Sorry I haven't written in so long! I've been really busy. Hopefully this long chapter will make up for it...? I should post the next chapter sometime over the weekend, but school is starting back in a few days, so it might take a while...

Enjoy!

ByTheBlyGirl :3

14

Aria walked down the hallways with one of her arms tightly at her side, the other one holding a book, tense. New classmates were bustling around her, bumping into her, mistaking her small frame for one of a freshman's. She took a deep breath and tried to work her way to her locker, but only seconds before she reached it, she stumbled over her own little brown booties. Two strong, almost-bronze-colored arms darted to her and lifted her up right before she hit the ground.

"Thanks, Noel," she said, giving her boyfriend a kiss on the cheek.

Noel smiled. "No problem. The hallways are always tough on the first day." He paused, grinned, and added. "Especially when you're as small as you are." He gently pulled her closer, by her elbows, and gave her a long kiss, just proving his point.

Aria let go and punched him in the arm, rolling her eyes. She stepped beside him and put her combo into the lock of her locker. Noel picked up the book she had dropped and put it into her locker.

"Do you have lacrosse after school?" Aria asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Do you wanna go out to dinner tomorrow and catch the new Transformers movie?"

"Sure," Aria agreed. She smiled, regardless of the fact that she hated movies where electronic machines turned into weird, mechanical aliens, or, to be less specific, movies that Noel liked.

"Well, see you tomorrow," he said. He flashed his signature smile, the pearly-white, toothy, Noel-Kahn smile.

"I wonder about that boy," Emily joked. She appeared right next to Aria, who was still smiling.
"That Boy?" Aria laughed, but her smile quickly faded as the rest of her group appeared and reminded her of the horror that had happened earlier that day. "Are you guys busy today?"

"I'm going back to the swim team tomorrow morning," Emily murmured.

"Congrats!" Aria said. "I know that you missed it all summer."

Emily nodded half-heartedly, not really sure if she missed it or if she dreaded going back to the water tomorrow. She was going to be seriously behind, but she had to put herself into shape quickly if she wanted to get a scholarship.

"I'm going to your house after school," Hanna said to Aria. "To meet Mike."

"I don't know if I'm ever going to get used to you saying that," Aria chuckled. She felt her cheeks get a little bit warm, remembering the awkward moment only a few days ago when she had walked into her own living room to find Hanna and Mike making out on her couch. She was pretty sure that she'd been traumatized.

Hanna blushed when Aria stared at her, obviously sharing that memory. Emily and Spencer giggled. As if on queue, Mike waltzed up to the girls, his backpack hanging slightly off of his shoulder.

"Hey," Mike greeted the girls. He looked to Hanna. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, can you give me a minute? I'll be out there in a sec." Hanna looked at Mike, then the girls, and he nodded. Mike shoved his backpack more up his shoulder and started out the door. Hanna waited until after he had left, and then said, "So..."

"So...?" Aria said. "What are we going to do? Meet Wilden?"

"But then we'll have to tell him about the Naomi and Riley Thing," Emily said quickly.

"Maybe we should just tell him," Aria suggested.

"No!" Spencer exclaimed. "No one. Will know. About the Naomi and Riley Thing. No one." She looked at Aria. "Agreed?"

The girls all nodded, each of one of them with a look of remorse and worry on their faces. Aria didn't feel good about it, though. She didn't want to keep any more secrets from the police.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Hanna asked. "Can we go over to your house, Spence?"

"Sure," Spencer said. "Tomorrow morning."

The girls all parted ways, and Aria started towards her dented Subaru, but, to Aria's fury and disagreement, her phone rang. Not bleeped, but rang. Aria supposed that it was from someone in her family, but the little paranoid part of her felt chilly and shrill.

Reaching into her purse, she found her phone. The number said RESTRICTED.

Aria pressed the end button. She didn't want to know who was calling, on the off chance that it was the creepy texter from early this morning, but just as she put her phone into her purse, it rang again. She let it ring twice before she pressed the end button again and stopped it. The third time it called again, she finally answered it.

"Hello?" she said into the phone. No answer. "Hello?"

Goosebumps rose on her arms as a robotic voice answered. "I will hurt you. I will hurt all of you if you try to rat me out. I am close. Very close. I could make it hurt a lot." The voice didn't sound like a real voice. It sounded automatic, like someone had typed in what it was supposed to say. Every word was halted and scratchy, not really going together. "I know your secret, Aria. I will tell your boyfriend what happened over the summer. I will ruin you."

Aria felt like she was choking. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. After the voice stopped and clicked, Aria tried calling it back to see if someone would answer again, but an automated woman said that the number no longer existed.

She tried taking steady breaths, but couldn't. The person on the other end had known about what happened over the summer—the thing that Aria swore that she'd never tell Noel. She didn't want to hurt him.

So she made up her mind not to tell the others.