who were now sitting up in bed and on the floor alertly. "Charles was there when they went to sleep and now he's gone."

Everyone fell silent, looking at one another with wide, scared eyes. A cold sweat prickled at the back of my neck, and a sick feeling settled in the middle of my stomach. Something felt horribly wrong.

By the time my friends and I arrived at Ali's house, Alison still hadn't heard from Charles. She'd rushed to the front door, asking if any of us had talked to him since he was released from the hospital. When we each told her no, her forehead creased with worry and she looked very pale.

Later that morning, Ali had gone into a full-on panic, calling everyone she knew if they'd seen or heard from Charles. Cop cars were parked out in front of the DiLaurentis' big, impressive Victorian home at the top of the tree-lined street, which was right next door to Spencer's old house. Jason was there, too, holding Jess and whispering words of comfort in her ear.

After the police were finished questioning us, Dr. Rollins, Charles doctor from Welby, came over to check up on Ali. The police were still looking for Charles, but there was still no sign of him. None of us knew what to say. Other than Jason, Charles was the only family that Ali had and now he was missing.

I knew Hanna, Aria, Emily, and Jess were thinking the same thing that I was–that Charles was gone–but we were all too freaked out by the eerily familiar scene: the cop cars, the panicked phone calls, the abrupt disappearance of a DiLaurentis family member without a trace.

And then I suddenly realized why it looked so familiar. This was the exact same scene as seven years ago, when Ali went missing.

Toby

I was vaguely aware that I was dreaming as the nightmare pulled me under. I was welcomed by the warm sun set against a brilliant, vast blue sky, soft white sand, and the most beautiful turquoise ocean I'd ever seen. I looked next to me, and I saw Spencer lying on the beach towel beside me and I realized where I was.

I was at the beach on one of the Hawaiian islands, the summer after everything changed. Spencer looked sexy in a navy-blue and white striped Ralph Lauren string bikini, showing off her cleavage and narrow hips. Her hair was pulled back off her face in a messy ponytail and she was resting peacefully on her back, the gorgeous sunset casting a pinkish-golden glow onto her skin.

"Spencer?" I murmured.

She opened her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes. "Toby."

I sighed happily. "I've missed you. Come back to me."

Spencer smiled. "I'm always here."

A relieved, grateful rush washed over me. In that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay. Spencer was safe and we were going to be together forever.

I snaked an arm around her waist and gently pulled her toward me. Spencer traced the line of my jaw with her fingers, sending shivers scampering down my spine. Then I winded my fingers through her hair and descended my lips onto hers.

We spent the next few minutes kissing passionately in the sand, our bodies pressed close together. I began kissing Spencer more forcefully, and rolled her over onto her back until I was on top of her, and I kissed her neck.

I brushed my lips along her eyelids softly. "I love you so much," I whispered.

"I love you, too," Spencer whispered back. She gazed into my eyes with such love and trust that I didn't have to ask to know what she was thinking.

I braced either side of her with my arms and legs, trapping her there, but giving her enough room to escape. "Do you want to…?" I asked.

"Yes," she breathed.

Spencer was as discriminating about sex as she was about everything else in her life and it was not something she took lightly, so I understood what she was giving me. But we belonged together, and Spencer made me feel safe and loved. As she wriggled out of her bikini, I pulled off my swimming trunks and our bodies connected.

When I slid my hands up her arms to entwine my fingers through hers, all I could feel was sand. I was so startled, I jerked back.

Because Spencer was no longer there.

She began fading in and out of nostalgic focus like a hologram. The shape of her body turned blurry, as if she was underwater. I tried desperately reaching for Spencer, but I couldn't feel her. I couldn't feel her warm, smooth skin, or the feeling of her soft lips moving against mine as we kissed, couldn't smell her lovely vanilla scent, couldn't feel her hand holding mine. With every second that passed, Spencer grew fuzzier and fuzzier.

Like she was disappearing.

Panic constricted my throat. "No!"

I dug my hands through the sand hastily, trying to find her, to bring her back somehow. But Spencer was already gone, finally disappearing beneath the sand. A sob broke out in my throat and tears started streaming down my face relentlessly.

"Spencer! Come back to me, please!" I begged.

My head fell into my hands and I started sobbing uncontrollably, too paralyzed with grief and loss to move. Darkness engulfed me, swallowing me whole, and I couldn't breathe. About halfway through the tunnel of darkness, I realized I didn't want to. I was nothing without Spencer.

