That night I'm laying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. Spencer and her parents were asleep when I got back, so I didn't have to talk to anyone and didn't have to worry about anything other than heading straight to my room. Honestly, I was shocked that no one had been awake. Besides the fact her parents are hot shot lawyers who stay up till late hours, but also because their first born daughter Melissa came back to Rosewood since her place in Philadelphia is being renovated. Which led to her taking Spencer's opportunity to have the barn turned into a loft as her own space.

While I was at the Montgomery's house Spencer had texted me to explain everything and that did not sit well with me whatsoever. She had spent most of the summer fixing it up to be her loft, with my help whenever I had been around so she could have it as hers when school started. But once Melissa popped back into the picture, her parents gave the loft to her without even asking Spencer if it was okay. This has always been their relationship and I always hate that they dismiss Spencer like she isn't part of the family. On top of her being home, Melissa's fiance is around too. So that led to him staying with her, and that just stirred the pot ten times more for Spencer to know that Melissa got her way with extra ammo from her fiance being in the picture. So the fact that I came home to a non-explosive household was a miracle in itself.

As I lay awake, I'm thinking back at the day I had with the Montgomery's. It wasn't all bad. After I calmed down Aunt Ella made dinner for us and we just caught up on life from the past few years of being away from each other. How Iceland was so beautiful and that I'd probably love it there, or how I've been playing basketball and softball for Rosewood High and am supposed to be captain of the junior varsity team for basketball this year. Through all that they never asked details on the accident, especially because of how I reacted just by walking into their house. So it was just as normal of a day together as it had been before they moved away. Not to mention that Aria had let me know that when Peter had originally reached out all those months ago they explained a little bit before sending a link to the article written about the event. That article had the details of my statement to the police that day, from trying to avoid the dog all the way to no other survivors other than myself since Ezra pulled me out of the car. Considering they already knew what had happened I know that they didn't ask to go deeper into it because they didn't want to put me through all those emotions again. I'm sure they'll eventually ask, but for now it seems it's not the main priority.

A few times my phone goes off on my nightstand, making me groan because I don't want to check it. But I know all day people have been reaching out to me out of concern, knowing that Aria and her family are back in town. After the 5th time it buzzes on the hard surface I lean over to check who it is and see that Lucas Gottesman's name shines through the semi-dark room. The street lamp/moon outside my window is slightly shining through my window, making things a bit easier to see as I grab my phone and start to answer my texts. Lucas is too sweet for words, despite what Alison and her goons always felt. Or despite even now that Mona makes him still feel bad for being low on the popularity scale. She makes him feel low for no reason other than because he reminds him of herself, and makes fun of his "goofy face". He has a long and wide-like nose with a baby-face that hasn't grown any facial hair yet and apparently that's hilarious. This makes her add to the old nickname that Alison used to call him, Hermi, because she spread around that he was half girl and half boy. It boiled my blood then and boils it now, because Mona treats him that way knowing that me, her and Hanna had all been where he is not too long ago.

Now barely able to keep my eyes open when I'm done and the quietness of the Hastings' house creeps up on me, it makes it calm enough to soothe me into sleep. I take a breath and feel my sleepiness kick in and in no time at all I'm fast asleep, dreaming.

It's a rainy Friday morning in March, my parents, myself and Jeff are getting ready to go into New York/New Jersey for the weekend. Every few months we try to get away from Rosewood for a while, needing to distance ourselves from all the people who think our family is weird or unnatural for being mixed. We plan to visit my dad's sister and her son in New Jersey, even stay at their place since they have the extra space. If they didn't we would have had to stay at a hotel. Aunt Casey and my cousin Bobby have been really the only ones who like having us around, 'cause my other family members were never a fan of my parents moving away and taking me and Jeff with them. So things had always been iffy with everyone since then.

I'm sitting in the living room on the couch with all my things packed up and ready to go by the door. Dad walks over to me and rubs my head gently with a smile before heading towards the door to grab my duffle bag. He says he wants to start putting our things in the trunk so we can just leave when ready. Once he does that he comes back in to grab his and Jeff's bags. As he's doing that mom comes downstairs and sets her stuff by the door and walks off into the kitchen. That's when dad comes back and starts complaining how she always packs twice the amount of clothing than what's needed for a few days. I just laugh as I watch him grab her large suitcase and then stare at the second duffle bag she has in the front hallway to our house. He just sighs and walks away, making me smile.

