"Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."

–R.D. Laing

Chapter 3: Spencer

"I don't belong there!" Spencer Hastings yelled at her deaf parents. "It was one time, one time!"

Suddenly, Mr. Hastings pulled to the side and braked the car, turning to Spencer. "Your mother and I both know that you've had problems like this before, Spencer," he said through gritted teeth. "And it's never just one time."

In the passenger seat, Mrs. Hastings bit her lip silently. Her eyes were puffy from crying practically the entire ride to the hospital.

Spencer grappled for the right words for seconds, almost screaming out in frustration. Instead, she reiterated for the fifth time that hour, "Why won't you just listen to me?"

This time, it was Spencer's parents who looked defeated. She'd worn them down; now they definitely thought she was crazy. "We're doing this for your own good, Spence." It was Mrs. Hastings first words since the other night, when they attempted to have a civilized, calm conversation with Spencer about admitting her to Radley to get over her drug addiction. But they should have known that was impossible, because what sane child wouldn't act out when their parents planned on shipping them off to a mental institution to drink liquefied dinners out of straws because they were strapped to the bed?

That was a bit dramatic, even for Spencer, to think of. She could picture what Radley was really going to be like: she'd be bunched up with the other addicted kids, and they'd have group therapy sessions where they blabbed about their feelings and cravings for drugs and blah, blah, blah. It wasn't going to be the first drug addiction meeting she'd been to. Except this one will be in an insane asylum.

When they reached Radley, Spencer stomped out of the car and waved off her parents' help with her bags. She stormed into Radley, not allowing the orderlies to help her with her things either, and commanded the waiting nurse to take her to her room now as her parents finished the paperwork. She refused to satisfy them with a proper goodbye, or any goodbye at all.

"Here in Radley, we don't always group people with similar problems together in rooming," she explained to Spencer as they walked down an empty hallway that reminded Spencer of jail. "We'd never let people with seriously critical conditions room with anyone." She saw Spencer's worried face and reassured, "Don't worry, dear, the ones battling the worst maladies are all kept on the third and fourth floors. The first two floors are all for those battling milder conditions, and though I can't say they're not serious, I can promise that none of them are violent or dangerous. Anyway." They rounded a corner, and for the first time since she entered this dreary place, there was a patient exiting their room with another, probably their roommate. They giggled and raced away in the other direction. "Aria, your roommate, is a sweet girl. Can't say she's the model patient… She's had some outbursts, but those were years ago. She's been here for a while, so I'm hoping she can help you settle in."

Aria? That wasn't a name you heard every day. It tickled Spencer's brain, and she clenched her teeth. Why did that name seem familiar? Did she know an Aria?

The nurse knocked on a door and opened it; it was unlocked. Somehow, Spencer's feet led her into what was going to be her new bedroom for the next—well, who knew how long—despite Spencer's brain screaming for her to turn around and run away. She wasn't addicted to drugs; she just needed to concentrate for a couple hours.

With trembling hands Spencer plopped her belongings on the empty side of the room as the nurse told her when dinner was for her "unit." Yeah, right—Spencer wished she was with the addicts. It would sure be better to be with people she understood—people drawn to a couple pills to make it through a day without collapsing—than whatever psycho this roommate was going to be.

Glancing at the other bed across the room, Spencer padded over to it and noticed three dolls lined up neatly on the pillow, sitting as though they were waiting for their mother to return. One had a poofy, Victorian-style dress and long, black curls and piercing blue eyes; the other was blond, tiny, with green eyes and a plain pink dress. The last one looked custom made, unique; it had a black dress that resembled the one Christina Ricci wore as Wednesday Addams, with golden hazel eyes and pink streaks in straight, dark chocolate hair. Its bow-shaped lips were crafted in a small frown, too sad for a children's toy. It was certainly unusual.

"Her name is Mona."

Spencer spun around, dropping the special doll, which landed on the bed and, thank goodness, not the floor. In the doorway stood the person who Spencer assumed was her roommate, a girl her age in a beige robe and slippers. Her hair was the same color as the one on the doll, but lacked the pink streaks; in fact, her face was eerily similar to the doll Spencer was just studying.

Aria. Squinting, Spencer's brain raked around her soupy brain, aching and pounding from what she assumed were withdrawal symptoms, and then poof! It came to her.

It was the third grade. Eight-year-old Spencer Hastings was playing hopscotch alone. For some reason, the gifted group of friends she'd made the beginning of the year would rather dare get a spot on a swing (in spite of being perfectly aware that the swings were the sacred ground of the bossy, know-it-all fourth graders) than stay on the sidelines with Spencer. Sighing sadly, she finished one round and glanced around the playground. There was a blonde girl in her grade sitting near the school doors nibbling at chips and pretzels, alone just like Spencer. Another girl from her grade, darker skin and black hair, huffed and puffed in an attempt to keep up with the sporty fourth graders who were hazing her for the swim team next year.

Then there was the girl, tiny for her age, sitting cross-legged under a willow tree. She was playing with three dolls. Her hair was curled and some of it was pulled back into a pink bow. It appeared like she was reenacting a tea party with invisible porcelain.

