Chapter 17: The Reveal

The doll was abandoned by the three syllables Mona had spoken: "Everything."

After that, everything to Aria felt like it was happening in slow motion: she dropped the doll, stumbled up onto her feet, and looked into the dark eyes that she'd trusted for most of her time here. "Don't wait."

And Mona, being as mysterious as she always had been, clasped her hands in front of her with her chin held high—and stepped methodically to the window, staring out of it. "Cut the drama, Mona!" Aria yelled loud enough that her echo shouted it back for emphasis.

A sly smirk turned up the corner of Mona's lips, but she still faced the moonlight. "I can't believe you never figured it out."

Aria could feel her hands trembling from their wrists. She attempted to keep her tough front, but she could sense her mind slipping. "Figured what out?"

If Mona hadn't appeared like a villain before, she certainly looked like one now. She turned away from the moonlight so that she could sternly gaze into Aria—and that's when it hit her, only a few milliseconds before Mona said:

"I'm A."

…

It was the third grade. Eight-year-old Rosewood Elementary School student—designated outcast, artist, and big sister—Aria Montgomery was walking home with her sketchbook in hand and halted to see the sun attempting to reach out between the spring leaves flourishing the branches. If only she could draw it, she thought. But it was a better picture done with a camera or a paintbrush. She moved on.

But then the squirrel chewing on a tree nut was an interesting image—after all, many people could see squirrels scavenging, but it was less common to see them working at cracking open a walnut.

She was halfway through her sketch, her brain churning over how to properly design the tail, when an obnoxious laugh pulled her out of her creativity. But before she could see who it was, the blonde knocked into her shoulder, and the laws of physics prompted her to collapse on the sidewalk—directly on the wrist she'd been drawing with.

There was a snap like the squirrel had scurried up the tree and broken a twig or two, and Aria was dazzled. The snap—it had to be her pencil, which was split in half. The blonde, Alison DiLaurentis, had only meant to startle her, bother her—but not seriously hurt her.

Because what Alison noticed before Aria did was the strange angle of her hand in its socket. Like any young child, when Aria realized this, she began to cry. To protect her dignity from the outside world, Alison rushed away. Thankfully, Aria's sobs-turned-screams prompted one of the neighborhood families to peek out their window.

The results came back in vain: Aria, at only eight years of age, could never express her talent—and only friend—again.

As the story went, Aria attacked Alison a couple times before being taken out of school. Spencer was the only one to notice. Byron and Ella, Aria's parents, were concerned about the frightening fit their daughter had expressed the day she got her cast removed, but didn't think it was serious until the attacks happened. Away to Radley Aria went—for her own good.

The tests—or experiments, as Aria liked to call them; she didn't mind being a guinea pig so much with the loss of her artistic dreams—were simple at first. Ink blots, tests she wasn't even aware were being done when she was only answering the psychiatrist's questions. Usual routine. But then she was diagnosed—"multiple personality disorder," the doctor had uttered to her parents like he was the diagnosing the girl from The Exorcist with possession—and then came the white rooms, hypnosis, even shock therapy. Her parents were aware that Radley was outdated; but they couldn't afford to put her anywhere else.

"How do you know I have multiple personality disorder?" she asked her therapist one day. The doctor set her pen aside and smiled like she was the principal of a school praising an honors student.

"You blank out for long periods of time," she explained, "and you can't seem to remember them. You act differently, too; you don't answer to your name. You won't give us a name when we ask…" On and on she went. And that's when Aria realized: at least the white room had proven something.

It wasn't until a couple years later that Aria was granted a roommate—finally. Everyone else had one, she'd started to whine. Why can't I have one? The doctors would respond that her condition was too severe and ambiguous for her to room with anyone just yet. But Mona entered her life like a gift for being without a friend and passion.

"Thank you so much for the roommate!" she'd practically exclaimed to her psychiatrist the following day. Unbeknownst to Aria, her doctor scribbled and starred a note, before lying, "You're very welcome. What do you think of your roommate?"

"She's amazing!" Aria had gone on. "But she doesn't like it when I talk about her to other people. I guess she's just shy."

"Does she have a name?"

And Aria, as though she'd been possessed by something hiding inside her, answered, "That's a secret."

It dawned on Aria that none of the Radley doctors have ever asked her for a name other than her own—they only told her that she didn't respond to the question she couldn't remember them asking, making her possessed by the aggressive parasite that was Mona more often that she'd originally thought.

That didn't matter now, though—because now, Aria knew everything she'd ever wanted to know.

…

When Aria was on the cusp of turning fifteen, Mona had been able to smuggle in a couple of fireworks they would set off after sneaking outside later. "For my best friend," she'd said lovingly, and Aria felt her heart grow an inch thicker from the luck she had with such a kind roommate.

