I'm not all that thrilled with this chapter but hope you enjoy it.

Sara Shepard and Freeform own PLL.

I do not take credit.

Jumping all the way to Christmas Vacation, my excitement had reached infinity and beyond when I was able to walk into the house and collapse onto my bed after I got home from practice after school. I mean, of course I have practice and games throughout vacation but I didn't have to worry about school on top of basketball till January. It felt awesome.

It must have been a couple hours later when Aria wakes me up so we could head to Aunt Ella's place for dinner. It's always weird knowing that they are still legally married but still haven't moved back in together. They are like family to me and I hate seeing their relationship go down the drain because of a mistake that happened years ago. I wish they could figure this out.

Christmas day I wake up and see Aria reading a book on her bed.

"Morning." I stretch and yawn.

She looks and smiles. "Merry Christmas."

I sit up. "Think your dad would get upset if we ran over and jumped on him the way we did as kids whenever I slept over?"

She laughs. "Not sure."

I smile. "What are you reading?"

"Some book Mr. Fitz recommended I may like."

"Mr. Fitz huh?"

Since I had that heart to heart with Fitz it has been a lot easier to handle seeing him. I told Aria about the talk we had the night of the dance and she seemed very pleased with me opening up to him. But the funny thing about it was that she didn't seem all that shocked when I told her about our conversation. It felt as if she had already known about it, which I found weird because I didn't tell anyone else besides her.

She smiles. "Mhm."

When we get everyone downstairs there are more gifts than I thought there would be for me. It felt like I was a kid again waking up to "Santa" piling up everything we wanted around the tree. What I got was a new laptop (my old one broke), some Fall Out Boy, Paramore and Panic at the Disco CDs that I never got the chance to buy. Then there are a few more things that I felt was way too much for them to spoil me with. From there we go to hang out with Aunt Ella for a bit and she got me the newest book that the author of Percy Jackson made called Heroes of Olympus, The Lost Hero.

New Years Day Noel invited some people over while his parents went on business out of town and wouldn't be back till the weekend. Him and Aria broke up sometime after the surprise part for Hanna, so it's been a bit iffy to hang with him knowing that he doesn't want anything to do with her. Still have no idea what happened but I've given up on arguing with her, while Noel doesn't want to talk about it at all. Then since he got himself suspended for stealing test answers (which he denies) I figured I'd go anyway because I don't see him much and want to try to keep our friendship despite what is going on with him and Aria.

I'm sitting on the sofa waiting for Noel to come back with more beer when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and open it up to see an unknown number. I press the message.

"It may be a new year, but old habits die hard. I dare you to ask Aria about the biggest secret she's keeping from you."

I stare at my phone in a complete daze, not understanding this at all. I reread the message again but my brain is a little mushy from having four beers. I know that whoever this is may be the same person from Xbox, because this text is too similar not to be. But all I know is that my buzzed mind doesn't think as I forwarded this message to Aria and ask why for the second time I'm getting a message that involves her lying to me.

Before I can see if she would reply though, Noel comes back over to me. I'm now pretty upset about the text that I don't even think about how bad of idea this is going to be as I go all out. I mean, I can't believe she is still hiding something from me and I'm just realizing that I haven't really gotten anything out of her about why she's been acting the way she has.

At the end of the night Noel has to tell Luna to call someone to come get me because I really over did the drinking. She gave Aria a call and somehow Spencer got involved.

"Heyyyyy." I say loud enough for people to look at me like I'm nuts when Aria and Spencer both walk through the front door of Noel's house.

I try to get up off the couch but I topple over and Luna has to catch me before I'm able face plant onto the floor. "Jessie, chill."

Both the girls get to me. The look on their faces is enough to know that it's disappointment.

"What did you do?" Aria says.

"Nooothingggg." I say with a smile.

Spencer shakes her head. "Jessie. This over drinking is getting out of hand."

"I'm not over drinking. I'm fine." They just give me the Yea right look. "Plus I haven't had any type of liquor since October. Give me a break!" I see the look that Aria is giving Luna. "Now don't go blaming Lune for me making my own choice to drink. She tried to stop me but I'm stubborn."

"Heads up!"

We all look to the side and see a football zooming our way. I don't even hesitate to catch it before it can get to my face. All three of the girls give me a look of surprise because they think I'm completely done and they know for a fact that if I was as out of it as they think I am then I'd already be seeing double. I'm right with them though on being just as stumped as they are on how I managed to catch it with no problem. I mean, I won't admit it to them but I'm not feeling the greatest right now and am for sure seeing double.

