Chapter 84*
Aria's POV*
Jason and I were curled up on the couch, there was a movie on, an old noir film that I had watched a dozen times, as I picked at my pizza. I wasn't overly hungry, and the awkwardness of Mike and my dad walking in while I was kissing Jason hadn't really helped to settle my stomach at all. But now that we were relaxing on the couch, away from the awkward conversation of not wanting to tell my dad about what had happened at the gallery. I had needed to squeeze Jason's hand to make sure that he didn't spill the beans. We had managed to make it through the conversation, despite the look that my dad kept shooting between Jason and me. He had been nice enough not to question things. And I didn't really know what the answer would be right now.
It was a comfortable moment, leaning into Jason like this. His arms wrapped around my midsection. I didn't want to ruin the moment by asking what the plan was with us. If he wanted to be in a relationship, or just kiss me. I was slightly terrified that he wouldn't want to actually date me. After all, dating me meant more trouble. I didn't know how Charles would react. The weird focus he had had on me in the dollhouse made me uncomfortable, and it terrified me to think about what that would mean for Jason. The unsettling feeling that maybe it would be better for him if we didn't move forward with anything. My heart sunk into my stomach, making me want to retch when I realized that this might have been a mistake.
"You done with your pizza?" his voice asked from right next to my ear, the sensation of his warm breath against my skin enough to send a shiver down my spine.
"Yeah, I'm good."
He took the plate that was sitting on my lap and put it on the end table to his other side. Then I could shift down more into him, turning in towards him. It was comfortable, an easy position to fall into. And I was almost surprised at how easily this had all been, how comfortably we had moved into each other. The position now really wasn't that different than any other time that we had curled up on the couch, maybe a little more contact, but it struck home how we had basically already been acting like this. His hand traced gentle circles across my back and side, the sensations sending prickles of happiness through me. I was tempted to stay like this forever. Ignoring everything else in the world.
My phone chirped, and I instantly tensed up. Taking a reassuring breath, I leaned forward to grab it from the coffee table. There was a message there from Spencer, and I worried for half a moment if that meant that we needed to have the nightly check in already. I wasn't looking forward to it. In the last twenty minutes or so, I had managed to push everything that had happened at the gallery to the back of my mind. Ignoring the shock that had ripped through me when I saw the images on the gallery wall that had replaced my own work. Seeing what the other girls had gone through, it ripped at my heart. And I felt the horror of reality coming back into the bubble of happiness that I had managed to create tonight.
Spencer: Need to talk. Safe to come over?
That was worse than just an update. More than just checking in on what we had all experienced today. And it sent ice through my veins. Jason's hand had stopped the movements against my back, and I felt frozen in fear.
Aria: Jason's over. Is that okay?
"Everything okay?" Jason asked, his words were warm against my skin, but it didn't give me the same bubble of contentment as before.
"I don't know. Spencer seems stressed about something." I explained, face creased in concern. "She wants to come over."
He considered my words for a moment, brushing hair away from my face. It had dried at least, but that just meant that it kept falling between us. His fingers kept returning to the locks that constantly blocked my vision, toying with the hair. It was a habit that I could get used to, loving the way his skin kept moving against mine.
"Should I head out? Give you some space?" he sounded hesitant to even offer it.
I didn't want him to leave. Despite Mike and my dad being home, I didn't feel like they would be enough for me to stay safe. And looking at Jason, I knew that it would worry him, being away from me when so much had happened today. My phone chirped again and I checked the message from Spencer.
Spencer: That's fine. Over in 5.
"All good to stay." I assured him, a smile spread across my mouth in relief that I didn't have to send him away.
I settled back against him, feeling the warmth of his breath tracing against the sensitive skin beneath my ear as I did so. It sent a thrill down my spine, a delighted shiver that caused Jason to wrap his arms tighter around me.
"How long do we have before they get here?" his voice was a low rumble against my skin, and I felt my breath catch.
"A few minutes. Why?" I answered, wondering what that meant.
His lips traced along the shell of my ear gently, and I had to bite my lip to keep the gasp quiet at the sensation. Then he pulled back, brushing a kiss to the side of my head.
"I was wondering what you want to tell the others. About our relationship." he shifted slightly so he could better look me in the eye. "I would rather not just surprise my sister by showing up to her prom."
I felt a flush spread across my face. It felt like he was leaving things up to me. And I didn't know the right answer to give. Surely there was one that he would be more comfortable with. What to tell friends hadn't exactly been a conversation I had needed to have in the past. Mostly since my last relationship hadn't been one that I could tell my friends in the first place. Until they'd already found out on their own that is.
