𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘖𝘯𝘦, 𝘌𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘚𝘪𝘹
'𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘕𝘰 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨'

Aria had not left her bed all day because she left her phone at Ezra's and that's when she got an A text. Ezra saw it and now he's pissed so Aurora and the girls went over to Aria's to try and get her out of bed.

"Wakey wakey" Aurora walked in the room with the girls behind her and pulled the earbud out of Aria's ear.

"What are you doing?" She groaned.

"An intervention" Aurora replied and looked at Emily.

"We brought takeout and rag mags" Emily said as she threw them on the bed.

"But you cannot have any of these until you get out of these sweats" Hanna added in.

Aria sat up "Why? What's wrong with these?"

"Nothing...except they're starting to graft to your skin" Spencer told her.

"Well, they're comfy"

"Yeah, so are mom jeans and platform flip-flops" Hanna replied and that made Aria smile slightly.

"Plus, how are we going to help you choose a homecoming dress if you don't try some on for us?" Emily asked.

"That's easy. I'm not going"

"What do you mean you're not going? Of course you are" Aurora said.

"You can't just not go" Spencer backed her sister up.

"What are you doing instead?" Emily asked.

"I don't know. I guess I'll just read these and then inhale a gallon of chunky monkey" Aria sighed.

"Hey, look, cutting yourself off from the rest of your life is not going to help your parents. And besides, they still might work it out" Spencer said.

"They're barely speaking to each other"

"People get angry. They blow up. Doesn't mean it's over" Emily tried to comfort her.

"Emily, they didn't blow up over her dad missing their anniversary. He slept with one of his students" Hanna snapped before looking back at Aria "Sorry"

"I'm just saying things can look over on Friday, and by Monday, all is forgiven. Some things just take time" Emily explained herself.

Aria nodded "Yeah, maybe"

"Okay, so you're coming! Come on!" Spencer started to drag Aria off the bed as Aurora smiled at her.

"I'll think about it" Aria said.

"If you're not coming, can you at least cast an absentee ballot?" Hanna asked and Aurora rolled her eyes as she chuckled "What? I need her vote"

"Hanna, come on. You've got homecoming queen locked down" Aurora reassured her.

"Really? You can rig the election?"

Aurora smiled "No I can't, ask Spencer"

Spencer quickly cut in "Sorry, I have enough to do already, thanks. I'm head of the committee, half of which is out sick with the flu, so I'll be restocking the ice and refilling the hummus bowl, and trying to look cute for my first official date"

"With Alex?" Emily smirked. Spencer nodded.

"Wait, you're bringing him to homecoming? So this is real?" Aria asked.

Spencer shrugged "Someone's blushing" Aurora teased her younger sister.

"Seriously, you guys, he's not going to know anybody there, so can you just do your best to make him feel included?" Spencer asked them.

"No, we were planning on freezing him out" Hanna retorted sarcastically.

Spencer rolled her eyes "All right moving on. Rory, since you were teasing me, who are you going to bring?"

"I think I'm gonna go stag" She replied.

"I will, too" Aria smiled at her.

"Me three then" Emily looked at Aurora as she smiled at the two of them.

Spencer looked at her sister "What about Jayden?"

"Really Spence? My ex?" Aurora raised her eyebrows.

"What? It's not like you didn't end on good terms"
Hanna shrugged and Emily, Aria and Spencer nodded.

Aurora shook her head "Still...he's my ex you know"

They dropped the subject as Hanna smiled "And anyway it doesn't matter because you could literally get any guy in school to go with you to this dance"

"Thanks Hanna" She smiled at her before they dug into the takeout that Aurora and Spencer got. Hanna opened up her fortune cookie and her face fell.

"What's wrong? Bad fortune?" Aurora asked.

"Yeah, Confucius says 'stop being a drama queen"
Spencer said with a mouth full of food.

"Lions and tigers and bitches, oh my! There's no place like homecoming. See you there."

--A

Hanna read the paper as everyone looked at each other before Aurora and Spencer went through the rest of the fortune cookies and they all said the same thing.

They were all dreading the homecoming dance now.

-----

Aurora was walking down the halls in school when Toby walked over to her "Hi"

"Hey" Aurora smiled.

"I was about to look for you" He told her.

"You were? How come?" She asked.

"Well, I wanted to talk to you about something" Aurora looked at him as they stopped walking "Um, do you want to hang out tomorrow?"

"I would trust me but I'm going with my friends to homecoming"

"That's too bad" He said and pulled out two tickets from his bag "I was hoping you'd go with me"

"To homecoming?" Aurora smiled "I didn't think that was your scene"

"I have a scene? I didn't think listening to The Smiths alone in my room was a scene" Toby joked.

"You know what I mean"

"I think what you mean is that you don't want to go with me"

"No it's not that" Aurora shook her head "I just thought you would think homecoming is lame that's all"

"It is pretty lame, but..." He smiled at her "..you're not"

"Then it's settled. I'll go" She smiled back at him.

"So...I'll pick you up at nine?"

