Monday evening after swim practice, Emily clomped up the stairs to the bedroom she and her sister Carolyn shared, shut the door, and flopped down on the bed. Practice hadn't been that grueling, but she felt so tired, like all of her limbs were weighted down with bricks.
She flipped on the radio and spun the dial. As she passed a news station, she heard a chilling, familiar name and paused.
"Ian Thomas's trial begins on Friday morning in Rosewood," a clipped, efficient-sounding newswoman said. "However, Mr. Thomas staunchly denies involvement in Alison DiLaurentis's death, and some sources close to the district attorney's office are saying his case might not even go to trial due to insufficient evidence."
Emily sat up in bed, feeling dizzy. Insufficient evidence? Of course Ian was denying brutally killing Ali, but how could anyone believe him? Especially with Spencer's testimony. Emily thought about an online interview she had discovered a few weeks ago that Ian had given from inside the Chester County jail. He'd kept repeating, "I didn't kill Alison. Why would people think I killed her? Why would someone say that?" Beads of sweat clung to his brow, and he looked pale and gaunt. At the very end of the interview, right before the ended, Ian ranted, "Someone wants me here. Someone's concealing the truth. They're going to pay." The next day, when Emily went online to watch the interview again, the clip had mysteriously vanished.
She turned up the volume, waiting to hear whether the newscaster would say anything else, but the station had already moved on to a Shadow Traffic report.
There was a soft knock on the bedroom door. Mrs. Fields stuck her head in. "Dinner's ready. I made homemade mac and cheese."
Emily pulled her favorite stuffed walrus to her chest. Usually she could eat a whole pot of her mom's homemade mac and cheese in one sitting, but today her stomach felt swollen and angry. "I'm not hungry," she mumbled.
Mrs. Fields walked into the room, wiping her hands on her chicken-printed apron. "Are you okay?"
"Uh-huh," Emily lied, trying to muster a brave smile. But all through the day, she'd fought the urge to burst into tears. She'd tried to be strong when they'd done the Ali-purge ritual yesterday, but not so deep down, she hated that all of sudden Ali was supposed to be dead and gone. Over. The end. Finito. Emily couldn't even count how many times she'd felt the overwhelming need to run out of school, drive to Spencer's house, dig up her Ali coin purse, and never let it out of her sight again.
More than that, being back at Rosewood Day just felt…uncomfortable. Emily had spent the whole day dodging Maya, afraid of a confrontation. And she just going through the motions at swim team. She hadn't been able to shake off the lingering feelings of wanting to quit, and her ex-boyfriend Ben and his best friend, Seth Cardiff, had kept giving her smirking, dirty looks, clearly bitter that she preferred girls to guys.
Mrs. Fields pursed her lips, making her I'm not buying that face. She squeezed Emily's hand. "Why don't you come to the Holy Trinity fund-raiser with me tonight?"
Emily raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You want me to go to something at the church?" From what Emily had gathered, Catholic Churches and lesbians went together about as well as stripes and plaids.
"Father Tyson asked about you," Mrs. Fields said. "And not because of the gay thing," she quickly added. "He was worried about how you were doing after everything that happened with Mona last semester. And the fund-raiser will be fun—they're going to have music and a silent auction. Maybe you'll feel peaceful just being back there."
Emily leaned appreciatively on her mom's shoulder. Just a few months ago, her mother wouldn't even speak to her, let alone invite her to church. She was thrilled to be sleeping in her comfy bed in Rosewood instead of on a foldout got in her Uber-puritan aunt and uncle's drafty farmhouse in Iowa, where Emily had been sent to exorcise her so-called gay demons. And she was so happy that Carolyn was sleeping in their shared bedroom again, too, not shying away from Emily because she might get lesbian germs. It hardly mattered that Emily was no longer in love with Maya. Nor did it matter that the whole school knew she was gay or that most of the boys followed her around hoping they might catch her randomly making out with a girl. Because, you know, lesbians did that all the time.
What was important was that her family was going out of their way to accept her. For Christmas, Carolyn had given Emily a poster of the Olympic champion Amanda Beard in a two-price TYR racing suit as a replacement for Emily's old poster of Michael Phelps in a teensy Speedo. Emily's father had given her a big tin of jasmine tea because he'd read on the Internet that "uh, ladies like you" preferred tea to coffee. Jake and Beth, her older brother and sister, had pooled together and gotten her the complete L Word series on DVD. They'd even offered to watch a few episodes with Emily after Christmas dinner. Their efforts made Emily feel a little awkward—she cringed at the thought of her dad reading about lesbians on the Internet—but also really happy.