"Dude!" A senior that is a friend of Noel's runs over. "Nice catch."

I half smile. "Thanks."

He gives me a smile "I'm Aaron."

"I'm…"

"She has a boyfriend." Luna says for me. "So run along."

He watches all of us. "Oh. Of course you do. Sorry." He takes the ball from me and takes off back down the hall to his friends.

"Rude much?" I turn to Luna.

"Drunk much?" She shoots back.

I give her a pissed look. "I'm not drunk."

"No. Of course you're not. You only weren't going to mention that you have a boyfriend because you wanted to be a badass. How silly of me."

"Stop being a dick."

"Stop drinking to hide your feelings."

The girls are watching us like a ping pong match as we shot back comeback after comeback. But on that last one Luna said they both give each other a look and step in.

"Oookay." Spencer says. "Time to go now."

She grabs me before I can think of something stupid to do for that asshole move she had just made, while Luna gives Aria an apologetic look. Then from there they get me out of Noel's place and head to Spencer's since her parents are also out of town. It was either that or having to find a way to sneak me into our house without Uncle Byron finding out I wasn't quite sober at that moment.

I'll tell you right now that I did not remember anything the next morning. I had no knowledge that I had gotten another message the night before, or that I sent one to Aria for a reason because there was no sign of messages on my phone.

Now when the cycle of school starts again a few days later I was not excited to go back to after almost a two week vacation. I mean, it's so much chaos and hectic days trying to keep myself focused on school while also playing basketball at the same time. School is not the easiest thing to do without sports involved, but it's ten times harder to do during it.

The good news about the first day back is that I got an A+ on my fantasy essay about Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Even Rachel was thankfully still mellow during basketball after I told her I'd tell Mr. Brooks about getting her kicked off. Another good thing is that Bobby finally moved to Rosewood the day before and would now be able to see each other more often.

A couple days later things were a bit uptight, I guess you could say. Aria seemed to be really excited about something yesterday and some of today, but she never mentioned what about. Then all of a sudden her mood changed and she doesn't seem so happy anymore. Then you have Hanna, who seemed to be on edge the entire day and didn't want to talk either, and Emily was right on the same boat as the other two. She was happy because after school yesterday and this morning she broke records both times during swim practice. But then during school today she was bummed out. Spencer was the only one who wasn't in a bad mood.

"Hey." I sit next to Spencer as I catch up with her, Aria and Emily at lunch. Hanna is MIA, Andrew is out sick today and lately the triplets have been rotating tables to sit with other friends. "What's up?"

Aria and Emily look distracted so they don't say anything, but Spence smiles. "Not much. Going crazy with this Algebra homework."

"Oh I feel ya. I can't deal with doing homework for things I can care less about."

She smiles. "Yea. Well, that's school for you."

"Sadly."

Aria and Emily eventually take off before the bell even rings, so this gives me time to ask Spencer what's going on with them.

"Someone said something negative about Em being gay." She says.

My mouth drops. "What?" She nods. "Who was it? And what did they say."

"It was Paige from Em's swim team."

I start to think to myself. Then I recognize the name. "Paige McCullers?"

She nods.

"Seriously?"

She nods again.

"I'm going to kill her."

"Join the club."

"What did she say to her?"

"She was mad that Em broke two records and thinks it has something to do with her gunning for captain this year."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"Of course not. But Paige is competitive."

I nod "True."

She nods too. "But she made the gay thing noticeable by emphasizing the fact that Em probably has her eyes next on breaking the record for the breast stroke."

My mouth starts to drop again.

"Then she added that everyone knows what team she really plays for."

Now I'm heated. "If I see her, her nose won't last through our talk."

"Jessie. You need to relax."

"When someone's being an ass to one of my friends..."

"I know." She cuts in "You want to protect them. But fighting isn't the way to do it. You need to stop setting up an opportunity for someone to pound you, Jessie."

"Has that ever stopped me?"

"No. But I will if you don't start to cool off your temper."

I cross my arms. "You sound like Aria."

"Yea, well. She's not wrong."

I watch her. "You used to say it was okay to let out some steam once in awhile."

She nods. "I did. But that steam is a bit more than it used to be and you shouldn't rely on your fists to do the talking."

"Fine."