A loud ringing filled my ears, waking me up. I shot up in bed panting, my face and bare chest slack with sweat. The horror of the dream faded away. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. I was in the bedroom of my trailer, wearing my plaid-blue pajama bottoms. The morning sunlight streamed in through the window, and I could hear the usual chirping of birds outside. It was Sunday morning, two days after my date with Spencer. On the bedside table were remnants of last night: three empty beer bottles, my Fitzgerald book, and the pen I'd used to write a love letter.

Two nights ago, I'd slipped my letter for Spencer under her doormat at the Hastings' barn, writing down how I felt about her, hoping she'd read it and would come back to me. Had she ever gotten it? Why hadn't she called me?

I slowly rose from bed and walked to the kitchen, where the phone was still ringing. I picked it up on the third ring and pressed it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Cavanaugh, it's Breyer. I'm at The First Church. It's a suicide. And listen to this, we think the body might be Charles DiLaurentis. He went missing last night. The DiLaurentis girl was hysterical. You're the only one who knows that family, so I need you to identify him and collect evidence."

"How'd we get the call?" I asked him.

"It came from an anonymous caller to nine-one-one at seven this morning," he answered. "Dispatcher said it came from a residential street in town. The girl called after the body was found. She said she saw him outside of the church tower in plain sight while she was out jogging."

"Were there any witnesses?"

"None that I can tell. My guys are out here patrolling the area right now to search for any signs of DNA or a possible murder weapon. The entire Rosewood PD has been notified, but I'm going to bring in Detective Calderon to take a look. I thought maybe the two of you could work together on this one, just like old times."

"Who found the body?" I questioned.

"The sexton at the church," Breyer said. "He was coming in before the morning services for his usual grounds-keeping duties when he saw the front door had been forced open. He checked the bell tower and noticed the body below."

"I'm on my way." I hung up.

I picked up my cell phone from where I'd left it last night on top of my bedroom dresser and dialed Lorenzo's number. He picked up on the first ring. "This is Calderon."

"Hey, it's Toby," I said. "Listen, we got a call about a body at The First Church. Captain Breyer wants us to identify the body."

There was a pause on the other line. "Yeah, I just got off the phone with him. Is he sure it's Charles DiLaurentis?"

"Breyer thinks it might be, but he can't be sure without a proper ID."

I heard Lorenzo sigh. "Oh, man. Okay, I'm leaving now. And Cavanaugh, don't touch the body until I talk with the coroner."

We agreed to meet at my trailer so the two of us could drive over to the church together, and I ended the call. I took a moment to collect my thoughts, focusing on the gruesome scene that I was sure to endure soon. Samuel Breyer was wise from his years of working as a highly respected detective on the Homicide Team and the only police officer I knew who kept his job strictly professional. He'd been promoted to captain after the high-profile case with Charles DiLaurentis was solved five years ago. Unlike my boss, Lieutenant Tanner, Breyer treated me with respect and gave me a real chance in the Rosewood PD, putting me to work on murder investigations and criminal arrests. Since I'd joined the police force, I felt as though I'd become a part of something, that I made a difference to people. Though I'd originally become a policeman to protect Spencer, the girl I loved, I quickly found that I loved being a cop. With every kidnapping case and robbery, from riots to murder, gave me the chance to save lives. And it was my responsibility to use the training and skills I'd learned from the Harrisburg Police Academy to put the bad guys in jail.

But I did it because I was tired of not being able to protect the one person who mattered most to me in this world.

I quickly dressed, buttoning up my dark navy-blue uniform over a plain white T-shirt underneath, and combed back my short, but wavy brown hair. Then I reached into the cabinet above my bed and punched in the code of my safety lock box that held my gun, a 47mm pistol. It had the impact of twice its strength with only one purpose: to protect and serve. I clipped the holster to my belt and put my gun inside.

After pulling on my heavy, down-filled police jacket, I locked up the trailer. Lorenzo was already parked outside in his squad car, waiting for me. I opened the passenger side door and climbed into the front seat next to him. The morning traffic was surprisingly light as Lorenzo drove through the empty streets, and the sky was gray and cloudy, as if anticipating the mood of the day.

I glanced at my friend and former partner. Lorenzo looked like the kind of cop who worked out regularly, with his well-toned arms and chest and medium build. He had light-brown skin and dark brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and his black-brown curly hair was cropped. He was dressed in his usual detective uniform of a blue plaid button-down shirt and tan khaki pants. A Rosewood police badge hung around his neck. At twenty-four years old, Lorenzo was the only cop on the force that was as young as I was, but still had loads of experience. He'd transferred to the Rosewood Police Department from Pittsburg while Charles' had been keeping Spencer and her friends captive in the Dollhouse before getting promoted to detective.