Her family's 180-degree attitude adjustment made Emily want to try harder with them, too. And maybe her mom was onto something. All Emily wanted was for her life to go back to the way it had been before all this A stuff happened. Her family had been going to Holy Trinity, Rosewood's biggest Catholic church, ever since she could remember. Maybe it could help her feel better. "Okay," Emily said, climbing out of bed. "I'll come."
"Good." Mrs. Fields beamed. "I'm leaving in forty-five minutes." With that, she padded out of the room.
Emily stood up and walked to her big bedroom window, resting her elbows on the sill. The moon had risen above the trees, the dark cornfields behind her house were blanketed in untouched snow, and a thick sheet of ice covered the roof of her neighbors' castle-shaped swing set.
Suddenly, something white streaked through a row of dead cornstalks. Emily stood up straight, her nerves tingling. She told herself. She told herself it was just a deer, but it was impossible to know for sure. Because when she squinted harder, there was only darkness.
Holy Trinity was one of the oldest churches in Rosewood. The church building was made of crumbling stone, and the little cemetery out back had messily arranged headstones that reminded Emily of rows of crooked teeth. Around Halloween in seventh grade, Ali had told them a ghost story about a girl who haunted her younger sister's dreams. She'd dared Emily and the others to sneak into this very cemetery at midnight and chant, "My dead sister's bones," twenty times without screaming and running away. Only Hanna, who would've streaked naked through the Rosewood Day commons to prove to Ali that she was cool, had been able to do it.
The inside of the church smelled just like Emily remembered, a strange mix of mildew, pot roast, and cat pee. The same beautiful but slightly scary stained-glass windows, all depicting biblical stories, lined the walls and the ceiling. Emily wondered if God, whoever he or she was, who looking down on them, horrified that Emily was in such a holy place. She hoped he wouldn't send Rosewood a locust attack for this. Mrs. Fields waved to Father Tyson, the kindly, white-haired priest who had baptized Emily, taught her the Ten Commandments, and gotten her hooked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then she grabbed two coffees from the bar that had been set up next to a large statue of Mary and led Emily toward the stage.
As they settled in behind a tall man and his two young children, Mrs. Fields looked at the music program. "Up now is a band called Carpe Diem. Oh, fun! The people in the band are juniors at Holy Trinity Academy."
Emily groaned. Between fourth and fifth grades, her parents had sent her to Camp Long Pines, a sleepaway Bible camp. Jeffrey Kane, one of her counselors, had a band, and they performed the last night of camp. They covered Creed songs, and Jeffrey made the goofiest, most contorted faces, like he was having some sort of godly epiphany. She could only imagine what a Catholic school band called Carpe Diem would be like.
Twangy chords began to fill the room. Their view of the stage was partially obscured by a large amplifier, so Emily was only a scruffy-haired guy playing drums. As the instrumental progressed, Carpe Diem sounded more emo rock than Creed II. And when the singer started the first verse, Emily was surprised that his voice sounded…good.
She pushed around the man next to her and his kids to get a better look at the band. A lanky guy stood in front of the microphone, a honey-colored acoustic guitar slung across his chest. He wore a threadbare oatmeal-colored T-shirt, black jeans, and the same burgundy Vans skater bones Emily had on. It was a nice surprise—she'd expected the singer to be a Jeffrey Kane clone.
A girl next to Emily started mouthing along to the words. Listening to the lyrics, Emily instantly realized the band was covering her favorite Avril Lavigne song, "Nobody's Home." She'd listen to it over and over on the plane ride to Iowa, feeling like she was the confused, empty girl Avril was singing about.
When the band finished the song, the singer stepped back from the microphone and peered out into the crowd. His clear, light blue eyes landed on Emily, and he smiled. Suddenly, electricity rushed through her, starting at the top of her head and zipping down to her feet. It felt like her coffee was pumped with ten times its usual amount of caffeine.
Emily glanced surreptitiously around. Her mother had wandered over to the coffee kiosk to talk to her choir friends, Mrs. Jamison and Mrs. Hart. A bunch of older ladies sat upright in the pews as if it were a church service, staring confusedly at the stage. Father Tyson was by the confession area, doubling over laughing at something an older man had just said. It was amazing no one had witnessed what had just happened. She'd felt this lightning strike only twice before. The first time was when she kissed Ali in her tree house in seventh grade. The second time was when she kissed Maya in Noel Kahn's photo booth last fall. But it was probably just a reaction to swimming so hard at practice today. Or an allergic reaction to the new flavor of PowerBar she'd eaten before practice.
