A/N: Thank you all on your feedback! For those who asked for romantic relationships to happen, I'm planning on touching more on that in the sequel. For now, there's this chapter, then the end, then the epilogue that will lead into the sequel, which is still in the beginning stages of planning.
I also went back into this story and edited any continuity errors. I'll upload those soon.
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 18: The Recovery
When Aria stepped out of the abandoned children's ward and into the fluorescent lighting of the empty hallway, she had to hold her elbows in her hands because of how much she was trembling. Liberation, it seemed, made her body quiver in what—anticipation? Fear? Suppressed longing? It may have been all of these things.
Because Mona was gone and Aria's understanding of her illness skyrocketed, Aria knew she could go home: A possibility that hadn't stuck to her since she first entered Radley.
A giggle reverberated off the walls as Aria scooted her slippers while pacing back and forth across the hallway; she wanted to calm down before returning to her friends with the good news. A chill started at the tip of Aria's spine and raced down it—that laugh sounded like Mona's.
Rapidly, Aria looked back and forth, but she was the only one in the hallway. She guessed Mona's physical appearance may be gone, but her soul was still lingering; Aria needed more to get rid of her now. Rather than wait for Mona to possibly appear, Aria scampered around the corner, finding her way back to civilization.
At that moment, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily were returning from their investigation of the fourth floor. "I told you, we need to find Aria, now!" Emily whispered sternly, cupping her forehead in her hand. "Mona's wiped her entire existence out of Radley. That's insane!"
Hanna's face whitened. "Maybe she did that because she wasn't expecting to return tonight…"
"What, to kill herself along with Aria, and leave no trace?" Emily's cheeks turned green.
"Or maybe it's not that at all," Spencer spoke for the first time since she clicked "Enter." Hanna and Emily impatiently waited for her to continue. "Maybe Mona doesn't exist because Aria is Mona."
"But that can't be!" Hanna immediately argued. "According to Aria, the doctors have acknowledged Mona."
Spencer bit her lip and pondered, but Emily was the one who said, "Maybe they found that was the only way they could get real information out of her."
Before the girls could debate further, the one with all the answers entered the room, the robe she was wearing and her paler-than-usual skin making her look like she'd passed on. "Aria!" they squealed in one moment, and covered Aria with their hugs. Her fleshy existence proved that she was not a ghost.
Hanna was the first to ask, "What the hell happened?"
Aria escaped the mass of arms and stepped further into the room, noticing the pile of notes that had transpired between her and A. "Everything," she scoffed, and shredded the papers into scraps that looked better in the garbage can.
"Like…?" Hanna prodded. "We need more than that!"
Sighing, Aria fell onto the edge of her bed. "It was Mona, she…she might be gone."
"Might be?" The girls' expression became more and more worried.
Aria began the story from the beginning, and when she wrapped it up, she thought she saw a dark-haired figure smirking, arms crossed, at the doorway.
But when she blinked, it wasn't there.
…
Despite how they were made to feel, none of the four girls were truly psychotic. No, they were just normal people being controlled by something they had very little control of: Spencer couldn't stop her brain from craving Adderall. Hanna couldn't understand how not eating a morsel was killing her. Aria couldn't command when her personalities would switch. Emily couldn't change her parents' opinion of her, yet she listened to them because she wanted to win their acceptance. And just like any socially accepted physical illness, the girls healed. Spencer was able to compete for straight-As without the harmful aid of drugs. Hanna was learning that her perception of herself was not what it truly was. Aria was diligent with her medications and therapy and found comfort knowing that her double personality was under control. Emily was still trying to warm her parents' to the idea of her sexuality, with no luck so far, but she was out of a place that believed a part of her soul was fixable. Through their time at Radley together, the girls came to realize that they weren't the crazy ones. They were just like anyone else with an ability and will to heal.
But as of right now, they still had a long way to get there.
A week after Aria's reveal had transpired, Spencer watched as her dad's fist held the pen that signed her way out of Radley. She wasn't afraid of leaving now, not when she was confident that her friends were going to get out in the near future. She'd taken the blood and urine tests and was clean; her withdrawal symptoms were over; her parents had confiscated any form of drugs that shouldn't be in the house and were going to monitor her more closely. Her parents were proud of her recovery, but she could never forget how they treated her before dropping her off here, not allowing her to explain. But as Spencer reminisced about it in the car that was taking her back home, she realized that she was holding a grudge against her side of the argument that, as she could see clearly now, contained a lot of flaws.