By the time we arrived at the church, the police were already at the scene. Lorenzo and I stepped out of the car and made our way toward the apple-green lawn, keeping a good distance away from the exposed body. It looked to be a man from the shape, maybe in his 20s. He lay crumpled below the bell tower, the victim seeming to have jumped to his death. As I neared the corpse, my stomach dropped all the way down to my feet. A large, pale human hand was curled tightly around a small bouquet of purple flowers.

Charles' skin was a ghostly, marble-veined blue, drained completely of oxygen. Both of his eyes were frozen open in terror, glassy and lifeless. Dried blood pooled from his lips and out of his ear, and his dark blonde hair was matted stiffly with more crimson-red blood. There were big purplish welts around his neck, and on his arms and chest. The fabric of Charles' shirt, jacket, and jeans were dry, but the grass underneath his body seemed wet and cold, suggesting he'd only been like this for a few hours. I carefully moved over the corpse, making sure to keep my face half a foot away, and continued to examine the horror that I had no desire to confront. My eyes fixed on what looked like a Welby State Psychiatric Hospital identification card poking out of the jeans pocket, with a picture of Charles' face in the left corner of the glossy plastic. I detected no foul play to the fatal injuries or any tracks, and found nothing helpful within the vicinity of the area. The forensics team would have to examine the body on what the weapon might have been used to commit suicide.

I blinked, struggling to comprehend what I was seeing. I thought about how Charles had been released from Welby State Hospital just yesterday. He'd disappeared only hours after being reunited with his sister, Alison. A team of cops had scoured the entire town to search for him, but quietly. No one could know that the girls' former tormenter had escaped. All hell would break loose, and news vans would undoubtedly arrive quickly at the scene.

I could only imagine what Spencer was feeling right now. I found my thoughts drifting obsessively back to her, wondering how she was taking all this, imagining the look on her face when she heard the news. All I wanted to do was go to Spencer and comfort her. To have your tormenter being released and then mysteriously end up dead twenty-four hours was beyond disturbing.

I went over to the sprinkler's panel system and carefully knelt down to check one of them embedded into the dirt beneath the grass. The timer on the water sprinkler read 7:30 A.M. in the little small clock in the center.

After finishing my survey of the sprinklers, I stood up and looked across the lawn at Lorenzo, who was talking to a man dressed in surgical scrubs and paper booties over his shoes. A paper cap was secured around his head to catch the stray gray hairs. I assumed this had to be the coroner. He said something to Lorenzo, nodded, and moved through the group of police officers. Within seconds, white-coated medics got out of a Rosewood ambulance van with the words ROSEWOOD PD MORGUE emblazoned on the side and busily zipped up the body in a black bag fitted for corpses. Cops fluttered around the area frantically. They'd put up yellow DO NOT CROSS tape all around the perimeter of the church, trying to keep people from interrupting the crime scene.

I walked back over to Lorenzo. "The sexton found him," I informed him. "He got here for morning services. He saw the door had been forced. Checked the building, went to the bell tower, and saw the open shutter and looked down."

"Do we know what time this happened?" Lorenzo asked.

"Sprinklers are on a timer, grass under the body is wet, but his clothes are dry. Puts it between three A.M. and first light."

"Are you sure about the identification?" Lorenzo put his hands on his hips and frowned deeply at Charles' body, his limbs twisted and broken, his beautiful face vacant.

"Hospital ID card, and I saw his face," I responded, "It's Charles DiLaurentis."

Lorenzo then sent a crime scene tech to take pictures of the body, and a coroner's technician huddled over Charles to collect samples of swab evidence. One of the unpleasant aspects of my job was finding people like Charles turning up dead, knowing that he was connected to someone. But I had to put aside my ill feelings and concentrate on the investigation at hand.

"We found something," I heard a woman's voice say behind me.

I turned around and saw one of the uniformed cops that had been assigned to the crime scene. It was Corie Blake, my new partner and the newest member of the Rosewood police force. She was tall and slender, with bright emerald-green eyes, had high cheekbones, and her long cornsilk blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun.

I nodded and followed her to the back of the church building.