A week prior, a new girl named Bethany had been admitted. She and Aria had started talking when Bethany appeared in her group therapy session. As it turned out, Bethany was just like Aria: split in half. Except Bethany was much more fixable, as she rambled to Aria about her other self, Sara, and how she felt like the drugs they'd put her on were already working.

It was the night before Aria's birthday when Aria, who was enjoying a book about a Greek demi-god boy, was interrupted by a semi-groan, semi-scream from Mona. "What's wrong?" she inquired. She knew that Mona had some anger issues she had to work out; that was why she was at Radley.

"It's that stupid Bethany girl!" Mona growled, chewing into her bottom lip. "Aren't I your best friend?"

Aria dog-eared her page and set the book aside. "Of course."

"Then why are you hanging out with her?"

"Can I not talk to other people?"

Mona only sneered and crawled into her bed.

A couple hours ticked by, and suddenly Aria was panting, jogging up a stairwell. "Bethany, stop!" she cried out, almost able to grab her new friend's arm—but missing. "She won't hurt you!"

"Of course she will!" Bethany screamed in panic, darting through the door that led to the roof.

"Wait!" Aria shrieked, and halted before the last couple flights of stairs to catch her breath for a few seconds. Then, preparing to sprint again, she was startled by another figure: Mona.

And she was holding a knife.

"Up," Mona snarled, jutting the knife close to Aria's back and forcing Aria to do exactly what she was planning to do in the first place.

When Aria burst onto the roof, she yelled, "Bethany! Stop, please!"

"Forget that bitch," Mona ordered, and Aria's shoulders sunk out of their sockets. The roof was quiet; where was the girl who'd just run up here to escape her own self?

"What do you want, Mona?" Aria spat. She was getting more than fed up with Mona lately.

But her anger dissipated into fear when Mona's infamous smirk crinkled the corners of her lips. "For you to choose." And instead of ending Aria with a violent death by Mona's own accord, Mona handed Aria the knife.

Mona pointed to the left side of her chest. "End it, please."

"Wha—" Aria held the knife, discombobulated, and was about to ask more in-depth questions when a blood-curdling scream rung out.

Dropping the knife, Aria snapped out of Mona's trance and was going to run to the sound—if Mona hadn't grabbed her first. "Don't you dare."

"I don't know what you're asking, Mona!" Aria yelled, and almost cracked Mona's wrist by how aggressively she shook herself off.

Rounding the corner, Aria skidded on her heels to stop herself from accidentally running into Bethany—and pushing her off the ledge. "Bethany, wait!"

But Bethany's hands convulsed as they held each other, and she couldn't see through through her blurry tears. "Sara doesn't want me anymore," she whispered, and took one step forward—

"Wait!" Aria screamed again, but watched in horror as Bethany jumped—and Aria could almost see a life-like twin of Bethany smiling over the ledge.

The ambulance, cops, and Radley staff found Aria on the roof, curled up next to the door, with the knife in her hand. Mona was nowhere in sight. "My roommate was there," Aria told the investigators, but Aria blanked when they asked for a name. A nurse explained her condition to the cops, then bent down to Aria's level. "Your roommate, sweetie… She's not well. She confessed to pushing your friend. We're sending her to the fourth floor."

"But…" Aria wanted to protest that that wasn't true, that Bethany had jumped on her own accord. What happened after that, her vision went hazy.

Aria couldn't remember shedding a tear; instead, she remembered the overwhelming relief when she shut her eyes and woke up alone the next morning, a birthday cupcake waiting on her food tray. (She was bedridden for the next week.) The memory of that night faded from her, until it became the doctor's words over her own: Mona was ill. She pushed Bethany off the roof…

If it only hadn't taken Aria two years to learn that Mona's intention that night was to escape from Aria just like Bethany had jumped to escape from Sara. Then maybe Aria wouldn't have suffered for those seven-hundred-and-thirty-some days.

…

Jenna Marshall didn't speak that much. It was like Aria didn't have a new roommate at all.

"What do you think of my painting?" Jenna asked Aria, the first words she'd spoken to Aria in over a week. Aria dared to glance at the artwork that burned holes in her stomach from green envy. "It's beautiful," Aria replied automatically, returning to her book.

One night Jenna was working on placing a river into her landscape project when she saw Aria tug a box into the room. "What's that?" she asked. "How did you sneak it in? Are you sure a nurse didn't see?" Now that Aria was breaking some policies, Jenna's vocal chords were warmed up.

But Aria was unusually silent as she ripped the tape off the cardboard flaps—revealing three cartons of explosives.

"Are those bombs?" Jenna nearly shrieked, her paintbrush staining the floor with blue paint mixed with some white.

The chortle that vibrated Aria's lips was not Aria's. "Calm down. They're just fireworks."

