Thank you all so much for your support on chapter two of this work! I'm so glad this little collection of scenes is being enjoyed. This next one is one that I think a lot of people have been anticipating since I initially posted this story, and I wanted to be sure I got it right. As always, please let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions for future chapters - I take every idea into consideration!

Three

Hanna has never thought of herself as a spiteful person.

Sure, she's known to be the spitfire of the group. She's never afraid to back down from a confrontation, and nine times out of ten, she'll say what everyone else is afraid to, no holds barred. But as her (albeit rocky) friendships with the likes of Mona and Lucas should indicate, grudges have never been her thing.

The thing is, there's something about Alison that Hanna just can't get past.

Maybe it's the way she declared in New York, with such confidence, that she's decided she deserves a second chance, only hours after the girls' reunion. Maybe it's that, since she's been back, she's called Hanna time and time again, her tone insistent, even demanding, as she asks her to accompany her to the funeral home, or the doctor.

But no. Hanna knows, deep down, that the real reason her stomach churns every time she sees Ali's face is because she can't stop her brain from transporting her, just for a second, back to that awful day in her kitchen, with the hastily-eaten blueberry pie and her tear-streaked face and Ali's seemingly heartfelt words of advice.

Poor Hanna. I can show you how to get rid of it.

Naïve, humiliated fifteen-year-old Hanna hadn't even fully understood what was happening until Alison had gently pushed her into the upstairs bathroom. She'd taken Hanna's toothbrush from the porcelain holder and held it out to her with a smile and a command of, "Use this."

"For what?" Hanna stammered, but that was the moment when she knew. They'd just watched that documentary on bulimia in health class, after all. Maybe that was where Ali had even gotten the idea.

Ali had smiled at her, the look filled with pity and compassion. "Han, it doesn't have to be like this. Spencer, and Aria, and Emily, there's nothing they can do for themselves. But you're lucky. You can help yourself."

Hanna's head was spinning. Spencer, Aria, and Emily? What did they have to do with this? What did Ali mean? Was she just trying to confuse Hanna into doing what she asked?

But apparently it worked, because Hanna snatched the toothbrush out of Alison's hand. Ten minutes later, her mouth sticky and her stomach aching, she threw it into the garbage can with a resounding clang.

Now Hanna pulls her black jacket tighter over her flat stomach as she watches Alison spoon sesame noodles onto two plates at the kitchen island. After getting back from the doctor, she'd given Ali some of her bath salts and told her to relax while she made the forty-five minute round trip to Ali's favorite Chinese restaurant, all the way out in Longbrook.

The whole drive back, with the plastic bag filled with sesame noodles and sweet and sour pork – Ali's favorites, Hanna remembered – bouncing slightly in the seat beside her, Hanna felt the annoyance build from a low simmering to a boil.

Alison fishes some napkins and plastic packets of silverware out of the bottom of the bag and frowns into it. "Hm. No soy sauce?"

It's such a small comment, but it's what pushes Hanna over the edge. Her tolerance level has officially boiled over. She sets her plate of rice and noodles down with a little more force then necessary. "You know what, I'm not all that hungry. I think I'm just gonna head to bed."

She turns and stalks toward the stairs, but has barely crossed the threshold into the front hallway before Alison calls after her. "Wait, Hanna. What just happened?"

"I told you, I'm not hungry," Hanna answers, without turning back around. "Maybe it's motion sickness, from all the driving I just did."

Alison has never been one to miss even the smallest note of sarcasm. She clucks her tongue in a sound of disbelief that only serves to send another wave of anger through Hanna. "Okay, if you're mad that I didn't go with you, you were the one who told me to stay – "

"It's not about that." Hanna finally whips around, but has to take a moment to close her eyes and steady herself. She'd aimed to avoid this conversation, but it looks like it's happening whether she likes it or not. So she figures she'd better try and get on top of it. "It's about you barely even saying thank you when I walked back in the door."

Alison's brow furrows into a look of confusion. "I'm sorry. It's been a long day, I'm really tired."