Jess

Later that night, I stood outside on the DiLaurentis' front porch, gazing at the stars in the night sky, hoping they'd give me some comfort. I shivered. Despite it being September, the air was chilly. The entire block was dark. I could still hear the wailing sirens from the center of town; they hadn't stopped since they found him.

A policeman had knocked on the front door earlier that evening, with a grim look on his face when he told Ali the news. Charles was dead. An officer who worked at the church had found his body outside the bell tower, presumably when he'd killed himself. Although Charles had tormented my friends and I for years, it was horrible to think that Ali's older brother would take his own life. He was her only family. And Jason's twin brother was gone forever. But then I began to feel something else I did not expect.

Relief.

Yes, it was tragic what happened to Charles, but he was still the same monster that had kidnapped and tortured my friends and I all those years ago. Charles knew all our deepest, darkest secrets, things that nobody else did, and he used them as a weapon, wielding it until his power grew stronger. Now that he was really dead, at least the nightmare was finally over. We were safe from A.

A sickening feeling of déjà vu flooded through me, remembering seven years ago when it had been Ali who went mysteriously missing just like Charles. Someone had buried Bethany Young alive, a girl who looked exactly like Ali, while Ali had been forced to leave Rosewood by Mona and was hiding from the real A. Melissa Hastings, Spencer's prim and proper older sister, confessed to Spencer that she'd killed Bethany. But to complicate things further, it had actually been Mona, thinking it was Alison. It hurt my head just to think about. I also remembered the hot anger and vengeance I'd felt towards A-as-Mona when I found out she was the one responsible for Ali's disappearance and her murder, after what we'd all thought was Ali's body that had been dug up in the backyard of her old house. A had taken away the one person that mattered most to me and I would've done anything to take her down.

After a minute, I took a deep breath and pushed open the door inside. The foyer was dark and silent. The old, tall grandfather clock made a loud ticking noise from the living room, echoing throughout the house. The pine floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I stepped onto the soft carpet of the staircase.

I tiptoed up the stairs in the darkness, my hand sliding up the railing of the banister. I kept expecting Charles to come downstairs and shout, "Surprise!" and tell us it was all just a big misunderstanding. Maybe he sleeping peacefully in his room, maybe he wasn't really dead. Ali could still have the family she'd always wanted.

But Charles never came home, and I realized with a sinking heart that he never would.

I paused at the top of the stairs and tentatively pushed open Alison's bedroom door. Emily and Dr. Rollins were murmuring quietly by Ali's perfectly made four-poster bed, while she lay slumped underneath the covers among a dozen pillows. All her clothes had been picked up off the floor and put away neatly into a brown wicker hamper, and a clear crystal vase sitting on top of the white-wood dresser held a large, beautiful bouquet of purple lilac roses. A card that said WELCOME HOME, CHARLES was propped up against the vase. The only thing missing was Charles. On the carpet were Ali's heels, kicked off for the night. A vanity dresser mirror had photographs of the girls and I stuck to the sides. But one in particular stood out.

It was of Ali and Charles at the Welby State Psychiatric Hospital the previous August. They were sitting close together on Charles' hospital bed in the private room that Ali had requested for him, with their arms wrapped around each other. Despite the fact that he had been staying there for the last five years, the two siblings had wide grins on both of their faces, looking happier than I'd ever seen them. With his tousled blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, strong, chiseled chin, the same diamond-shaped face and kissable full pink lips, Charles looked identical to Jason. It was a wonder that people didn't confuse the twins more often. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn't even know why I was crying–yes, losing a brother was devastating for Ali, but just seeing Charles' face reopened old wounds. Charles looked so startlingly like Jason.

After wiping my eyes, I gazed somberly around the silent room at Emily and Dr. Rollins, and moved over to them. Dr. Rollins was young, had kind brown eyes, high cheekbones, and he was handsomer than any doctor I'd ever seen. He was tall and lean, though the muscles in his perfectly formed chest and arms suggested he was strong, and his wavy black hair was combed back neatly from his face.

Dr. Rollins pulled the comforter over Ali, then turned to Emily and I. "Stay with her until she falls asleep."

I couldn't be sure, but he seemed a little too concerned about Ali than he needed to be, even for a doctor. I told myself he was just doing his job and being doctorly.

"We will," Emily assured him, then her eyes turned empathetic. "Are you alright?"

A tortured expression twisted his features. "If I thought there was any chance of Charles taking his own life, I...I–I would have never let him leave the hospital."