"So you won't go to Paige?"

I look at her and she has a warning look. "No." I shake my head. "I won't go to her."

"Not even if you see her."

"Okay, Spence. I get it."

She nods. "Good." She stands. "I'll see you at Gym." Then she walks away.

A couple days later me and Aria are doing some homework and she drops a bomb that she found out that her mom and dad are seeing each other again. But it's in secret. Did that confuse me? Yes.

"Wait." I say. "So they are back together?"

"I have no clue. I followed dad to the school yesterday…."

"You what?" I interrupt.

"Him and mom were being suspicious and it was an impulse to figure it out."

"No surprise there."

She half smiles. "Anyway. Me and Hanna followed dad last night and he ended up at the school. We went in after him and he was meeting mom."

I raise an eyebrow. "So they keep acting as if they are going on dates. But in reality they are seeing each other in secret?"

She nods. "It's like they are having an affair with each other."

I start laughing. "That sounds ridiculous, because they are still legally married."

"My parents are weird. But we'll let them play this out."

After this conversation me and the other girls all noticed that the next couple days Aria and Hanna were on bad terms all of a sudden. I mean, it was the weirdest thing knowing that days before they were perfectly fine and then out of nowhere they weren't speaking to each other. Those two are another version of me and Aria, really close friends and yet something was bothering them. Luckily it didn't last too long as literally the next day they were on speaking terms again. I never figured out what happened but didn't matter at that point.

After school the same day that Han and Aria got on good terms again I went to hang with Spencer at her house as we did some homework. We haven't had much time to hang outside of school since we both have sports and she does some clubs as well. During us hanging out she tells me how Paige tried to drown Emily the same day that she said something about her being gay. She thought that Emily told their coach about that conversation they had. In reality it was Spencer, but Emily still refused to let her coach take care of things. Then for some reason Paige thought it was a good idea to scare Em by trying to drown her and Emily said nothing to get her into trouble, which blew my mind. I mean, that was completely insane. Some people take things too seriously, especially when Paige's dad goes around yelling in the middle of lunch how he felt that the coach was giving Emily special treatment. That shockingly pissed Emily's mom off when she found out and straightened him out by yelling at him. Did that shock me? Yea, considering that her mom was against it for awhile.

"Spence." I look up at her from my homework.

"Yea?"

"What's the deal with you and Toby?"

So before I forget, her and Toby had gotten pretty close. The day of Homecoming he took off since the cops were after him for attacking Emily, but the night of Mona's party he was arrested for not only that but because they found evidence that he may have killed Alison. So naturally he didn't come back to school since he was on house arrest. After a bit of time though Spencer started to believe he had nothing to do with Alison's murder and started to tutor him in French. Eventually the charges were dropped on him from someone contaminating the evidence and they started hanging out a lot more.

She looks up at me. "Nothing."

"You guys kissed." I say. "That's not nothing."

She starts turning red. "You can't tell mom and dad."

I look over at her. "I'm not an idiot. He's the town freak. I know that they will not agree to that relationship."

"He's not a freak."

"I never said I thought that. It's just the way your parents will think."

She nods. "I know."

"Sooo…."

She starts smiling.

"Spill. What's he like?"

"I don't know how to explain really. He's just different from other guys."

"That's the mysterious side of him."

She laughs. "I guess."

I smile. "I know what you mean though. That's how I felt and still feel about Andrew. It's hard to explain those feelings."

She nods in agreement. Then for awhile we are both quiet. Until I need help with my homework.

"I can't figure this problem out." I say to her.

She looks over and grabs my math book. She takes a look at it then starts to explain some nonsense that I don't understand a word of. Eventually she just does it for me and tries to explain the best she could. But somehow it went from homework to getting into an argument about the police thinking that she's the new suspect for Alison's murder. Which they only think this because the girls had found what they thought was the murder weapon in the props section during a school play they were all part of. That got the cops real suspicious of all of them and somehow Spencer ended up on the top of their list.

"Just drop it. Okay, Jessie!"

"Why are you yelling at me? All I asked was if they stopped the investigation since they didn't find anything."

"Yea. And I said I didn't want to talk about it."

"You didn't tell me. You yelled at me. That's the difference."

She watches me. "I have no time for this." She grabs her stuff. "I have things to do. You have to go."

All I can say is that this entire school year so far has been a bit too chaotic for me. Alison is found dead, and yet it feels like everything is still revolving around her.