Aurora frowned slightly "Sure...but it starts at eight"

"Lame" Toby chuckled as he walked away and Aurora had to put her hand over her mouth to cover up the fact that she was blushing.

-----

Aurora was walking in front of Toby as she neared the door before he spoke "You know, they're showing a Fritz Lang double feature at Rosewood cinema tonight. If we leave now, we'll only miss the credits"

Aurora chuckled as she looked down at her dress "I think I'm a bit overdressed for the cinema"

Toby smiled "This may sound stupid, but I've never been to one of these things before"

"What are you so nervous about? Meeting my friends?" Aurora asked.

"Who think I'm a freak" Toby pointed out.

"Who cares what they think or anyone else for that matter. I don't and neither should you. And if you don't wanna talk to them, we can eat some chips instead and drink punch"

"Punch? Really?" Toby chuckled "Are we going to jitterbug too?"

"If you're lucky" Aurora smirked.

"Or maybe we can just drink the punch"

"Okay" She smiled and took his hand "Come on"

When the two walked in, hand in hand, the girls were shocked. Everyone stared at Aurora as the two walked over to them.

"Hey, guys" Aurora said as she squeezed Toby's hand to let him know everything was gonna be okay as he turned to her.

"I'm gonna go get us some drinks"

Aurora nodded "Okay thanks" She smiled at him as he walked off and that's when everyone started talking.

"You're here with Toby?" Spencer whispered and yelled at the same time "God I would've rather seen you with Jayden"

"Either you've got some genius man of sleeping with the enemy, or you've lost your mind!" Aria exclaimed.

"Then I've lost my mind" Aurora said angrily "Come on guys, you don't even know him"

"What is there to know, Rory? Who else could've helped Jenna? He has every reason to hate us" Spencer said.

"And I'm telling you he doesn't"

"Aurora, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a fricking duck" Hanna muttered "When I said you could go with any boy in our school I didn't mean him!"

Aurora scoffed "Wow. I thought at least you'd have my back" Emily gave her a sorry smile before Aurora pushed past Hanna and went to find Toby.

"Hey" Toby came walking over to her with two drinks in his hands "You want to go play some games?"

Aurora nodded as she took one of the drinks "Yeah I'd love too"

Aurora was having a good time with Toby as they talked about the kind of music they each liked and what they had in common but later into the night she couldn't help but feel that they were multiple pairs of eyes on her. And when she turned around she was right.

Hanna, Emily, Aria and Spencer were looking at her any chance they got and then she saw Spencer coming towards her. She couldn't deal with this right now "I'm sorry I..." She looked back at Toby as she apologised for cutting him off mid sentence "...I can't do this"

She handed him her nearly empty glass before quickly walking away from her sister's view and Toby was quick to follow.

"You okay?" Toby asked, walking into the empty classroom that Aurora found herself in "You want to talk about it?"

Aurora shook her head as she looked down at the floor. She was way too angry to say anything.

"Why don't we go upstairs to the Chem lab?" Toby suggested "It's quiet up there" He held out his hand for her and Aurora took it.

"Lead the way" She gave him a small smile. Once they arrived at the classroom, Toby opened the door and let Aurora walk in first as she thanked him.

"So, do you want to tell me what happened?" He asked.

"I just got angry that's all" Aurora brushed it off.

"Did it have anything to do with your sister and your friends?" Toby asked.

Aurora nodded with a sigh "You know it's funny because I was telling you to not let them bother you and it was me who they ended up pissing off. You wouldn't think that Spencer was the younger sister"

"I understand" Toby said, referring to him and Jenna's rocky relationship.

It was silent for a few moments when Aurora asked "Why do you like me?"

Toby frowned "What?"

"Why are you so nice to me when...you know what me and my friends did?"

"Oh. I guess it's because I've also done things that I'm not proud of " He then began to shut the classroom door "We've all got secrets, Aurora"

Toby went to say something else when her phone rang. She grabbed it out of her bag and saw that it was Aria ringing her.

"Can you please not answer that?" Toby pleaded.

"Not that I wanted to anyway but why?"

"Because I'm trying to find a way to tell you what happened last summer. I want you to hear it from me"

"Toby you're acting a bit weird okay I...I need to go" Aurora walked round him but Toby grabbed her arm.

"So you're allowed to be honest but I'm not?" Aurora's phone chimed again and it was a text this time from Aria.

Aria M.

"You're with Ali's killer! We have proof..."

"Who's that from? Is that from one of your friends?" Toby continued to ask.

"Like I said I've got to go" But Toby wouldn't let go off her arm.

"No, wait! Wait. Just hear me out!"

"Let me fucking go!" She slapped him across the cheek before shoving him backwards resulting in him crashing into the shelf that was holding all of the glass beakers and one cut his cheek as he used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the blood and that's when saw it. The tattoo.

901
𝖋𝖗𝖊𝖊 𝖆𝖙 𝖑𝖆𝖘𝖙

Aurora was quick to grab her bag and run out of the room with Toby quick on her tail as she screamed and yelled for someone to come and help her.

To Be Continued...