An excuse. There's always an excuse, and this, too, is familiar. Hanna thinks back to that horrible Fourth of July night, the five of them huddling behind the bushes as the ambulance roared away. Alison hurled insult after insult at Hanna until Aria finally, mercifully, spoke up. I didn't mean it. I'm just freaked out.

But Hanna is no longer that shy, insecure little girl, too afraid to confront the queen bee and get kicked out of the hive. "I'm just saying, it would have been nice. I've been doing a lot for you the past couple days, Ali. Lending you jewelry for your mom's funeral, going with you to get the guestbook, taking you to the doctor, shlepping three towns over for your precious sweet and sour pork."

"And I appreciate all of it," Alison says, but her newly aggressive tone doesn't quite match her words.

"Do you?" Hanna spits back. "Because it just kind of seems like you keep wanting more."

Alison's face is growing redder by the second. There's no confusion, genuine or invented, on her face now. "In case you haven't been paying attention, the past few weeks haven't exactly been a walk in the park for me, either. My childhood best friend tried to kill me. My mother was found dead. Excuse me if I need some support."

And with that, it's now Ali who brushes past Hanna and heads for the front hallway. Hanna's not sure if she's on her way upstairs or out the door, and for a second, she wants to let her go. Let Ali have the last word, just like old times, and just shrivel up and accept her place on the totem pole.

But Hanna didn't claw her way up from geek to glam, didn't go through the hell of the last two years, without growing a backbone. So she whirls around and says, practically shouts, at Ali's back, "'It used to be a little easier to tell us apart, huh?'"

Alison stops, and her back stiffens, and Hanna knows the comment has landed. Even so, when she turns, her expression gives away nothing. "What?"

"That's what you said to me, at the funeral home. When the guy mistook me for you. What, was that your way of thanking me for everything I've done for you?"

Immediately, Alison is on the defensive. She crosses her arms tight across her chest. "It was a compliment, Hanna."

"A compliment?" Hanna knows that her voice is bordering on hysterical, but she doesn't care. "Ali, you called me 'Hefty Hanna' for two years. You didn't miss any opportunity to comment on how much I weighed. And when you found out why I weighed that much, instead of backing off with your jokes, you taught me to throw it all up."

Alison steps back. Her hand goes to her cheek like Hanna just crossed the room and slapped her across the face. And when she opens her mouth, all that comes out is a feeble, "I…"

Hanna would almost find it comical if she wasn't so heated. "Really, that's it? Because you sure had a lot to say that day in my bathroom."

The words land between them as if they are an actual, physical thing. It seems to take Alison a moment to compose herself (or to start formulating her excuses, Hanna considers). Finally, she steps forward. "I was trying to help you." At Hanna's derisive scoff, she adds, "Hanna, we were fifteen. I had no idea what I was talking about."

The idea is so preposterous that Hanna can't help but burst out laughing. Ali seems taken aback, as if she truly expected that her denial would be enough for Hanna to throw up her hands in surrender. "Come on, Ali. That's bullshit and you know it. You knew exactly what you were doing when you led me into that bathroom, and you knew what you were doing when you kept making comments about my weight after that, too."

Alison takes in a quick breath, and for a wild moment Hanna expects her to play dumb about all of her old biting remarks, too, the ones that to this day swirl around in the back of Hanna's mind. Hold onto those baggy sweaters. You better wear the tightest skinny pants you can fit your big butt into. Are you really gonna eat that, sweetie?

But when Hanna can finally bring herself to look at Ali again, her old friend's eyes are shining with barely suppressed tears. "You're right," she says, her voice tight. "I don't know why I just lied. I guess it's second nature at this point."

Hanna flinches, thinking of the tape recorder buried way down in the bottom of her bag. The one filled with Alison's extraordinary tale of kidnap. It's yet another bone she has to pick, but now isn't the time to get into it. One deceit at a time.