As Dr. Rollins moved to exit the room, he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You'll be fine." His eyes bored into mine, as if he could read the guilty thoughts swirling around in my head.

While Emily sat down next to Ali on her bed, I kicked off my leather ankle boots and laid back against the pillows, feeling the exhaustion seeping out of my limbs. The mattress felt soft like a cloud, and soon I felt my eyelids growing heavy.

I turned my head slightly and looked at Ali. Her eyes, red and swollen from crying, fluttered as she fell in and out of sleep. There was a black stain of running mascara on her cheek, though she still looked as flawless as ever–angled cheekbones; heart-shaped face; salmon-pink, Cupid's bow-shaped lips; loopy, golden blonde hair; and huge sapphire-blue eyes.

I sighed sleepily, burrowing my face into the other side of Ali's pillow. Then the reality sunk in. Charles will never get to come home, I thought. He's dead because of me. I squeezed my eyes shut, going over the night before when Charles had come home from the hospital. Sometime during the night, I'd heard Ali and Charles arguing downstairs about something inaudible, and then the front door slammed as though someone had stormed out of the house. I had assumed Charles was detailing his latest evil diabolical plan since his last A Game had failed and that Ali had threatened to call the cops on him. Not wanting to hear any more of it, I'd angrily shut the guest bedroom door and went back to bed with Jason, who'd already been fast asleep. But by the next morning, the cops had found his dead body and I realized my mistake.

Although Charles had been locked up in Radley for years, he'd immediately started torturing my friends and I with creepy text messages and emails, and even went so far as to trap us inside the Dollhouse for three weeks just as he had been. And while I'd drifted off to sleep in Jason's arms, I kept wishing for Charles to be gone, for this nightmare to finally be over. In my head I'd thought, If Charles was gone, then maybe we could finally have normal lives. It was like I'd willed this to happen.

The muscles around Ali's forehead loosened as she finally closed her eyes, and her breathing slowed. Ali unconsciously had clasped her fingers around mine, the way she always did when we slept in the same bed together. In the corner by the big bay window, Emily sat in Alison's Victorian tufted chair, sleeping beneath a fleece blanket.

I lifted my head and noticed Jason sleeping next to me and his arm was draped around me, both him and Ali curled against me like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I stared at them, trying to perfect the image to memory so I could see my best friend and my boyfriend like this forever, together and perfect.

"I'm sorry," I murmured to Ali.

Moisture filled my eyes. I was crying because I loved both her and Jason, and I couldn't imagine living without either of them. How could I have been so careless and stupid?

Memories of that frantic morning swarmed through my mind dizzily–Ali's panic, how angry I'd felt about Charles being released, the cop showing up on Ali's doorstep. But then another memory immediately flashed across my mind. It was four hours before Charles had been reported missing. I recalled seeing Ali and Dr. Rollins sitting close together on the couch in the living room, talking in hushed tones. I thought I'd vaguely heard Rollins say "relationship," and how uncharacteristically worried Ali had seemed. But when I tried asking them what was wrong, Ali and Rollins jumped apart as if they'd been caught doing something wrong and told me they were just worried about Charles.

Though I'd brushed it off at the time, something told me they were lying. Ali was a skilled fibber; she memorized every lie in full detail, twisting the story until she could believe it herself. But I knew the difference when she was lying and when she told the truth: the flawless mask she would compose onto her face, the slight twitch in her mouth, the way her blue eyes darkened.

But maybe I shouldn't have brushed off that morning so quickly. Maybe if I hadn't, we could've found Charles sooner, before it was too late. Because just four short hours later, the unthinkable happened.

Charles killed himself.

Spencer

That same night, I stood in the hotel lobby of The Radley, waiting for Caleb while he talked to Hanna upstairs in her suite. Only, he was taking an awfully long time, and I wondered if he had other reasons for seeing her tonight.

I paced by the elevators, wishing I was anywhere but here. Last night, after Charles had been found dead by the police, I'd immediately called Caleb, filling him in on what happened, and told him he should check on Hanna to see if she was okay. Sure, she was engaged to a great guy now, but I didn't think Jordan would be able to fully understand the way Caleb would, knowing who Charles was and what we all went through. When he arrived at the hotel, I told him I wanted to wait in the lobby until he was done. I didn't want to have to endure the awkwardness between Hanna and her ex, knowing that Caleb had never gotten over her.

