"Hello?" Noel answered on the first ring.

"Hey Noel, it's me.." I answered.

"Aria where have you been? I have been trying to get ahold of you all day and.."

"We need to talk."

"What is it."

I looked up to see Hanna holding flashcards with different things to say. She snatched the phone from me and hit speaker.

"Aria?" Noel said from the other line.

I felt frozen and couldn't think of anything to say. Hanna tossed a flashcard at me. I picked it up and without thinking read it out loud.

"Noel, I feel that we have been growing apart in the past while and I think it might be best if, oh Noel this is so hard for me and I realize it must be hard for you too. Please know that there will always be a part of me that cares about you. Believe me when I say this is for the best. Goodbye." I realized only too late that my voice was monotone like a robot and had no feeling at all, "Hang up phone." I read from the flashcard. Emily hung up as Mike hit his head.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" Hanna laughed, "I wonder what was going through Noel's head as you said Hang Up Phone!"

I pushed her off the bed. She started rolling around laughing on the floor and Mike started nudging her with his foot. We sat there like that for a while until I heard a beep come from my bag. I pulled my phone out of my backpack and saw I had one new email. I read through it and saw that a university in California that I had applied to years ago had sent me a scholarship.Suddenly the other girls phones beeped too. We all looked at each other and I realized they had all gotten one too. I drifted away when I remembered years ago when Ali was still alive. (We had agreed on Courtney being called Ali and Alison called Alison.)

"It'll be so fun girls!" Ali giggled as we filled out application forms. "We can share an apartment and go to university together! If they accept us we have to go, promise?"

We had all promised. What Ali wanted us to do, we did. We looked at each other.

"I'm going to go." I said, "It has a good art program and maybe Ezra can move down there with me. Also it's further away and so Ella and Byron wouldn't visit as often, giving me more time to figure out how to tell them."

"I'm going to go too," Spencer decided, "I was looking at Harvard but that's even further away from here and I would rather be closer to Andrew. Also they have some pretty advanced classes."

"I have nothing holding me back here," Emily added.

"What are you guys talking about?" Mike interrupted.

"University," I said, "In California."

"California? You're not going to go, are you Hanna?"

"Visit me?" Hanna asked.

"You're going?"

"I feel like I need to stick with the girls. Either way I made a promise years ago that if they accepted me I would go. The semester doesn't start for a while, we still have time together."

Mike turned to me, "Aria you're lucky! Your boyfriend doesn't have to worry about university and he can move wherever you go to."

"Yah, I guess I am pretty lucky." I realized.

Hanna's mom knocked on the door. "What's this I hear about California?" she asked.

"Mom," Hanna said nervously, "I'm going to go to University in California."

"California? When will I see you?"

"You could visit, right?"

"We better go to leave you guys to talk about it," Emily said standing up.

"Yah," I agreed with her, "besides I better go tell Ezra, I mean my mom, about this." I looked nervously at Hanna's mom to see if she'd noticed my slip, I didn't want anyone who might tell my parents knowing yet. Luckily Hanna's mom was too busy talking with Hanna to notice. I walked out the door and got in my car driving off to Ezra's apartment.