"And what are you planning on doing with them?" Jenna began chewing her pinky nail and stepping back until her back bumped into the wall.

"Shooting them out the window, silly."

"But there are bars!"

"Shut up!"

Aria didn't remember much of anything from that night, besides Mona appearing at the doorway as Bethany, recently released from her injury treatment, burst into the scene, causing Jenna to scream. Suddenly, Aria was Aria again, and she fought with Bethany over the box when bang!

"Mona made me do it!" Bethany cried out in emotional pain as she ran out of sight, leaving Aria dazzled.

Before Aria blacked out from the smoke that overcame her lungs in the one large burst, she could hear Mona's voice tell her, "Some people are unreplaceable."

Bethany never apologized for blinding Jenna and leaving the blame to Aria. But then again, why would she—when it was Mona, disguised in Aria's skin, giving her the orders?

…

After those events, Mona stopped bothering Aria. Alison checked in to Radley, and Aria thought maybe, just maybe, her life would return to some kind of normalcy.

But then the night after Ali checked out, Aria was outside Radley. Mona led her there—and right to Alison, who was running through the woods, a shortcut to the train station.

"Alison, stop!" Aria cried out as Alison stumbled over a tree root.

Seeing Aria spotlighted by the moon's light caused Alison's nerves to jangle in her chest. "Aria? What are you—?"

"Oh, shut up." Mona stepped out from the darkness. "We're here to finish the hell you started."

"Wha—" Alison panted, putting a hand up to her chest—and finally noticed the nasty cut on her elbow. "What did I do?"

It was like Aria gained an invisible force of aggression from Mona that pushed her to step forward and growl, "You sent me to Radley, Alison. Or don't you remember the girl you pushed on the sidewalk and left with a broken wrist?"

Rather than answer, Alison bolted up onto her feet—and sprinted. Instincts flooded Aria at that moment as she picked up the pace as well, until she was able to tackle Alison onto the ground.

"Ow," Alison whined as she shoved Aria. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry! But I need to go!"

"No!" Aria snatched Alison's ankle, her body thudding onto the ground again. As she struggled against a squirming Alison, she didn't know what to say anymore. She just wanted something more, but she wasn't aware of what she would ask if Alison went limp.

"Smash her head into the rock!" Mona cheered on Aria as Aria grabbed Alison's opposite calf for a stronger hold. "Snap her ankles!"

"Not helping, Mona," Aria grumbled between clenched teeth—which Alison kicked with her converse-clad foot. "Can't you just tell me sorry and mean it, Alison? And I promise I'll never tell anyone that you were in Radley."

Alison, her face inflamed from exertion and fury, managed to kick out of Aria's hold and stand up, brushing the damp leaves off her jeans. "You're never going to get out to tell anybody," she hissed, and ran away before Aria could attack her again.

Aria gave one more chance, and it took the rest of her energy to grasp Alison's wrist—the right one, the one Alison snapped on Aria. The Mona beside Aria begged her to twist it, break it, bring her the same pain she brought onto Aria.

But Aria dropped it. After a fleeting moment of confusion and bewilderment over Aria's defeat, Alison darted between the trees until the only proof of her existence in the forest were the crunching twigs and leaves that quieted down the farther she ran.

"I told you to kill her!" Mona screeched.

"But I don't want to be you." Aria turned to face Mona. "I know what you did, Mona. You wanted to kill me. Well, I'm too nice to return the favor you didn't get to complete on me." She approached Mona so that her shoulder was nearly touching Mona's. "And I'm so over dealing with you."

It was a shame Aria didn't remember the moment Mona disappeared into rustling leaves on the ground, or maybe she would have remembered that Mona was supposed to be dead in the first place.

…

"You killed me, Aria." Mona passed for an emotional sobbing act as she stood across from a stricken Aria. "Why would you do that?"

"I-I didn't kill you!" Aria stammered. "You're still here."

Just like that, Mona dabbed her eyes with her sleeve, and she returned to the devilish smirk she was renowned for. "That's because I enjoy haunting things."

Was it that easy, Aria thought, to get rid of Mona? Shutting her eyes, she wished that Mona was gone—but Mona was still there. Never would Aria have expected to come face-to-face with her condition, or to grow close to the entity that set out to end her.

But then Aria was reminded of all she had to lose by staying in Radley—Spencer, Hanna, Emily, Ezra, Mike, her chance at another life past elementary school—and clamped her eyelids shut again. This time she clenched her fists and, when she released the pent-up tension, she reopened her eyes. "You know what, Mona?" She couldn't have been more certain about anything else. "I'm so over dealing with you."

With that, Aria headed to the exit, and she could feel her heart rate pick up, like it didn't have to pump a heavy load anymore.

When she turned around, Mona was gone.