I fought back the urge to roll my eyes. For the last year and a half, Caleb remained alone in New York, moping about losing Hanna to another guy, and yelled at me for not understanding his heartbreak when I tried to console him. Hanna's passion of becoming a successful fashion designer had driven a wedge between her and Caleb, with her constant traveling to France and Japan for designer collections and touring clothing boutiques all around the world. On the night Hanna and Caleb broke up, they'd gotten into a huge fight about her leaving for yet another business trip to England. Caleb was complaining about Hanna choosing her career over him. But after sitting in the cab for twenty minutes, she had a sudden change of heart and ran back to the apartment, only to find all of Caleb's stuff gone. He never came back. Hanna had called me right after, sobbing about how she blamed herself for Caleb leaving. When I insisted that it wasn't her fault, she finally calmed down enough to speak coherently. I'd talked to her the whole night, trying my best to comfort her, and even flew out to New York the next day to see her. With a stroke of luck, she met Jordan two months later, who was sweet and caring, adored her, and supported her career above all else.

I hated that Caleb was here. I hated that I had to see him. But since he had nowhere else to go and my mother felt sorry for him, she hired Caleb to be her web designer for her campaign and moved him into the barn.

I stopped pacing and pulled out my phone, typing in a new text message to Toby:

I need to see you again. I miss you. Can you come to the funeral? I need you there. I'm absolutely terrified and I know Ali needs my support, but I don't know how I can handle going to the funeral alone.

A hot, uncomfortable feeling swelled in my stomach. Alison's brother had committed suicide. He was dead. As much as I distrusted and loathed him, I never imagined he'd actually try to hurt himself. I didn't want this for Ali, and tomorrow was Charles' funeral. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was going through. If that had been Toby…

Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn't want to think about what it would be like to go to the funeral without him. I needed him there with me. I needed Toby to hold my hand, to talk to me and comfort me when I would start to cry.

My iPhone vibrated, startling me. I had a new text from Toby.

I would love to come. I'll see what I can do, and I don't want you to feel scared.

My heart fluttered gleefully, stopped, and then sped up. Before I could write a reply to him, I heard someone approaching and looked up. I didn't see where he had come from, but suddenly Caleb was there, standing in front of me. Flushing, I quickly shoved my phone back into my jeans pocket.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Complicated," he said.

Only because you make it complicated, I wanted to say. "Yeah. That's why I wanted to stay down here."

Caleb met my eyes. "Thanks for calling me. I appreciate it."

"I'm really glad that you are here," I lied. Sometimes I really didn't like Caleb. He broke Hanna's heart and was always so pushy with me, but he was the only person I had right now.

He turned away, seeming uncomfortable, and looked around the hotel. "It's, uh, kinda strange what they did to this place, huh?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's like cultural amnesia."

Caleb smiled. "Yeah, well, people get do-overs, why shouldn't buildings?"

He started toward the entrance doors, but made no move to leave me. "Can I walk you home?" he asked, his gaze intense.

"Um, that's okay," I responded. "I like walking alone."

Caleb raised one eyebrow at me skeptically, looking as if he didn't believe me. "In this town? C'mon, I'll walk you home."

"No, really, I'm fine," I insisted. "But thanks anyway." Before he could try to convince me, I pushed through the double-wooden doors and walked out into the cold, night air.

When I finally stepped inside the barn that night, it was dark and dead silent. The door to Jason and Jess' room was closed, but neither of their cars were in the driveway. I'd felt uneasy walking through Rosewood's dark streets, feeling the strong, disturbing sense that someone was following me. But when I looked over my shoulder, all I could see were dark shadows from the trees.

My mind kept going back to Charles, thinking about the way he was found, and I shuddered. He was just left there to rot. I paused at the threshold, feeling as though someone was watching me. I stared into the woods that spread out in front of me. A branch snapped somewhere nearby, followed by some strange rusting in the bushes. I whirled around towards the sound, my heart pounding.

I squinted hard through the trees, straining to see, but the sky was pitch black. Then I caught movement hidden behind the cloak of some oaks a few feet away. A guy with familiar dark hair stood there motionless, just watching me. I blinked. Was that…Caleb? But when I looked for the guy's figure, he was gone. My stomach twisted with anxiety and fear prickled on the back of my neck. Clearly my eyes were playing tricks on me.

I blew out a long breath between my lips, trying to calm myself. After locking the door behind me, I tossed my keys onto the kitchen island in a haze, my feet dragging as I went to bed. I undressed slowly in my room, stripping down to my bra and a pair of light-pink, lacy cheeky panties.