I'm in the middle of playing a Pokemon game on my Nintendo DS Lite, sucking my bottom lip in concentration. Then I get distracted by my 14 year old brother Jeff, who is now yelling over the balcony from the second floor in Spanish, "Does anyone know where my iPod is?"

I look up at him from the couch, "Probably in your pile of dirty clothes that you haven't washed in years under your bed." I say back to him in Spanish with a hint of sarcasm. Then I set my eyes back to my game and try not to laugh.

"Oh, ha ha." He switches to English now, "Hilarious, Jessie, truly."

I smile, "Not my fault you misplace everything and find them scattered around your so-called room." His room is a typical 9th grade boys' space, filthy and smells bad. I don't go in there unless I have to.

Now he just scoffs at me, hearing his footsteps as he leaves. "You're no help!" He yells in Spanish, making me smile at his annoyance.

After a half hour of waiting for the rain to stop we are finally on the road, the rain now just a light drizzle. Me and Jeff are in the back seats, while mom is in the passenger seat. Dad switches stations on the radio a few minutes into the drive just ase. We're almost out of town now, around the corner from one of the best restaurants to date, The Grille. That's when dad ends up finding a song he finally likes and starts bobbing his head to the music, singing along at the top of his lungs. I can't help but laugh and start to sing as well, mom's bright smile showing as she stares at me and dances, but Jeff, he is embarrassed of us and just shakes his head. He puts his earbuds in since he managed to find his iPod and looks out the window instead.

"Oh come on, Jeffrey!" Dad says as he looks in the rearview mirror, "It's family time!"

I just smile but Jeff isn't paying attention as he keeps his eyes on the window and listens to his own music. That's when I hear someone yell from outside our car and I look to my side of the window, eyes widening when I see that a dog had gotten loose from its owner. "DAD, LOOK OUT!"

SCREEEEETCH.

This sound swarms my ears, echoing so loud it hurts. Dad presses on the brakes and swerves the car to the side to avoid the dog, which he does, but with the wet pavement the car isn't able to keep its balance. I immediately see mom look at me, her eyes wide with fear and mouth the words "l love you." before the car topples sideways. The next thing I know a loud CRASH comes and we're flipping in the car. Not once, not twice, but three full times before it stops dead in its tracks onto its hood. While it flipped I hit my head a few times on the window, the last blow knocking me out.

"Oh my God!"

"I'm calling 911!"

I faintly hear voices yell, buzzing in my ears and more screams of fear. My head hurts and I slowly open my eyes, blinking out the blurriness. I lost my glasses but I can just make out that I'm upside down, my arms hanging above me from being stuck by my seatbelt holding me in place. There's glass all over, my hands are bleeding from cuts, a throbbing headache and my leg kind of hurts. I bring my hand to my head and wince to the pain, pulling my hand away I see more blood on it. I take a breath, staring out the broken window and see a blurry mess of people standing at a distance from our car. I'm a little confused but when I attempt to move all the pain from my leg and body spirals through me, making me scream bloody murder.

"Hey!" A man's voice says right beside me, my heart jumping a bit because I didn't expect it. So I turn my head, teeth clenching in pain and see a light skinned man with brown hair and blue eyes, a slight scruff visible on his face. He's wearing white sweatpants that seem to be smeared in blood as he knelt down onto the glass by my window, and a blue pullover hoodie. He rubs the blood from his hands onto his pants when more glass cuts them up but keeps his eyes on me when he notices I'm awake. "Hey, I'm gonna get you out of here okay?"

My breath is a bit slow, my eyes trying to adjust to the new face in front of me. My brain is so scattered that I can barely remember what just happened, so I turn my head away and start to look around. Jeff is beside me in the same situation, held in his seat upside down by the seat belt and bleeding from his face, but he's unconscious. Mom and dad are in the same state as Jeff. I'm the only one awake but I'm so shocked that I don't know what to make of it.

"Hey, look at me." The man's voice comes again, so calm that it kind of shocks me. "I need you to focus so that I can help get you out of here." This gets my attention as I stare back at him and he smiles, "Good. I'm Ezra, let me get this door open."

