Chapter Text
••
“Well, it's official. Today is the first day back to school for the town of Rosewood and it's looking grim in the case of Mona Vanderwaal."
"Oh yes. Such a sad day as we send our teenagers off knowing a young girl in our area might not be making it to college this year."
Hanna turns down the volume on the radio and gazes out the car window to catch the early morning rain trickle down the glass.
If she thought it would ease her suffocation, she'd roll down the window and let the air hit her lungs, but she's been suffering from oxygen deprivation too long for there to be a cure.
"Where do you think she is?" Caleb asks from beside her, eyes flicking off the road for a brief second.
She looks over at him and shrugs. "I don't know."
"I'm sure she's somewhere laughing at us. I can't believe everyone’s buying into this. She wasn't dead last time and she isn't dead this time."
"Last time she was kidnapped and tortured." She says simply, crossing her arms and looking back out the window.
Mona used to be the cause of almost every one of their fights but lately Hanna will use any excuse to be dissatisfied with Caleb. She likes how quiet he gets after she says her piece.
He sighs like he's just been tasked with trying not to trip an invisible line and he's failed. "Are you ready to go back to school?"
It's not the most ideal way to graduate—a year after everyone else and with a basic certificate.
There would be no cap and gown, no ceremony praising her for making it through To Kill a Mockingbird, no chance of her father disappointing her for the millionth time by not showing.
Even after the dollhouse and Charlotte and everything that happened last year, Rosewood High inevitably decided that the girls didn't have enough credits to pass and would have to come back for another semester in the fall.
Hanna had asked the office if there was any way she could make up for it in summer school, but they said that wasn't an option. There are too many credits she doesn't have.
Still she refuses to give up and go get her GED like Emily did. It may be a simple diploma but to her, it represents everything she's been through to get it.
If she quits, Charlotte wins, and she'd rather have died in the dollhouse than to let that happen.
She chews on her bottom lip. "As ready as I'll ever be."
•••
Walking into Rosewood High for the first time since its remodel, she feels like she's in ninth grade all over again.
From the new location of the cafeteria, to the fresh coat of paint on the lockers. Everything is unrecognizable and yet she knows in her heart she's been here so many times before.
It's not just the school that looks different either. It's the students.
The hallway is buzzing with over-eager freshmen racing to figure out their locker combinations and memorize their schedules before first period.
A boy runs to catch his friend's football, almost tumbling into the trash can closest to the courtyard. Another one of his friends laughs.
"Since when did this place become a zoo?" Caleb scoffs.
Hanna shrugs half heartedly. It's hard to complain about a few stupid teenagers when she's had to deal with ten-year-olds all summer.
“And isn't it convenient that Aria magically moves halfway across the country right when Mr. Fitz does?" He glances at her. "Have you heard from her?"
That's another big change.
Mr. Montgomery woke up a few weeks ago to his daughter's bedroom being empty, left with no explanation other than a note saying she was okay and had left Rosewood.
She never so much as texted Hanna, or any of the girls for that matter.
Everyone's been trying to reach her and Ezra for weeks but no one's had any luck. The running theory is that the two met back up and didn't want to tell anyone.
Hanna looks at him. "What? No."
He gives her a suspicious look but doesn't push further.
Thank god.
She doesn't like to think about Aria, because if she thinks about Aria then she has to think about . . .
“Maybe he knows something." Caleb tilts his head to the left as a guy comes from the opposite direction, his hand clinging to the strap of his backpack, his headphones in, exuding gloom with every step.
Mike.
He passes them, not so much as glancing her way. It seems like a lifetime since she's seen that side profile.
She looks at Caleb with a funny expression. "Who, Mike? How could he? He probably spent the last month of summer in a psych ward."
The words leave a venomous taste in her mouth but Caleb doesn't notice.
He laughs in agreement and glances back at him. "And she was his nurse."
Hanna looks over too, digging her fingernails into her skin.
A girl clings onto Mike's back like a koala bear as he goes to open his locker, claiming his face with kisses in that sweet way couples do when just one night is too long.
It makes Hanna sick to her stomach.
"Hey, what's that?" Caleb asks Spencer from across the hallway as she staples a poster to one of the walls.
Spencer smooths the poster out and steps away from it, proudly admiring her work. She may not strive for perfection as much as she used to junior year but she still has just as much ambition. It's the Hastings way.
Meanwhile Hanna's lucky if she can get the ramen noodles in the pot without starting a fire.
Spencer puts her hands on her hips in triumph and looks over at them. "I only have AP English and PE left before I'm finished with this place forever. And since Rosewood has cleaned their hands of the joyous Noel Kahn, I figured this could be my last contribution to Rosewood."
Hanna tilts her head to look at the poster with a concentrated frown.
HASTINGS' HALLOWEEN BASH. OCTOBER 31ST, it reads, COME IF YOU DARE.
"Look!" A manicured hand reaches out in front of Hanna's face. Caleb is right, where's the civility this year?
Unsurprisingly, the hand belongs to Mike's new girlfriend.
He hovers over Hanna's shoulder to get a look at the poster, and for a second she can almost remember when that used to be a normal occurrence.
"A Halloween bash! Isn't that fun?" His girlfriend punches his arm playfully.
He hates parties, is what Hanna wants to say. She stays quiet.
"Yeah." He smiles at his girlfriend. "Sounds cool."
"They're daring us to come." She says in the most high volume, pointless whisper to ever exist.
Hanna narrows her eyes at that and turns to look at Mike but when she does she finds him staring straight back, glare cold as ice.
She swallows sharply.
She can smell the mint gum he always chewed in the car when she used to get carpooled to school with him and Aria—only this time she can't tell if the aroma is coming from Mike's mouth or his new girlfriend's.
They hold eye contact until the speaker crackles overhead. "Can Hanna Marin and Mike Montgomery please come to the Principal's office? Hanna Marin and Mike Montgomery."
Her eyes grow wide with fear and for a moment she swears his do too.