I collapsed onto my bed and snuggled into the cloudlike-fluffy pillow, too tired to pull the thick comforter over me. And when my breathing began to slow, the shapes and dark shadows of the big bedroom faded away.

Tuesday morning, I stood in the high-ceilinged, stained-glass building of the Rosewood church. I smoothed my hands nervously over the fabric of my off-shoulder, black bodycon dress. Today was Charles' funeral and Alison's relatives were filtering in through the double doors, trying to find seats in the wooden pews. I hadn't expected to see so many people here. The church smelled like incense and wood. A vintage candle chandelier hung from the peaked ceiling, and the altar was adorned with purple lilac roses and a large framed portrait of Charles sat in the center. It was the same flowers Charles had in his hand when his body was found. I remembered seeing Ali putting together a bouquet of them from her front yard the day he came home.

I scanned the crowd for Toby, and my eyes fell on his familiar blue ones. Relief washed through me. He was standing in the doorway, looking devastatingly handsome in a black suit. It hadn't occurred to me until now that it made him look older.

"Spencer, over here."

I looked over and spotted Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Ali, sitting in the front row pew. Next to them were Jess and Jason. Hanna was waving me over, the diamond in her engagement ring reflecting off the stained glass window like a rainbow-colored prism.

I barely heard her, too distracted by Toby. I continued to stare at him, unable to take my eyes off him. When he walked toward me, my heart pounded.

Toby pulled me into a hug. "How are you?" he whispered in my ear.

"I've been better," I sighed. I squeezed him back, holding onto him extra tight. People streamed around the two of us as Toby held me in his arms.

As he stroked my hair, I buried my face into the crook of his neck for comfort. Toby smelled of the same delicious scent–of leather and sandalwood. Almost immediately, it brought back a flood of memories: Riding on the back of Toby's motorcycle with him, sneaking into his truck for our many steamy make out sessions, waking up next to him at his loft after spending the night with him.

I finally pulled back and I looked at him vulnerably. "Will you sit with me?"

Toby smiled at me sweetly. "Of course I will."

My whole body buzzed with delight as he took my hand in his, leading me down the aisle. We sat down in the pew between Hanna and Emily. Hanna was stunning beyond belief in a black dress, tight to her calves where it flared into a train, with a keyhole-style neckline that plunged to her chest and wore diamond stud earrings. Hanna always had to stand out, even a funeral. Emily wore a short black V-neck dress and silver heels. Aria, on the other hand, looked sophisticated in a short-sleeved, black lithe sheath dress with a sheer mesh neckline across the front of her collarbone and shoulders. Ali was striking in a black, lace A-line dress that fell above her knees, with a belt around her waist, and had on strappy black sandal-heels. At the end of the pew were Jess and Jason, their fingers entwined. Jason was flawless in a black funeral suit and black tie, and his tousled golden blonde hair was combed back. Jess was wearing a cropped black cardigan over a black lace-corset dress, and her long dark hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck with a hair clip.

The girls and Jason sat quietly for a few minutes. Hanna was twirling a gold ring on her index finger, Aria was fumbling around in her clutch, Emily was biting her lip, Jess was leaning her head against Jason's shoulder, and Ali was sitting very still, staring at Charles' open coffin.

I peered over my shoulder at the crowd. Near the door, sitting in one of the back rows was Caleb and Ezra. I saw Sasha, Payton, and Josh walking down the aisle before sliding into the pew next to them, two of Jess' close friends from home. They grew up with Jess when she lived in Ohio, and Sasha even used to visit Ali with Jess every summer in Rosewood. I hadn't seen them in years and was surprised to feel a sharp pang in my chest, realizing how much I'd missed them. I wondered if Sasha was still as sarcastic and headstrong as ever, if Josh was still the same shy, sweet boy next door, or if Payton was still guarded, yet self-righteous.

As I stared at them, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Caleb caught my gaze and stared at me with wide eyes, and his lips twitched into a small, sinister smile. I quickly looked away.

Toby seemed to sense my discomfort and threaded his fingers through mine, sending an electric current through my body. I was filled with a sudden impulse to kiss his neck. The overpowering craving to touch him was overwhelming, and it took all the strength I had inside to fight against it. I tried telling myself it was just hormones, that this was happening because I hadn't seen him in so long, but the words sounded like a lie even to me. With Toby's thigh touching mine, I was filled with a longing for him to touch me somewhere other than my hand, to stroke up my thigh, and then reach father up…

Suddenly, the somber pipe organ began its dreary music, breaking us out of the enchantment, though Toby continued to stroke my hand. He started to play with my fingers, rubbing them lovingly in between his the way he used to. I wasn't sure whether that made me feel happy or heartbroken.