I don't even know what to say as I watch him leave my view and hear him pulling on the door, making my head pound in a bigger headache from the sensitivity to sound and I close my eyes with a groan. It sounds like he tugs on it for a while, not seeming to have luck before he comes back into view, sweat all over his face now.

"I can't get it open, I'm gonna have to get you out through the window. Are you hurt?" He asks gently, staring at me as if trying to figure that out.

I take a breath and finally manage to get some words out, "M-My leg and head."

He nods and stares at my bleeding head and tells me that my leg looks broken, "Okay. Listen, take your seatbelt off and then I'll pull you out of there."

I nod slowly, wincing from the pain but do my best to ignore it as I watch him break the rest of the glass of the window and then kick it around so it doesn't hurt me. Once he's back into view he smiles a bit and I reach where the belt unbuckles. It takes a few times to get the button to work before I'm falling towards the hood of the car, but the man softens my landing by having his hands under me so that I would fall into his arms.

"What's your name?" He asks gently, seeming to be trying to distract me as he starts to pull me out of the car.

I take a painful breath as he does this, groaning loudly. "J-Jessie."

"That's a beautiful name." He says, working slowly to get me to safety. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen." I gulp a bit, watching my brother's unconscious body getting farther away from me.

Before I know it he has me out of the car, talking to me the entire walk over to the sidewalk to keep me focused on him. He is carrying me bridal style, one arm around my back and the other under my legs, being gentle since I'm hurt. I hold on tight, needing something to focus on while everything hurts so bad it feels like my insides are burning. Once he gets me set onto the ground we look to the side to notice that the ambulance just arrived and two of them hop out. Now my eyes land on my dad's car, seeing that the underpart of the car has flames coming out of it now and watch the two EMT's running over towards the car as fast as they can. My face drops in an instant when I see this and before they can reach the car a loud BOOM echoes around the space. The car exploded.

"NO!" I wake up in a sweat in my bed but in a room that doesn't look totally familiar to me for a few long seconds. I can't breathe as I lose all the air in my lungs and then sob, realizing where I am and that it wasn't just a dream, it really did happen. I see that the sun is trying to seep through my window from morning greeting the start of the day.

Footsteps come not too long after and Spencer practically barges through my closed door. She's out of breath, her head searching around as if expecting a robber inside. Then her eyes land on me on the floor in the corner of the room, sobbing into my knees as I have them pulled to my chest. This was my space of safety every time I'd have a nightmare when this all first happened. My instincts kicked in and this is where I ended up.

"Jessie?" She says in a concerned yet scared tone, walking over to me. "Jessie, it's okay. You're okay."

I'm shaking so bad that I can't stop, I can't grasp my thoughts. I hear her but I can't speak. This is the first time I've had a start to finish dream of the accident in months. I've had dreams of it in bits and pieces since I was able to cope with what happened. But seeing the Montgomery's, it must have triggered the dream in full effect and now I'm back to where I started when my life changed that day.

"N-Not okay." I manage to say, hiccuping and gasping for air as I finally look up at her. Sitting on the ground her 5'7" height looks a lot taller than usual. Her exhausted eyes are on me, her long dark-brown hair messy with her shorts and t-shirt wrinkled from her sleep. I feel bad for waking her up.

She doesn't hesitate to sit in front of me and see that her eyebrows are slanted in worry. "The accident?" She asks, knowing the drill of being woken up from her sleep by me is usually because of a nightmare.

I nod slowly, wiping my tears away. "Y-Yes. It was horrible." I half sob now.

Spencer gives a soft sigh, resting her hand on my cheek and rubs it. "I thought they weren't as bad?"

I sniffle and lean into her hand, feeling her comfort instantly. "Them being here in Rosewood again...it's bringing the feelings back." I made so much progress, this can't be happening.

She takes a soft breath, "You'll get through this."

"What if I can't?" My eyes start to tear again, "What if them coming back here triggers my old habits?"

Now she wipes the strains of tears sliding down my face for me, "They'll help you. I'll help you. You're not in this alone, Jessie. We got you." She leans forward, placing her forehead to mine now, "They are your family, you need them and they need you."

I close my eyes to her actions, hiccuping as I try to relax from my crying. Then she hugs me and I just lean into her. She's been my rock through all this and I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't been with me all this time.