Suddenly, a nasty blonde girl known to be an angel around the adults and the devil's spawn around kids in her grade and below her, bothered to approach her and grab one of her dolls. From her spot, Spencer could hear her taunting the tiny girl, who did nothing but watch sullenly as she was berated for no reason. Then the blonde popped the head right off the doll and threw it at the fence. As she strutted away triumphantly, decapitated doll body in hand, Spencer could see the sad, lonely glimmer in the tiny girl's teary eyes shift to something darker, more hollow.

In mesmerizing fascination, Spencer watched, shivering, as the tiny girl picked up the sketchpad that was sitting next to her and whacked it over the blonde girl's head. Spencer waited in terror for her to keep bashing it over and over, but after the blonde stumbled and scraped her elbow, the tiny girl just stood there, sketchpad over her head, eyes emotion-less and black—and then she dropped it, and in an instant her eyes were a shimmering hazel again, and she began to cry. "I didn't do it!" Spencer could hear her sob as a couple teachers led her away.

After that, Spencer didn't see that girl for a couple days. The blonde whined and complained about the miniscule (more like nonexistent) bump on her head.

The tiny girl returned the next Monday. Everyone whispered in the hallway when she passed, new sketchpad and only one doll, the one she had to fix after it was brutally severed, in her arms. She walked with no care that she was being gossiped about.

And Spencer, bold Spencer, asked her to sit with her at lunch. She didn't talk much, but to Spencer it was better than eating alone. She blabbed to the tiny girl—Aria—about her boring tutoring sessions after school.

Then the blonde bully with the overly bandaged scrape on her arm hovered over them with a thundercloud over her head. Sitting down next to Aria, Spencer stopped breathing. But instead of the blonde shoving her or slapping her, she leaned over and whispered something in her ear that Spencer couldn't hear.

Just like before, Aria's eyes just cast down and she looked like she was about to cry as the blonde got up proudly and left. Spencer reached out across the table to grab her new friend's hand—she couldn't help but notice how the sketchpad Aria had been carting for a few days was still blank—but she backed off when that same sinister expression crossed Aria's face.

To end a long story, the blonde got attacked again, but this time her hair was pulled as she was pinned down. Again, Aria cried that she didn't do it. Spencer never saw Aria again. Eventually people turned her into a Rosewood Elementary School legend and called her "The Disappearing Devil in Disguise."

The nickname later changed to just plain "Ghost Girl," because some people truly believed she was just a vengeful spirit doing justice in the world by attacking Alison DiLaurentis, and had left once she'd done her job.

Traveling back to the present, Spencer shook her head and rubbed the area between her eyebrows. "You must be Aria," she said, deciding not to bring up the past. "I'm Spencer."

Aria sat on her bed and tenderly put her doll back where it was before. "Welcome to Radley, the only place in the state of Pennsylvania that will keep you here until you're dead."

Gulping, Spencer's skin went cold. "W-what do you mean?"

Shrugging her shoulders as though it was no big deal, Aria leaned back, propping herself with her hands. "They make you feel like you're worse than you actually are, break you until you believe it too—and I know you don't believe you belong here, Spencer, because no one who first comes in here does—but your parents keep visiting telling you that this way, you'll get better. I'm sure your parents gave you that spiel, right?" Spencer nodded. "Then, gradually, your parents stop visiting, and then it's just your brother, but that doesn't matter because he's being sent off to boarding school five states away anyway—and now the only person who willingly comes to visit you wants to pick your brain and make sense of all this. Trust me, Spence. By the time you should be done here, you'll never leave, because there will be no reason for you to." Glancing Spencer up and down, she added, "Your addiction problems will be nurtured here rather than chased away. Be prepared to swallow your pills every night."

Shaking, Spencer swallowed back her building tears and croaked, "I-it was just for a couple tests, that's it."

"And now it's for a lifetime." A bell rang in the hallway, signaling meal time. Brushing off some lint on her robe, Aria stood up and put a clammy hand on Spencer's shoulder. "Here in Radley, we get worse together. Don't worry too much, Spence. At least you'll have me." And she left, leaving a chilly breeze in her departure that made Spencer's knees give out. It was ironic, really: even though Aria said they had each other, she left Spencer that first day on the icy, concrete floor in a panic attack. She couldn't tell if her consistent trembling was from withdrawal or absolute fear that Aria was right—that she was never going to make it out.

And never had Spencer wanted drugs more than then.

Later, Aria apologized to Spencer for scaring her. She explained she was just crabby and pessimistic that day because she'd been there for ten years and still didn't know any more about her other personality than she did when she was admitted.

That first night, Spencer laid awake and stared out the barred windows while clenching the sheets in her fist. Her body cried out for prescription relief. She glanced over at Aria's sleeping form, peaceful.

Maybe she and Aria were more alike than she originally thought; maybe her eight-year-old self was right in befriending her.

Because as much as Aria had to fight with what she couldn't see or understand, Spencer had to battle with the same confusion. The only difference was that Spencer still had hope of leaving and living out her senior year.

Ten years ago, a little girl was deprived of a childhood Spencer realized she was lucky enough to have in spite of its intense lows. And she needed something to distract her from her dry mouth, headaches, and screaming muscles.

What better way than to find a way to return that little girl to the outside world?