Ali's wringing her hands as she continues, like she doesn't know what to do with them. "The truth is, I was awful to you, Hanna. Those things I said about how much you ate, your weight. And what I made you do that day. You didn't deserve any of it."

Suddenly, Hanna isn't sure her legs can keep supporting her. She lowers herself onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. "I never understood why you were so cruel. I remember the things you'd tease about Aria's dad, or Emily liking girls. I didn't know it then, but you were holding their secrets over their heads. But mine weren't even secrets. You were doing it just to be mean."

Hanna averts her eyes. She can't bring herself to look Ali in the face anymore. But even with her gaze trained firmly on the wood floor, she can sense Alison's unwavering gaze. "I was doing it because I was jealous."

Hanna's head snaps up. She's sure she must have heard incorrectly. "You were what?"

"Well, maybe jealous is the wrong word." Alison's mouth twitches. "But I figured out pretty early on that you had potential. If you'd really wanted to, you could have made yourself over and started your own clique, just like that." She snapped her fingers for emphasis. "And I couldn't let that happen. I knew how insecure you were about your weight, so I used it to keep knocking you down. So you couldn't be a threat to me."

It feels like someone has just reeled back and punched Hanna in the stomach. Ali was threatened…by her? Little fifteen-year-old Hanna, with her butterfly hair clips and heart-patterned sweaters?

Anger is still swirling within her, but she's almost ashamed by the little niggling pride that she feels creeping in, too. When she and Mona had first made themselves over, when she'd fit into one of Ali's old shirts for the first time, Mona had peppered her with compliments. But it had been Alison who Hanna had imagined there beside her, nodding with approval.

Now she's finally gotten it. But it doesn't feel quite as good as Hanna had imagined.

"Okay, first of all, I find that hard to believe," Hanna says with a laugh, unable to stop the self-deprecation from rearing its ugly head, even after all this time. "And even if that is true, I didn't deserve to be your punching bag just because you were worried I'd become more popular than you."

"No, of course not." Alison's eyes flit away, as if she can barely force herself to hold Hanna's gaze. Then, with a wry smile, "I think we all know that I wasn't exactly the greatest friend back then."

What, like you are now? Hanna thinks hotly, but Ali is going on before she can say it aloud. "But, I mean, look at you, Hanna. I wasn't wrong. After I was gone, you did exactly what I'd been afraid of. You took my place."

Once, that statement would have had Hanna floating on cloud nine all week. But she's come to learn that popularity and superiority isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's just a shame, she thinks, that Ali didn't learn that lesson herself before it was too late. Who knows what could have been avoided if she had?

Hanna has a feeling this conversation could go on forever, if she let it. But suddenly the events of the day are catching up to her, and the sense of all-encompassing exhaustion hits her like a train. "Look," she says with a sigh, heaving herself up from the stool, "I get it, okay? But I think you should go."

Alison's wavery smile disappears into a look of crushing disappointment. "Han, are we ever going to be okay again?"

It's a question that Hanna should have seen coming, but one that she has absolutely no answer to. She's turned that horrible day in her bathroom over and over in her mind a million times, trying to piece together why her supposed best friend would push her into something so vulgar, so destructive. Finally having the answer is a resolution that she never truly expected she'd get.

But it doesn't automatically undo the sin, either. And Hanna has a feeling that this moment is one that's going to take a lot of deep thinking during reruns of Say Yes to the Dress – and maybe a few sessions with Dr. Sullivan – to process.

"I don't know," she admits with a shrug. "Maybe. But it's been a long night, Ali. I just need some time to think."

"Okay," Ali concedes, her arms falling to her sides. "My dad's probably wondering where I am, anyway."

Hanna watches in silence as Alison gathers her purse. This time, she actually does cross the invisible line into the front hall. It feels like she's crossing a symbolic threshold as well as a physical one. Things have been said, deep feelings have been expressed tonight that can't be taken back.

But the thing is, as Hanna watches Alison let herself out through the front door without a look back, she's pretty sure she doesn't want them to be.

She feels freer than she has in years.