.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

♥ Frozen Yogurt & Lies ♥

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

I peel into the parking lot in my shiny black jeep for the first day of Junior year. As I go to park I notice the back of a car that I would recognize anywhere.

Flashback

Ali, Aria, and I peacefully stroll down the street, gossiping and eating our frozen yogurt we just got when a shrill voice starts yelling out at us.

"Aria! Hey guys. Alison. Scarlett! Hey!"

"Do you hear Mona?" Ali turns to us. No, but I hear what sounds like an annoying little dog yapping away.

"Hey Aria," Mona calls out again as we continue on.

"Maybe we should wait," Aria glances back.

"But then my yogurt would melt," I complain into another bite of  the delicious raspberry lemonade creamy goodness that's topped with peach gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles. The best order.

I take a quick peak over my shoulder to find Mona in a jean skirt, a multi-colored striped sweater, and two pigtails hanging around the front of her rimmed face.

Alison and I make fun of pretty much everybody and Mona is one of her main and favorite targets, but I've never really tried much when it comes to her. For some reason I've always had this gut feeling not to. But- that doesn't mean I wanna stop and talk to her.

"Oh my god, is she ever gonna get a clue?" Alison laughs, "What a loser. Come here," She grabs us, hurrying around the corner of the large hedges. I get one last look at Mona frowning and crossing her arms before I'm dragged away.

We jog for a moment, giggling arm in arm before coming to a stop as we come across a black car parked off to the side of the back alleyway. Ali squints, "Hey, isn't that your dad's car?" She asks Aria, being the first to notice. Our faces drop. We all look through the back windshield with yellow lettering to find Aria's dad kissing some blonde woman, that is most definitely not her mom. I turn to Aria as her face washes over with shock and betrayal.

Back to Present

Wow, what a blast from the past. I shake off the little memory, killing the engine. Guess Aria's back now frommm? Chile? Greenland? No. Iceland? That sounds about right. I know it wasn't anywhere good and after about the first couple months of her being gone we stopped texting.

I wish I could move. Get away from this small, nosey little town and go somewhere, anywhere, away from here.

I sigh, grabbing my lipgloss to touch up my look. I wish Ali was here. She should be here, starting our junior year and ruling the school together.  We always talked about this year. It's the year you can drive and everyone comes back to school hot and parties are so much better...

But she's not here and for all I know she's dea- Woah. I've never actually let myself think that, little long actually say the word, too afraid that if I do it might be true. But I know everyone else thinks it, they just don't want to say it out loud. I've liked to think she got away from here, getting tan on some beach, sipping margarita's and enjoying loads of hot guys. I smile at the thought.

Alright, enough of that. Let's just get this day over with. I need a coffee asap, then I'll meet up with Hanna for English. I exit my car and head for the coffee bar, texting her to meet me there.

3rd Person POV

Aria and Emily walk into their English class together from their reunion in the parking lot. They take a seat towards the back just as Hanna and Scarlett walk in.

"Is that Hanna?" Aria turns to Emily in total disbelief. With her just getting back she hasn't had a chance to see Hanna's new transformation yet. "With Scarlett?" Aria can't help but be surprised that Scarlett stuck with one of them.

"Hanna is the other "it" girl now," Emily informs just as Mona walks in, going directly over to Hanna and Scarlett. "And where there's Hanna and Scarlett, there's Mona," She continues.

"That's Mona?" Aria can't believe Mona transformation is even more drastic than Hanna's.

"Can you believe it?" Emily finds Aria's reaction quite amusing.

Aria turns to her with wide eyes, "Wow, talk about a makeover," She whispers.

Emily nods, "Scarlett took them both under her wing and gave them a whole new, well everything." Aria nods, not being able to tear her eyes away from them. Scarlett looks pretty much the same to her other than everything looking a bit more curvier and her dark red streaks being gone, just as her pink strip. Aria smiles at the thought, remembering when they had gotten that done together.

Scarlett and Hanna finally glance over at the two gossiper's, sending them both a quick wave before instantly turning back to their conversation with Mona. Aria slowly holds up a hand, still trying process everything.

"What's up with them? Are you three fighting?" Aria's asks obliviously.

"We didn't just fall out of touch with you. We all fell out of touch with each other except those two," Emily explains.

Spencer enters the room, sending a small smile to Scarlett and Hanna as she passes by. Hanna and Scarlett do a subtle nod of acknowledgement.

"Hanna and Spencer aren't so close anymore either."

"So they're friendly, but not friends," Aria sums up.

Emily continues. "Of course Scarlett and Spencer are still in touch for obvious reasons, but even they aren't as close as they use to be," She adds.

"So family, but not friends?" Aria fills in the blanks once again. Emily nods as the bell rings.

Back to Scarlett's POV

Hanna and I stand at our desks chatting while we wait for the teacher. I glance over and notice Emily and Aria sitting together. I do a double take noticing the pink strip in Aria's hair is gone. I chuckle to myself. She was too chicken at first to go get it done so I offered to get dark red highlights in mine and went with her.

I nudge Hanna, "Look who's back." Hanna peaks over curiously, sending a quick wave and I do the same. I can tell they're talking about us, neither one of them being subtle enough to fool me.

"No more pink," Hanna whispers. Everyone always thought Aria was wild for picking such a bold choice, but I told her I thought it was badass.

Gosh, I can't even think of the last time I spoke to Emily.

Mona joins us, interrupting my thoughts, following our line of gaze before going into some Mona story. Aria's face looks very taken aback, it's quite comical. Everyone was blown away when Hanna and Mona changed. It was like watching caterpillars turning into butterfly's. A few people even thought Mona was a new student.

Spencer enters the room next, throwing a quick smile our way just as the bell rings, and everyone takes a seat. Hanna sits in the middle of Mona and I, gifting me the outer row.

Our teacher is last to come in, going straight for the chalkboard to write Mr. Fitz. Hmmm, he's new. He underlines his name and finally turns around to face us, sighing as he grabs his mug. Hmmm, not bad. He seems cute, just not my type.

"Holy crap." Are the first words that fly out of his mouth as he freezes and begins to stare like a deer caught in headlights. Everyone turns around, confused at who he's looking at. I follow his line of vision closely to the middle section, kinda seems like it could be Aria. Interesting. She snaps her head up from her notebook just as her phone goes off. Hanna chuckles quietly.

"Sorry," Aria whispers.

I turn back around as Mr. Fitz starts back up, "Uh, I'm Mr. Fitz. Your new English teacher."

"He's cute," Hanna leans over to me.

I nod. "It'll be nice to look at him instead of a bunch of old people for a change." She snorts.

I glance back at Aria to see her reading her phone, horror flashing across her face.

~~~~

Author's Note: I was inspired to add in the cute hair moment for Aria and Scarlett because I honestly haven't really been inspired much at all for their friendship lol but now I'm actually pretty excited!

Hope y'all liked this chapter and are getting to know Scarlet a bit better <3

Feel free to comment your thoughts and reactions :)