It's a Tuesday night when I next see her. She's carrying a duffel bag over her shoulder, and it's close to being bigger than her. She looks somewhat flustered, but her face is cold as stone. Part of me wants to approach her, but I chain it down and continue to peer from around the corner as she pulls a key from her pocket and dangles it between her teeth as she presses the elevator button. She's still in high heels, just like last time I saw her, but those false four inches aren't helping her to conquer the weight of what she's carrying. Suddenly, silently, a second figure emerges from the staircase. I followed her here, and now I think I'm going to have to follow her out. Her companion has a black zip up hoodie tied around his waist, and is still impressively taller than her. He swoops down and pecks her on the lips. She yanks away quickly, but reluctantly.
"Not now." She runs her hand down the length of his arm as consolation. The large black six on the wall behind her bears a gleaming reflection of the sunset light behind us both, and serves to effectively blind me whenever I try to look closely at them. She hands him the bag and he paces off to the staircase, presumably to return it to her apartment. She walks over to my door, and slides beneath it a wadded up piece of paper with some black script on it.
I let her saunter off to a safe distance before I approach and unlock my door, cautiously, as if I might set off a landmine. It seems almost unreal when the only thing waiting for me is exactly what I'd seen before: a wadded up piece of paper with black script handwriting on the back.
Black script, black hoodie. A wave of suspicion and chill run through my nerves like electricity, but I shake it off quickly and unfold the note in front of me, slowly and deliberately. The entire page is filled with scrawled cursive, spiky and dramatic, same color of black, and a myriad of scribble making the majority of it indistinguishable. It's difficult to know where it ends and where it begins, so I start at the top left corner. The closer I look, the more intimately familiar the handwriting seems, though I can't seem to tell where from. It isn't Aria's, she either writes in all caps or with a loopy cursive where each words flows into the next.
Ezra Fitz. This is the handwriting that graded my English papers during my junior year of high school, slid under my door. Was he the man in the sweatshirt who had kissed her only to be swatted off? I suppose that makes sense.
I scold myself internally for swerving off track, and pull a pen from the jar off my desk, circling all coherent words and writing them down on my notepad. I can't shake the feeling of how weird this is, but I'm determined to keep going.
When I'm done, I've gathered these words:
Seven
Thursday
Black
All
Black
Behind
Coffee
See you.
I scan the rest of the page, but it's futile. This is all there is. From top to bottom, left to right, this is how it reads, this is what I'm meant to see. It's an unsettling medium for communication, reminds me of cereal box letters. I feel like I should be holding up a copy of today's newspaper. I wonder about what's going down on Thursday at seven, and why I should wear black, but the intrigue is overpowering. I feel a strange desire to go and find out, but every ounce of sense in my body is screaming at me to not go, but even the thought feels like a wasted clue and I know I could never bear to do so.
In desperate need of background noise in the haunting silence that has blanketed my apartment, I punch the TV power button until I find a channel capable of pacifying the commotion in my head, but no matter how much I stare at the figures on the screen, I feel like I'm looking right through them. The initial surprise has worn off, and I feel a deep sense of insecurity. Though it's irrational, I continuously catch myself stealing glances over my shoulder. I can't seem to stop it.
I consider going out the next day, but I have no real reason to, as I never have class on Wednesdays. I dump all of my energy, which has accumulated to a decent amount, into the extensive pile of homework, some of it overdue. Around noon, the roaring of my stomach overtakes my realm of attention, and I resign myself to munching on a bowl of cereal as I try once again to delve into a TV show, which has no intellectual appeal, but does inspire me to sink as far into the couch as I can and slip into a deep sleep, thanks to my total emotional and mental exhaustion.
That's before I heard the knock on my door. It fought its way into my dream at first, and I don't wake up until it's accompanied by a nagging voice calling my name. I leap off of the couch and attempt to placate my wild hair, before snagging a rubber band off of my desk and yanking it into a ponytail, rearranging my rustled shirt on my chest, and opening the door while simultaneously rubbing at my tired eyes, which are still adjusting to the light beaming in from outside.
"Morning, sunshine." Aria teases, running her fingers over a spot of hair I evidently missed. I resist the urge to yank away, which she no doubt sense. "You look great."
I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not, and this unsettles me.
"Don't look at me like I'm a stranger. We used to be best friends, that has to count for something." She strategically avoids the cereal bowl on the coffee table as she props her feet up, waiting for me to swoop in and remove it. I pretend like I don't see.
"Do you want something to eat?" I offer, praying she'll decline.
"I ate before I got here, but thanks." I return to the couch, watching her on the chair out of the corner of my eye as I pretend to be busy rummaging through my purse.
"I'm sorry if this is weird, Spencer. I don't really know how to reinitiate a lost friendship. But I really miss hanging out with you. I'll leave if you want." She pulls her feet off the table and readies herself to leave.
"No, stay."
