Perfect (Book Two)

Thirteen: A Certain English Teacher Is Such An Unreliable Narrator.

On Thursday, Aria hesitated in the AP English classroom doorway when Spencer walked by. "Hey." Aria grabbed her arm. "Have you gotten any...?"

Spencer's eyes darted back and forth, sort of like those of the big lizards Aria had seen on display at the Paris Zoo. "Um, no," she said. "But I'm really late, so..." She ran down the hall. Aria bit down hard on her lip. Okay.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder. She let out a little shriek and dropped her water bottle. It clunked to the floor and started rolling.

"Whoa. Just trying to get by."

Ezra stood behind her. He'd been absent from school on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Aria had wondered if he'd resigned. "Sorry," she mumbled, her cheeks bright red.

Ezra had on the same rumpled corduroys he'd worn last week, a tweedy jacket with a tiny hole in the elbow, and Merrill lace-ups. Up close, he smelled faintly like the Seda France ylang-ylang and saffron-scented "man candle" Aria remembered from his living room mantel. She'd visited his apartment just six days ago, but it felt like two lifetimes had passed since then.

Aria tiptoed into the classroom behind him. "So, were you sick?" she asked.

"Yes," Ezra answered. "I had the flu."

"Sorry to hear that." Aria wounded if she was going to get the flu too.

Ezra looked at the empty classroom and walked closer to her. "So. Listen. How about a fresh start?" His face was businesslike.

"Um, okay," Aria croaked.

"We have a year to get through," Ezra added. "So we'll forget this happened?"

Aria swallowed. She knew their relationship was wrong, but she still had feelings for Ezra. She's bared her soul to him, and she couldn't do that with just anyone. And he was so different. "Of course," she said, although she didn't entirely believe it. They'd had a real...connection.

Ezra nodded slightly. Then, ever so slowly, he reached out and put his hand on the back of Aria's neck. Tingles ran up her spine. She held her breath until he brought his hand back to his side and walked away.

Aria took a seat at her desk, her mind churning. Was that some sort of sign? He had said forget it, but it hadn't felt that way.

Before she could decide if she should say anything to Ezra, Noel Kahn slid into the seat across from Aria and poked her with his Montblanc pen. "So, I hear you're cheating on me, Finland."

"What?" Aria sat up, alert. Her hand fluttered to her neck.

"Sean Ackard was asking about you. You know he's with Hanna though, right?"

Aria poked the backs of her teeth with her tongue. "Sean...Ackard?"

"He's not with Hanna anymore," James Freed interrupted, sliding into his seat in front Noel. "Mona told me Hanna dumped him."

"So, you like Sean?" Noel pushed his wavy black hair out of his eyes.

"No," Aria said automatically. Although she kept coming back to the conversation she'd had with Sean in his car on Tuesday. It had felt good to talk to someone about things.

"Good," Noel said, brushing a hand across his forehead. "I was worried."

Aria rolled her eyes.

Hanna sauntered into the room just as the bell rang, putting her oversize Prada bag on her desk and sinking dramatically into her chair. She gave Aria a tight smile.

"Hey." Aria felt a little shy. In school, Hanna seemed awfully closed off.

"Hey, Hanna, are you with Sean Ackard anymore?" Noel asked loudly.

Hanna stared at him. Her eyelid twitched. "It wasn't working between us. Why?"

"No reason," Aria butted in quickly. Although she wondered why Hanna had broken up with him. They were two peas in a typical Rosewood pod.

Ezra clapped his hands. "All right," he said. "In addition to the books we're reading as a class, I want to do an extra side project on unreliable narrators."

Devon Arliss raised her hand. "What does that mean?"

Ezra strode around the room. "Well, the narrator tells us the story in a book, right? But what if...the narrator isn't telling us the truth? Maybe he's telling his skewed version of the story to get you on his side. Or to scare you. Or maybe he's crazy!"

Aria shivered. That made her think of A.

"I'm going to assign each of you a book," Ezra said. "In a ten-page paper, you are to make the case for and against its narrator being unreliable."

The class groaned. Aria rested her head in her palm. Maybe A wasn't entirely reliable? Maybe A didn't really know anything but was just trying to convince them otherwise. Who was A, anyway? She looked around the classroom, at Amber Billings, poking her finger through a tiny hole in her stockings; at Mason Byers, secretly checking the Phillies scores on his cell phone, using his notebook as a shield; and at Hanna, writing down what Ezra was sating with her purple-ink feather pen. Could any of these people be A? Who could know about Ezra, her parents...and The Jenna Thing?

A groundskeeper zoomed by on a John Deere mower outside the window, and Aria jumped. Ezra was still talking about lying narrators, pausing to take a sip out o his mug. He shot Aria the tiniest smile, and her heart began to thrum.

James Freed leaned over, poked Hanna, and gestured to Ezra. "So, I hear Fitz gets some serious ass," he whispered, loud enough for Aria—and the rest of her row—to hear.

Hanna looked at Ezra and wrinkled her nose. "Him? Ew."

"Apparently he's got this girlfriend in New York, but he's on a different Hollis girl every week," James went on.

Aria straightened up. Girlfriend?

James grinned. "You know Ms. Polanski? The bio student teacher? She told me. She hangs out with us at the smoking corner sometimes."

Noel gave James a high five. "Dude, Ms. Polanski is hot."

"Seriously," James answered. "You think I could take her to Foxy?"

Aria felt like someone had just thrown her into a bonfire. A girlfriend? Friday night, he's said he hadn't dated anybody in a long time. Aria remembered noticing his bachelorish frozen dinners for one, his eight thousand books but one drinking glass, and his said, dead spider plants. It didn't look like he had a girlfriend.

James could have his facts wrong, but she doubted it. Aria bubbled with anger. Years ago, she might've thought only typical Rosewood boys were players, but she'd learned a lot about boys in Iceland. Sometimes the most unassuming boys were the sketchiest. No girl would look at Ezra—sensitive, rumpled, sweet, caring Ezra—and distrust him. He reminded Aria of someone. Her father.

Aria suddenly felt sick. She stood up, grabbed the hall pass from the peg, and strode out the door.

"Aria?" Ezra called, sounding concerned.

She didn't stop. In the girls' room, she rushed to the sink, dispensed pink soap into her hands, and scrubbed the spot on her neck Ezra had touched. She was walking back to class when her cell phone chimed. She pulled it out of her bag and pressed read.

Naughty, naughty, Aria! You should know better than to go after a teacher, anyway. It's girls like you who break up perfectly happy families. —A

Aria froze. She was in the middle of the empty front hallway. When she heard a noise, she whirled around. She was facing the glass trophy case, which had been transformed into an Alison DiLaurentis temple. Inside were various candids from Rosewood Day classes—teachers always took tons of pictures throughout the year, and the school typically presented them to parents when their child graduated. There was Ali as a gap-toothed kindergartner; there she was dressed up as a pilgrim for their fourth-grade play. There was even some of her schoolwork, like an Under the Sea diorama from third grade and an illustration of the circulatory system from fifth.

A square of hot pink caught Aria's eye. Someone had stuck a Post-it note on the memorial's glass. Aria's eyes widened.

P.S. Wondering who I am, aren't you? I'm closer than you think. —A