"I'd like to say that we're dating, if that's alright with you." he continued, the note of hesitation in his voice paired with his eyes looking over me to figure out what I wanted.
"Yeah, I'd like that." I smiled at him, the sense of ease washing over me. It had seemed so much more daunting just a minute ago. I leaned into him and kissed him again, reveling in the freedom of the action.
Then my phone chirped, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Pulling back, I saw that it was from Spencer, and was at least relieved that she hadn't walked in on us, not like earlier. I didn't really want to deal with the embarrassment of that again tonight.
Spencer: Outside. Door open?
I frowned at the weirdness of that. And headed over to the door, leaving Jason on the couch with a 'wait a sec'. And when I got the door open, surely enough there was Spencer, Hanna, and Emily.
"What's going on?" I asked, confused as to why they hadn't just knocked on the door like they normally would have.
"We thought your dad might be home." Spencer answered, nodding to Jason as she looked over the living room.
"Yeah, he's in his office, and Mike's home too." I was confused, not understanding what it was that Spencer wanted to keep from them. But it sent my heart into the pit of my stomach. Something else must have happened.
"And your mom?" Emily asked, moving into the family room and dropping into one of the arm chairs.
I frowned, worried what they knew. Did they somehow already know that my mom and I had argued? Did they know that I had spilled the beans not only about the Jenna thing, but about Shana? My attention flitted between them as they headed towards the seats.
"She left a while ago." I dismissed, not wanting to get any further into thinking about the fight, and sitting back on the couch next to Jason, who had sat up a bit straighter so it was less clear that we had been cuddling on the couch. "What's going on?"
"We need to do our check in. But we can't get a hold of Alison." Emily explained, looking between the girls, as though expecting them to have more information.
"Oh, I might know what that is actually." Jason offered, leaning forward slightly. "Tanner called my dad down to the police station tonight, apparently Ali broke into the evidence room."
"Seriously? Did he say why?" Spencer was as taken back as I was.
I couldn't help turning in my seat to look at Jason, wondering why he hadn't said anything about this earlier. He had to have known when he came over, since he hadn't so much as taken out his phone since he had been with me. He gave me an almost sheepish look, as though apologizing for not mentioning it. But I realized that I hadn't exactly given him a lot of opportunity to talk about things when he first got here. And it must have slipped his mind to mention after we were watching the movie.
"No, he was heading down to the station to talk to Ali and Tanner when I got home. Haven't heard from him since."
"Okay. Hopefully Ali can explain more tomorrow." Spencer shrugged it off, turning her attention back to the other girls.
"That's not exactly in person check in worthy though." I argued, looking between my best friends who were all looking shiftier by the minute. I took a deep breath, worried about whatever it was they were keeping from me.
"Don't look at me, I barely know the guy." Emily shoved off the responsibility, and instinctively for reassurance I grabbed Jason's hand, squeezing it in my anxiety.
Spencer and Hanna looked at each other for a moment, having a silent argument about who needed to break things to me. Since Emily apparently wasn't willing to.
"Just tell me what's going on." I spat out, stressed from their silence.
"Right, so you know how we had the interview today at the Carisimi group?" Spencer started, throwing me completely off. How would they expect Emily to know the guy there.
I nodded, wanting them to continue talking. And maybe get to the point of this whole thing. This was sending my heartrate through the roof, just waiting for them to tell me what they found out. Spencer glanced back up at the stairwell, as though checking that no one was coming down, or lurking upstairs to overhear our conversation.
"So we met with this guy named Rhys Matthews." Spencer continued, still not getting to the point, though her eyes darted next to me. And I wanted to scream. "And he looks a lot like Jason."
I froze. Body turning to a block of ice. Did that mean what I thought it did? Did they see Charles today. I knew my breathing stopped when I felt Jason rubbing circles into my upper back. As though that would get me to breathe. I couldn't though. Had they found him? Why were they telling me instead of the police. I mean I know we don't typically go straight to the cops, but this felt like one of those moments where that should be an option, even if it wasn't the automatic response.
"Like if I hadn't just seen Jason walking back to his car in the opposite direction, I would have thought it was him sitting outside the gallery similar." Hanna's voice cut back in over the roaring sound of my blood racing through my ears.
"What?" I made my numb lips move to make the sound. Not understanding what had just happened. What I had just missed. Because it was clear that I had missed something. My brain had completely short-circuited and they had kept on talking and explaining things.
"So we followed him." Emily explained, like that answered every question that was possibly contained in my single word question. "To an old doll factory in the warehouse district in Philly."
"That explains me beating you home." Jason muttered, as though he knew anything that was going on right now.