Back in her bedroom, Spencer began to unpack, and noticed the picture frames on her desk of her and the debate team, the people she'd thought were her friends. Never once did they try to contact her, not even when her parents were asking them for updates on her schoolwork. She guessed they must have cared a little, as they still bothered to keep her in the loop—but that may just be pity.
Slipping the photo out of the frame, she threw it into a drawer of photos she kept meaning to turn into a scrapbook. During her time at Radley, she did snap a couple of pictures with her friends on the cell phone she was limited to. Without another thought, she printed those and set them in the frame. It was obvious that they were in a hospital, as each of them had on the Radley robes. But until they were all out and free, this was all she had left of her time at the institution.
A sense of freedom rushing over her, Spencer fell back on her bed and let her back sink into the mattress. It was a Saturday, and she couldn't wait to go back to school. She made a promise that she would visit her friends every Friday at Radley until they were all out, but until that happened, she was going to continue living out the dreams that had been put on hold. Cracking open her physics book, she began to review series and parallel circuits.
Emily was the next to leave Radley, a week and a half after Spencer. The therapist had told her, "I am completely convinced that you are cured, Emily, and your true self has been restored." She'd thrown on a fake smile and let her parents fawn over her after they signed the release forms before allowing her lips relief. Of course she was happy that she was going home, but how was she going to deal with her recovery that never really happened? She didn't want to lie to herself anymore and wait the rest of senior year and the summer before college to hide herself from the world. She loved who she was; the torturous "treatment" at Radley made her realize that. There was no doubt in her mind anymore, even with the controversy around it: she loved everything about women. She'd never felt a desire to be romantically attached to a boy, but she thought Jamie Singer in sixth grade was the most beautiful person in the world, and wanted to ask her to the middle school dance. The girl she left behind, Maya, understood that about Emily, and had sent letters to her in Radley about how sorry she was that they being caught was what sent Emily away—but her parents were the crazy ones, not her.
The first thing Emily did at home, after setting her suitcase in her bedroom, was throw on her swimsuit and burn excesses of mixed energy towards her parents in the pool. As she was drying off, a girl with curly black hair approached her. "I heard you were back, and I knew you'd be here…"
A blush encased Emily's cheeks, as she never thought she'd have the desire to kiss Maya ever again; she had feared in Radley, sometimes, that her sexuality was going to be knocked out of her. "Maya," she said, barely able to control the smile that overwhelmed her face. After Emily warned Maya that she was still dripping in chlorinated water, Maya said she didn't care and threw her arms around Emily in a hug. No kissing at all; Maya understood the charade Emily had to put up until she thought of something that could fix everything. "I missed you."
Aria was the next to go, two weeks later. "I can't believe I'm going to be alone," Hanna murmured as she helped Aria pack the little that she had, except she wasn't really helping: she was examining the muscle that had grown back on her wrists.
"You'll be out in no time, Hanna," Aria reassured her. "Caleb is certain of your progress."
"Why do you say his name like that?"
Aria's only answer was a smirk.
"Okay, I get it, he's cute."
The suitcase Aria had stuffed in her closet was covered in dust, and she found relief in batting it off. "Who's picking you up?" Hanna inquired as she crossed her legs and began poking the rebuilt muscle on her calves.
Aria's heart rate picked up at the question, because she couldn't even believe the answer. "My parents."
Hanna didn't want to pry, so she only asked, "Will you be going back to school?"
"I hope so. Spencer is going to make a convincing case to the principle to let me in as a senior, but assign me anything I can't test out of in a promise that I will work my butt off in the summer."
Hanna chipped a bit of sea green polish off her fingernail. "Will you?"
"After years of not doing anything in here… I am more than willing. I wouldn't mind taking a year off to finish high school before going to college."
The heart beating in Aria's chest began to race as she got to the nurse's station and stood next to her suitcase, waiting. She couldn't believe she was leaving, with a promise to continue therapy and her newly prescribed medications. Everything was going better now that she understood it all. When she saw the SUV pull up in front of the doors, her heart skipped a beat. Rather than have a reunion in the lobby, Aria gripped the handle of her suitcase with a shaky hand and stepped out of the automatic doors.
