Ali's Pretty Little Lies (Prequel)

Thirty-One: The Ultimate Power.

Thursday evening after graduation, a battered Subaru pulled up to Ali's front curb. Ali watched through the window as Aria spilled out from the backseat, pirouetted onto the lawn, and buried her face in the grass. "Delicious," Ali heard her murmur.

Mrs. DiLaurentis touched Ali's arm. "Aren't you going to go out there?"

Ali whipped around and looked at her mother. Her heart was pounding as though she'd run a zillion laps around the hockey field. Every sound from upstairs, where her sister had been kept during graduation, made her tense up. "Are you sure you'll keep her inside?" she asked, glancing toward the stairs.

A guilty look crossed her mother's face. It was clear she felt terrible for letting Ali's sister into her room to feel her friends, and she'd been trying for the past forty-eight hours to make it up to Ali. They'd ordered takeout from Ali's favorite sushi place as a graduation dinner. She'd slipped Ali a pair of diamond stud earrings before the ceremony that afternoon, a graduation gift. But it didn't fix what had happened. Courtney had fooled her friends. Courtney had been seen.

What if there had been something different about Courtney, something telling that her friends had noticed? She imagined them going home Tuesday night discussing it on a four-way phone call. Her eyes looked a little different on the patio, don't you think? Aria might have said. And then Hanna would have piped up with, And Ali wouldn't wear a halter top like that. And then Spencer: You know, I've seen a light on in the guest room. And I've heard rumors over the years.

But no. There hadn't been any rumors, had there? This had been a contained secret. Then, Ali thought of Jenna. What if she'd said something? Maybe just an innocent comment to Spencer once, something refused to believe. Or what about the man her mother had told? Maybe he'd said something. Her friends could have had an inkling all along.

What if they were slowly figuring it out? Everything, even the switch?

"You have nothing to worry about," Mrs. DiLaurentis said softly, breaking Ali from her thoughts. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. "Although honestly, honey, I wish you'd just tell them."

"No," Ali almost shrieked.

"Why not? They'll understand. They won't care that you kept this from them, if that's what you're worried about. People keep things from people all the time."

"Yeah, you know that all too well," Ali snapped.

Mrs. DiLaurentis flinched. Reflexively, she raised her hand to Ali, and Ali thought she was going to slap her again, but she only used it to push a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Let's not get into that again," she said in an even tone.

Ali gritted her teeth. Did her mother just expect her to forget everything? There was a man out there who was her real father—she was sure of it—someone her mother was keeping from her. She was determined to find out who it was. She'd considered telling Mr. DiLaurentis, but then she'd decided that it was more powerful to wait until she uncovered the man's identity.

When she turned back to the window, Emily was in the yard now, too, wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a nonde-script blue T-shirt. She and Aria were joking around near Ali's flower blushes. And then Ali had another thought: If she didn't go out soon, her friends would ring the doorbell. Maybe they'd insist on coming to the house. What if Courtney appeared at the top of the stairs? What if the girls wanted to go upstairs, into Ali's room, and Courtney loomed in the doorway?

She nudged open the front door with her toe and flounced out to greet them. The hem of her field hockey skirt, which she'd worn to the team's end-of-the-year party this afternoon, fluttered in the breeze.