I wanted to stop them all from talking for a moment, long enough that I could figure out what the hell was going on. Today had just been too many shocks to process, and I had been doing a good job at avoiding processing them, instead focusing on just the positive ones that involved a relationship with Jason. But reality came crashing back down around me. And I wanted to hide. To bury myself under the covers and never come out again.
"Yeah, so we waited outside. Until we saw another car come up." Spencer dismissed Jason's contribution, and I just wanted to backpedal everything.
"How much do you really know about Clark?" Hanna asked, her voice going soft as she leaned over to take my hand.
"He's a photography student at Hollis." it was all I could get out right now. I didn't understand the segue. "What does Clark have to do with anything?"
There was a silent look between the girls, as though they were debating if I was up for hearing whatever it was that they needed to tell me. I didn't know that I was, but they were already here. I couldn't imagine waiting until tomorrow to hear what they had to say now.
"Show her." Emily prompted, gaze fixed on Hanna.
Hanna unlocked her phone and hit the screen a few times before passing her phone over to me. It felt heavy in my numb fingers, and I suddenly realized that I wasn't holding on to either her or Jason anymore, but didn't remember when that had happened. On the screen was a picture of a blonde man, who looked startlingly like Jason. His chin was a little sharper, more of a heart shape than Jason, and a little closer to Ali's. He also had blue eyes, which were brought out by the stark contrast of his white and black three piece suit. Hair the same honeyed blonde shade as both Alison and Jason, I understood just why they had thought that he could have been Jason.
"The next few are of the warehouse." Hanna prompted as I was just staring at the image.
It wasn't Jason. But it was close enough that I wanted to zoom in on the image. Take apart every single possible difference there was between them. Chart it out what characteristics were more like Ali, which were more like Jason. And try to keep them as separate in my head as possible. Instead of moving to the next image, I zoomed in, trying to get a better look at the hands that were openly presented at the front of the image. As the man in the photo leaned forward, as though trying to give himself away by the shape of his long fingers. I desperately searched for the calluses that I had felt wrapped around my throat. But the image blurred too much, unable to give the clarity when blown up that big. I zoomed back out before moving to the next photo. This one was of that blonde man sitting in a dark car, the street behind the car was familiar, but not enough that I could place where it was. Outside the gallery maybe? That's what Hanna had said after all. The next image was of the same blonde man walking into the light of an old warehouse looking building. That must be the factory that they were talking about. There were a few of him walking into the building, looking back over his shoulder as though to see if he was being followed. Then it changed to another car pulling up, one that looked more familiar than I liked. But I couldn't remember where I had seen it either. Until Clark got out of that car as well. He moved towards the warehouse entrance that the blonde man had just gone through, checking over his shoulder before slipping inside.
"We have to show the cops." I got out, handing the phone back to Hanna.
"We can't, Aria. Remember Sarah?" Emily shot it down immediately.
"He hasn't done anything though." Spencer argued, earning a glare from Emily. "I'm just saying, Ali has been spilling things to the cops and Sarah has been fine."
"Aside from dodging everyone's calls." Emily shot back, the possibility of Sarah getting hurt was still hanging over us, but especially her.
I didn't like what that meant. Sarah still being in danger made this even more difficult to manage. The fact that I knew that the cops wanted us to talk, more than we had been. Everything had been balanced on the edge of a precipice, slowly adding more and more weight. But tonight it all felt like it came crashing down in one big cascade.
"We don't know that it has anything to do with Charles." Hanna pointed out, and the glare from Emily was almost palpable. "Don't look at me like that. I'm just saying we don't know that much about the girl. It could be she's just taking some space."
"Let's not jump to any conclusions." Spencer tried to interject.
"Apparently it's not just us she's avoiding though." Emily spat back, and she turned her attention to me. "The cops said that she wasn't answering any of their calls either."
"What about Caleb? Is she still working for him?" there had to be someone that Sarah was still in contact with.
"Yeah, I think so." Hanna explained, shifting in her seat. "I messaged Caleb, but he hasn't responded yet."
"So until we hear something different, we have to assume that she's okay. And just taking some space." Spencer soothed again.
"And that does leave us with the next issue." I derailed, hoping that I could keep them focused on what was happening, not just what might be. "Apparently we all have meetings with the profiler. And he told me that he wants to know everything."
I saw the girls all freeze at that.
"He said that he only cares about catching Charles. Nothing else."
I felt Jason shift on the couch beside me, and I felt my heart skitter in panic. Jason would know that there were things that we were hiding from him. Secrets that I didn't want to share right now. Or ever really. Telling him about what had happened in the dollhouse had been hard enough. He didn't need to know the rest of what she had done. Some things weren't meant to be shared.