The singer set his guitar on a stand and waved to the crowd. "I'm Isaac, and this is Keith and Chris," he said, gesturing to his bandmates. "We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back." As Isaac stood up, he glanced at Emily again and took a step toward her. Emily's heart hammered and she lifted her hand to wave at him, but just then his drummer dropped one of his cymbals. Isaac turned back to his band.
"You moron," Isaac said with a laugh, punching the drummer in the shoulder before following the other guys through a pale pink curtain that led to the church's makeshift backstage.
Emily clenched her teeth. Why had she waved?
"Do you know him?" an envious-sounding voice behind her asked.
Emily turned. Two girls dressed in the Holy Trinity Academy uniform—white blouses and crisply pleated black skirts—were staring at her.
"Uh, no," Emily answered.
The girls turned back to each other, satisfied. "Isaac's in my math class," gushed the blonde to her friend. "He's so mysterious. I didn't know he had a band."
"Does he have a girlfriend?" her dark-haired friend murmured.
Emily shifted from one foot to the other. They were Catholic school versions of Hanna Marin: super thin, with long, glossy hair, perfect makeup, and matching Coach bags. Emily touched her own limp, chlorine-frizzed hair, and smoothed her Old Navy khakis, which were at least a size too big. She suddenly regretted not putting on any makeup—not that she usually wore it.
There wasn't, of course, any reason to feel competitive with these girls. It wasn't like Emily liked this Isaac guy. That electric feeling that had passed through her, and still resonated in her fingertips, had just been a…fluke. A blip. Yep, that was it. Just then, Emily felt a tap on her shoulder. She jumped and turned around.
It was Isaac. And he was smiling at her. "Hi."
"Uh, hi," Emily said, ignoring the fluttering in her chest. "I'm Emily."
"Isaac." Up close, he smelled a little Body Shop orange shampoo—the very same stuff Emily had used for years.
"I loved your cover of 'Nobody's Home,'" Emily said before she could stop herself. "That song really helped me get through this trip I took to Iowa."
"Iowa, huh? I guess it can be pretty rough there," he joked. "I went with my youth group once. Why did you go?"
Emily hesitated, scratching the back of her neck. She could feel the Catholic school girls staring. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring up Iowa—or that she identified with such desperate, hopeless lyric. "Oh, just visiting family," she finally answered, fiddling with the plastic top to her coffee cup. "My aunt and uncle live outside of Des Moines."
"Gotcha," Isaac said. He stepped aside to let a bunch of kindergarten-age kids playing tag dart past. "I hear you about identifying with the song. I got made fun of when I first started singing about a girl, but I think the song applies to everyone. It's like…all those feelings of 'What do I fit in?' and 'Why can't I find anyone to talk to?' I think everyone feels that from time to time."
"Me too," Emily agreed, feeling grateful that someone else felt the same way she did. She glanced over her shoulder at her mother. She was still deep in conversation with her friends by the coffee kiosk. Which was good—Emily wasn't sure if she could handle her mother's scrutiny right now.
Isaac drummed his fingers on the worn church pew next to them. "You don't go to Holy Trinity."
Emily shook her head. "Rosewood Day."
"Ah." Isaac lowered his eyes shyly. "Listen, I have to go back onstage in a minute, but maybe you'd want to talk about music and stuff some other time? Get dinner? Go for a walk? You know, like a date."
Emily almost choked on a sip of coffee. Like a…date? She wanted to correct him—she didn't date guts—but it was as if the muscles in her mouth didn't know how to form those words. "A walk, in this weather?" she blurted out instead, gesturing to the piles of snow lining the stained-glass windows.
"Why not?" Isaac shrugged. "Maybe we could go sledding. I have a couple of snow tubes, and there's a great hill behind Hollis."
Emily widened her eyes. "You mean the big hill behind the chemistry building?"
Isaac pushed his hair off his forehead and nodded. "That's the one."
"I used to drag my friends there, all the time." Some of Emily's fondest winter memories were of when she, Ali, and the others sledded down Hollis Hill. Ali had deemed sledding dorky after sixth grade, though, and Emily had never found anyone else who wanted to go with her.
After a deep breath, Emily said, "I'd love to go sledding with you."
Isaac's eyes gleamed. "Great!"
They exchanged phone numbers, the Holy Trinity girls gaping. As Isaac waved good-bye and Emily drifted over to her mother and her choir friends, she wondered what on earth she'd just agreed to. She couldn't have just made a date with him. They were going sledding just as friends. She'd set him straight—so to speak—the next time she saw him.
Only, as Emily watched Isaac drift away through the crowd, stopping every so often to talk to other kids or members of the congregation, she wasn't sure if she wanted to just be friends. Suddenly, she wasn't sure what she wanted at all.