A man and a woman Aria could only remember bits and pieces of in her memory stepped out of the car. The man was graying above the ears, but the woman, being a little younger, hadn't reached any advancing stage of graying yet. They didn't look as different as Aria remembered them to be—just older—but she looked at them as strangers anyway.
When the married couple noticed the young woman standing there, the woman, Ella, covered her hands with her mouth. "You're all grown up," she began to cry, and Aria was expecting to be encased in their hugs any moment. The man, Byron, put an arm on Ella's back as his eyes teared up as well. "Last time we say you, you were this high."
But rather than rush her, they waited for her to say something. Aria could picture it clearly—sitting in her mother's lap as she messily braided Ella's long, straight hair; riding on Byron's shoulders—but then she remembered the last few years when their existence faded in Aria's memory. Braiding her mother's hair turned into her mother's hands gripping her tiny wrists to restrain her from whatever tantrum she was throwing; riding on her father's shoulders became him locking her in her bedroom until she learned to behave. Then it became them leaving her here after visiting her for a few months, staring at her as though she wasn't their own anymore, until they realized that they still had a son and losing a daughter no longer seemed like a tragic thing.
After her brain churned through her emotional turmoil, Aria looked back at these parents who'd grown just as much as she had. Would parents who didn't care cry over their daughter? Now that Aria was granted a new beginning, she was a firm believer of their existence—so she bit her lip and nodded her head, and was overwhelmed by their arms as soon as she took a step forward. "We missed you so much, sweetie," they murmured along with, "We thought we lost you."
With these people who felt like foreigners to her instead of her parents, Aria closed her eyes tightly and dreamed of what she always wanted as a kid: a normal family that loved her instead of abandoned her. For a second she made herself believe that, but in a second, it was gone.
Within another three weeks, Hanna was eating full meals and finally getting the hang of keeping track of her calories to make sure she was eating enough to be healthy but not too much that she gained weight. Radley had a decent gym, she came to realize, as Caleb suggested that once she gained some weight back, he wanted her to try exercising to see if it made her feel more confident, even if it was a miniscule amount. As her healing process was still progressing slowly, she was restricted to how much exercise she could do.
Emily, Spencer, and Aria sent letters to her a couple times a week, keeping her updated on teenage life back in Rosewood. The principal said if you do well in your classes second semester and take summer classes, he'll let you graduate with us! Spencer had written to her recently. That's right, Hanna remembered, glancing at the calendar. There was no way she could finish any first semester classes now. But Hanna was determined to have the laziest summer before heading off to college—which she'd applied to, as Spencer had helped them all with applications a couple weeks ago, even Aria. "It's worth a try," Spencer had reassured Aria. So Hanna picked up her pen and wrote, What if I work my butt off all of winter break—how many classes do you think I can finish?
It wasn't long until Hanna was waiting in the lobby with her bags, ready to be sent home—but, like Aria, required to keep them updated with her treatment. "Thanks for waiting with me," Hanna said to Caleb as her palms sweated onto the handle of her suitcase.
When Hanna saw her mom's car pull up, she hugged Caleb as he said, "You can do this, Hanna." He meant "fully recover." "I've only been here for a semester, and I don't think I'll ever meet someone as stubborn as you." He then gave her his email and phone if she ever needed to talk again, and Hanna found her eyes watering. What did she ever do to deserve this kindness? For the past couple years, she'd been a nasty person to some of the nerdier kids in school in an attempt to raise her popularity. She came to Radley with a strong shell because she expected to deal with people who treated her like crap, as punishment, almost. She couldn't believe she was desperate enough to gain popularity to turn into a bully. Would Sean even be interested in her now?
Sean. Swept up in her treatment with Caleb and getting out with her friends and keeping her sanity, she'd forgotten about him. She wasn't sure if she even wanted a boyfriend at the moment. But by the way he never tried to get in contact with her, she assumed she was a single woman since the moment she stepped into Radley.
As she was reunited with her mom, she let herself cry—but not too long, because she didn't like how it made her eyes puffy. Ms. Marin, teary-eyed, commented on how great Hanna looked. Hanna chose to agree—and for more than second, she believed it.
Like the others, Hanna left Radley—and she never looked back.