Thinking back to the look on Ezra's face the last time I had seen him, outside the clinic. It made me regret everything that I had told him over the course of our relationship. I had been too trusting. And knew now that it could make things more complicated with the police as things continued.
We couldn't tell the cops everything. That was never going to be an option. But it had felt like maybe there would be some things that they could say. That wouldn't result in them getting arrested. The sound of the door closing behind me, the utter loneliness that had accompanied that sound. And the isolation that came with it. It was enough for me to never want to admit the things that we had done. That I had done.
"Let's not make any decisions tonight." Spencer soothed, drawing my attention back to the moment. The safety of the living room and my friends all around me.
I heard a buzzing alert, not the chirping sound of my own phone, but Spencer's phone alerting that there was a new message. I held my breath as she reached into her bag to grab it out. The moment was heavy with the implication. And I felt Jason's hand move back into mine, squeezing to reassure me.
"My mom is apparently going to be out late tonight. And suggested I stay here." she was frowning as she read the message out to us.
"Does she know you were coming over?"
It wasn't exactly typical for her mom to tell her where she should sleep. Even when she was running late with some job function. Spencer spent a lot of nights sleeping alone in her house, ever since her dad had moved out and Melissa had moved to England seemingly permanently.
"No, I hadn't even told her that I was leaving the gallery."
I felt my muscles tense at that. Wondering just where she was getting Spencer's location from then. Could it be that she had asked the cops and they told her where Spencer was at? The implication of that unsettled me. The tight sensation returning to my chest as I was overwhelmed with claustrophobia. Of course they knew where we all were all the time. It was unsettling and I hated to think about it. But somehow, I had assumed that information wouldn't be shared with anyone. Not even our parents. Had I been mistaken?
Two other alerts sounded, causing both Emily and Hanna to jump. I looked back at my own phone, which was staying silent as the others reached for theirs.
"My mom also sugested that I stay the night here." Emily voiced, her brows furrowing deeply.
"And mine." Hanna added. "Does that mean they're together?"
"Probably? It would make more sense for them texting all at the same time." I tried to sound dismissive, but knew that I was failing at that. "Do you all need to grab anything from home? Or do you wanna borrow something of mine?"
I felt the couch shift next to me, Jason moving around enough to pull my attention back over to him. We felt like we were in a weird space right now, our sort of date slash comfort hangout being abruptly ended with the girls staying over.
"Are you okay with just the girls? Or do you need me to stay for a little bit longer." he asked, drawing their attention back to him as well.
I didn't want him to leave. Didn't want to lose the feeling of safety and comfort that I had just had with him. With him here, it was easier to forget about everything else that had happened today. And I knew that as soon as he left, I was going to slide back into memories brought up by the photos tonight. Ones that I didn't really want to get into. But I also knew that I needed to talk with the others about what we had been through. Too much had been put out there already. So as much as I wanted him to stay, I knew that it was better if he went home.
"I'm alright. Maybe we can do breakfast tomorrow?" I didn't want him to feel unwanted, but he had been completely sidelined as soon as the girls had come over.
"Or lunch. Just let me know what you're feeling." he offered with a reassuring smile, accepting the unspoken dismissal. He turned his attention over to Spencer. "Let me know if you're still up for that run on Sunday."
"Yeah, I will. Thank you for tonight."
I got up off the couch with Jason, the awkward feeling continuing. I figured if I walked him to the door at least, then we could say goodbye privately and not be subject to their attention. Though that did mean we were more likely to be seen by the police parked at the curb. The amount of people watching me was uncomfortable again, but I tried to shrug it off.
"Thanks for coming over tonight. I really appreciate it." I tucked myself in to hug him, not wanting to go straight into a goodbye kiss with the girls behind me. Glancing behind me, I saw that they were looking away, as though giving us a moment of privacy.
"Anytime. And we'll finish that movie another time." he promised, leaning down to kiss my forehead.
I tilted my head upwards and brushed a quick kiss across his lips, ignoring the feeling of the girls staring at my back. It was brief, just a moment. But I was glad that I was able to do it. The reassurance combining with the feeling of butterflies in my stomach at the action.
"Call me if you need me." he asked, brushing my hair back behind my ear once more before opening the door and heading into the night.
I turned around as the door shut, looking back to see three sets of eyes watching me. Their expressions too innocent for me to believe that they hadn't just watched the goodbye kiss between Jason and me.
"Alright, what's the first question?"
End Chapter*
So something nice and light this time. Also since it's the holidays, I'll be posting a separate side chapter that Christmas themed tomorrow. It's pretty short but meant to be just a nice time, but one that doesn't fit into the current storyline at all.
Let me know what ya think.