Before she left for Europe, Aria would sometimes see boys look at her from afar, intrigued, but then look away. With her coltish, ballet-dancer frame, straight black hair, and pouty lips, Aria knew she was pretty. People were always saying so, but why didn’t she have a date to the seventh-grade spring social, then? One of the last times she and Spencer had hung out—one of the awkward get-togethers that summer after Ali disappeared—Spencer told Aria she’d probably get a lot of dates if she just tried to fit in a little bit more.
But Aria didn’t know how to fit in. Her parents had drilled it into her head that she was an individual, not a follower of the herd, and should be herself. Trouble was Aria wasn’t sure who Aria was. Since turning eleven, she’d tried out punk Aria, artsy Aria, documentary film Aria, and, right before they moved, she’d even tried ideal Rosewood girl Aria, the horse-riding, polo-shirt-wearing, Coach-satchel-toting girl who was everything Rosewood boys loved but everything Aria wasn’t. Thankfully, they moved to Iceland two weeks into that disaster, and in Iceland, everything, everything, everything changed.
Her father got the job offer in Iceland just after Aria had started eighth grade, and the family packed up. She suspected they’d left so quickly because of a secret about her dad that only she—and Alison DiLaurentis—knew about. She’d vowed not to think about that again the minute the Icelandair plane took off, and after living in Reykjavík for a few months, Rosewood became a distant memory. Her parents seemed to fall back in love and even her totally provincial brother learned both Icelandic and French. And Aria fell in love…a few times, actually.
So what if Rosewood boys didn’t get kooky Aria? Icelandic boys—rich, worldly, fascinating Icelandic boys—sure did. As soon as they moved there, she met a boy named Hallbjorn. He was seventeen, a DJ, and had three ponies and the most beautiful bone structure she’d ever seen. He offered to take her to Iceland’s geysers, and then, when they saw one burble up and leave a big cloud of steam, he kissed her. After Hallbjorn was Lars, who liked to play with her old pig puppet, Pigtunia—the one who advised Aria on her love life—and took her to the best all-night dance parties by the harbor. She felt adorable and sexy in Iceland. There, she became Icelandic Aria, the best Aria yet. She found her style—a sort of bohemian-hipster-girl thing, with lots of layers, lace-up boots, and APC jeans, which she bought on a trip to Paris—read French philosophers, and traveled on the Eurail with just an outdated map and a change of underwear.
But now, every Rosewood sight outside the car window reminded her of the past she wanted to forget. There was Ferra’s Cheesesteaks, where she spent hours with her friends in middle school. There was the stone-gated country club—her parents didn’t belong, but she’d gone with Spencer, and once, feeling bold, Aria had walked up to her crush, Noel Kahn, and asked him if he wanted to share an ice-cream sandwich with her. He turned her down cold, of course.
And there was the sunny, tree-lined road where Alison DiLaurentis used to live. As the car paused at the four-way stop sign, Aria stared; she could see it, second house from the corner. There was a bunch of trash on the curb, but otherwise, the house was quiet and still. She could look for only so long before covering her eyes. In Iceland, days could go by when she could almost forget about Ali, their secrets, and what had happened. She’d been back in Rosewood for less than ten minutes, and Aria could practically hear Ali’s voice at every bend in the road and see her reflection in every house’s oversize bay window. She slumped down in her seat, trying not to cry.
Her father continued a few streets down and pulled up to their old house, a postmodern angry brown box with only one square window, right in the center—a huge letdown after their waterfront faded-blue Icelandic row house. Aria followed her parents inside and they bustled off into separate rooms. She heard Mike answer his cell phone outside and she swished her hands through the sparkly floating dust in the air.
“Mom!” Mike ran through the front door. “I just talked to Chad, and he said the first lacrosse tryouts are today.”
“Lacrosse?” Ella emerged from the dining room. “Right now?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m going!” He tore up the wrought-iron staircase to his old bedroom.
“Aria, honey?” Her mother’s voice made her turn. “Can you drive him to practice?”
Aria let out a small laugh. “Um, Mom? I don’t have my license.”
“So? You drove all the time in Reykjavík. The lacrosse field’s only a couple of miles away, isn’t it? Worst thing, you’ll hit a cow. Just wait for him until he’s done.”
Aria paused. Her mother already sounded frazzled. She heard her dad in the kitchen opening and closing cabinets and muttering under his breath. Would her parents love each other here like they had in Iceland? Or would things go back to the way they used to be?
“All right,” she mumbled. She plopped her bags on the landing, grabbed the car keys, and slid into the wagon’s front seat.
Her brother climbed in next to her, amazingly already dressed in his gear. He punched the netting on his stick enthusiastically and gave her an evil, knowing smile. “Happy to be back?”
Aria only sighed in response. The entire drive, Mike had his hands pressed up against the car’s window, shouting things like, “There’s Caleb’s house! They tore down the skate ramp!” and “Cow poop still smells the same!” At the vast, well-mown practice field, she’d barely stopped the car when Mike opened the door and immediately bolted.
She slid back into the seat, stared up through the sunroof, and sighed. “Thrilled to be back,” she murmured. A hot air balloon floated serenely through the clouds. It used to be such a delight to see them, but today she focused in on it, closed one eye, and pretended to crush the balloon between her thumb and pointer finger.
A bunch of boys in white Nike T-shirts, baggy shorts, and backward white baseball caps walked slowly past her car toward the field house. See? Every Rosewood boy was a carbon copy. Aria blinked. One of them was even wearing the same Nike University of Pennsylvania T-shirt that Noel Kahn, the ice-cream sandwich boy she loved in eighth grade, used to wear. She squinted at the boy’s black wavy hair. Wait. Was that…him? Oh God. It was. Aria couldn’t believe he was wearing the same T-shirt he wore when he was thirteen. He probably did it for luck or some other queer jock superstition.
Noel looked quizzically at her, then walked toward her car and knocked on her window. She rolled it down.
“You’re that girl that went to the North Pole. Aria, right? You were Ali D’s friend?” Noel continued.
Aria’s stomach plummeted. “Um,” she said.
“No, dude.” James Freed, the second-hottest boy at Rosewood, came up behind Noel. “She didn’t go to the North Pole, she went to Finland. You know, like where that model Svetlana is from. The one who looks like Hanna?”
Aria scratched the back of her head. Hanna? As in, Hanna Marin?
A whistle blew, and Noel reached into the car to touch Aria’s arm. “You’re going to stay and watch practice, aren’t you, Finland?”
“Uh…ja,” Aria said.
“What’s that, a Finnish sex grunt?” James grinned.
Aria rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure ja was Finnish for yes, but of course these guys wouldn’t know that. “Have fun playing with your balls.” She smiled wearily.