Perfect (Book Two)

Eight: Even Typical Rosewood Boys Soul-Search.

Tuesday afternoon as Aria was driving home from school, she passed the lacrosse field and recognized the lone figure sprinting around the goal area, his lacrosse stick cradled in front the wet, muddy grass. Ominous gray clouds had gathered overhead, and now it was starting to sprinkle.

Aria pulled over. "Mike." She hadn't seen her brother since he'd stormed out of the Victory yesterday. A few hours afterward, he'd called home saying he was having dinner at his friend Theo's house. Then, later, he called to say he was staying overnight.

Her brother looked up from across the field and frowned. "What?"

"Come here."

Mike trudged across the close-cropped, not-a-weed-in-sight grass. "Get in," Aria commanded.

"I'm practicing."

"You can't avoid this forever. We have to talk about it."

"Talk about what?"

She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Um, what we saw yesterday? At the bar?"

Mike picked at one of the rawhide straps on his lacrosse stick. Raindrops bounced off the canvas top of his Brine cap. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"What?" Aria narrowed her eyes. But Mike wouldn't even look at her.

"Fine." She shifted into reverse. "Be a wuss."

Then Mike wrapped his hand around the window frame. "I...I don't know what I'll do," he said quietly.

Aria pressed the brake. "What?"

"If they get divorced, I don't know what I'll do," Mike repeated. The vulnerable, embarrassed expression on his face made him look as if he were about ten year old. "Blow myself up, maybe."

Mike sniffed. She reached out for him, but he jerked away and ran down the field.

Aria decided to go, slowly rolling down the twisty, wet road. Rain was her favorite kind of weather. It reminded her of rainy days, back when she was nine. She'd sneak over to her neighbor's parked sailboat, climb under the tarp, and snuggle into one of the cabins, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the canvas and writing entries in her Hello Kitty diary.

She felt like she could do her best thinking on rainy days, and she definitely needed to think now. She could have dealt with A telling Ella about Meredith if it had been in the past. Her parents could talk through it, Byron could say it would never happen again, yadda, yadda, yadda. But now that Meredith was back, well, that changed everything. Last night, her father hadn't come home for dinner—because of the, um, papers he had to grade—and Aria and her mom had sat on the couch in front of Jeopardy! with bowls of soup in their laps. They were both totally silent. The thing was, she didn't know what she'd do if her parents divorced, either.

Climbing a particularly steep hill, Aria gunned the engine—the Subaru always needed an extra push on inclines. But instead of revving forward, the interior lights flickered out. The car began to roll backward down the hill. "Shit," Aria whispered, jerking up the e-brake. When she tried the ignition again, the car wouldn't even start.

She looked down the empty, two-lane country road. Thunder broke overhead, and the rain started to hurtle down from the sky. Aria searched through her bag, figuring she needed to call a tow truck or her parents to come get her, but after rooting around the bottom, she realized she'd left her Treo at home. The rain was falling so violently, the windshield and windows blurred. "Oh God," Aria whispered, feeling claustrophobic. Spots formed in front of her eyes.

Aria knew this anxious feeling: It was a panic attack. She'd had them a few times before. One was after The Jenna Thing, one was after Ali went missing, and one was when she was walking down Laugavegur Street in Reykjavik and saw a girl on a billboard that looked exactly like Meredith.