"This isn't happening," Aria murmured in disbelief.

We all turned around in our seats to see what Aria was looking at. I scanned the familiar faces of Ali's relatives, and then I saw someone walking slowly down the center aisle with an aide. It was worse than I'd feared.

Oh my God.

It was Sara Harvey. She was as gorgeous as ever, wearing a black mesh-striped dress similar to the one Ali wore at her mother's funeral, and her cropped, pale blonde hair was concealed by a black veil. Sara caught me staring and she narrowed her accusatory eyes at me darkly. I quickly tore my eyes away.

After the service, Jason and my friends filed out of the pew. Toby waited for me as I stood up and he took my hand again, and we walked through the heavy wooden doors that led to the church's crumbling stone steps. We left the procession and joined Aria, Hanna, Emily, and Jess, who were huddled by the front of the church. A knowing look crossed Jess' features when she saw Toby and I approach, a tiny smile splaying across her lips.

Suddenly, Toby stopped, looking as though he wanted to say something. I stopped, too, wanting to tell him, more than anything, how much I'd missed him all theses years and that I still loved him. Before I could even form the words, however, Caleb sided up next to me from the church's front steps.

"I'm going to bring the car," he told me, and rested his hand on my back, slowly moving down below my waist.

I cringed away from him slightly. The way Caleb was touching me made me very uncomfortable, and his tone was too possessive.

Toby clenched his jaw and stepped in front of me protectively. "I'll be taking her home."

Caleb's eyes flickered to mine and back to Toby's, and then his mouth tightened into a thin line. Finally, he walked away toward the back of the church to the parking lot.

I followed the girls' gazes to Sara standing at the curb, waiting for her driver to pick her up. An unsettling, anxious feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. It was clear in her twisted, sour expression that Sara still blamed us for her hand injuries.

Aria paled. "What is she doing here?" She looked like she was going to throw up.

"Making sure that Charles is really dead," Emily answered.

"Really, most sincerely dead," I added.

"Let's go," Hanna announced after a moment.

But before we could take two steps, a tall, dark-haired cop walked in front of us. It was Lorenzo Calderon, Toby's former partner in the Rosewood Police Department, who had now just recently been promoted to detective.

"Hello," he said politely.

"Lorenzo," Hanna said, sounding surprised. "How are you?"

"Alright. Under the circumstances." His expression turned serious. "I was wondering what your plans are for the next couple of days. If you're going to stay in Rosewood."

"Why?" Emily asked.

"It'd make it easier if you'd stay," Lorenzo answered.

I frowned at him. "Make what easier?"

"We have an autopsy report on Charles DiLaurentis. Charles was dead when he was thrown from the bell tower," Lorenzo said.

I peeked a glance at Toby, but he looked just as stunned. I remembered how much he'd wanted the detective job and how important it was to him. Two months after we'd broken up, Toby and I slowly fell back into a tentative friendship, though every time I heard his voice, a little piece of my heart broke. But then he told me he was thinking of applying for an open position at the police station as a detective. I'd been genuinely ecstatic for him, encouraging him to go for it. Which only made what he'd said a few days later that much worse. The detective position ended up going to Lorenzo instead, and because Tanner didn't think Toby was equipped enough at solving important cases quickly, he didn't get the promotion. Toby sounded defeated on the other end of the phone when he finally told me, but before I could try to comfort him, he'd made an excuse about needing to go to bed early and hung up.

Jess widened her eyes in shock. "Thrown?"

"The death's been ruled a homicide, yeah. You'll get a call." Then Lorenzo turned and walked away.

Once he was out of earshot, a panicked, scared expression passed over Hanna's face and I knew what she was thinking: That Sara Harvey murdered Charles. She'd known for a long time who A was before we did and had even helped him torment us, even after he'd set a bomb inside the old Radley building to kill everyone. Sara hated my friends and I for what happened to her hands. So of course she killed Charles. She wanted to ruin our lives.

I looked at Hanna. "Don't go there."

"Spencer, we've lived there for a long time," she responded. "It's not like it's a long commute."

"I wanna go home," Emily said.

Everyone looked up nervously at the towering church, where Charles had been murdered just hours before. A sickening feeling settled over me. With a sinking heart, I turned back to the girls.

"We are home," I said tonelessly.