It was so silent in the room that Hanna could hear the tinny, high-pitched ringing of the fluorescent bulb in her bedside lamp. Her dream had felt so real, like Ali had just been there. She knows more thanyou think,, Ali said. She wants to hurt you like she already hurt me. She had to be talking about Tara and what she did in GT. For an ugly, chubby loser, Tara was much shrewder than Hanna thought.
A key turned in the lock and the door creaked open. “Oh.” Iris’s face soured when she saw Hanna. “Hi.”
“Where have you been?” Hanna gasped, sitting up fast. “Are you okay?”
“I’m golden,” Iris said blandly. She walked over to the mirror and began to inspect her pores.
“I didn’t know I was going to get you in trouble,” Hanna gushed. “I’m so sorry Felicia took away your magazines.”
Iris’s eyes met Hanna’s in the mirror. Her face was etched with disappointment. “It’s not about the magazines, Hanna. I told you everything about me, but I had to find out everything about you from some stupid magazine. Tara knew before I did.”
Hanna swung her legs over the bed. “I’m sorry.”
Iris crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry doesn’t cut it. I thought you were normal. And you’re not.”
Hanna pressed her thumbs into her eye sockets. “So some shit happened to me,” she blurted. “You heard some of it in group.” She launched into an explanation about the night Ali went missing, her makeover, A, and how Mona had tried to kill her. “Everyone around me is crazy, but I’m normal, I swear.” Hanna dropped her hands in her lap and looked at Iris’s eyes in the mirror. “I wanted to tell you, but I just don’t know who to trust anymore.”
Iris stood very still for a few long moments, her back still turned. The vanilla-scented Glade plug-in in the corner outlet let out a sfft. It reminded Hanna eerily of Ali. Finally, Iris whirled around. “God, Hanna.” She exhaled. “That sounds awful.”
“It was,” Hanna admitted.
And then the tears came fast and hot. It felt like every shred of tension and fear she’d been holding in for months erupted from her. For so long, she’d thought if she pretended she was over Mona and Ali and A, it all would eventually fade away. But it wasn’t fading. She was so angry at Mona it physically hurt. She was angry at Ali for being so nasty to Mona that she’d turned into vicious, heartless A. And she was furious at herself for falling for Mona’s friendship—and Ali’s.
“If I hadn’t been friends with Ali, none of this would’ve happened,” Hanna wailed, crying so hard now that her chest heaved uncontrollably. “I wish she’d never been in my life. I wish I never knew her.”
“Shhhh.” Iris petted Hanna’s hair. “You don’t mean that.”
But Hanna did mean it. All Ali gave Hanna was a few months of bliss and then many years of pain. “Would it have been the worst thing if I had stayed an ugly, chubby loser?” Hanna asked. At least then she wouldn’t have hurt people. At least people wouldn’t have hurt her. “Maybe I deserved what Mona did to me. Maybe Ali deserved what someone did to her, too.”
Iris sat back, flinching as if Hanna had pinched her. Hanna realized too late how her words probably sounded. But then Iris stood and straightened her skirt. “The staff is making us watch Ella Enchanted in the theater room.” She rolled her eyes and made a face. “I’ll tell them you’re sick if you want me to. Maybe you need some time alone. I understand if you don’t want to see Tara and the others right now.”
Hanna was about to nod, but then her stomach let out a gurgle. She squared her shoulders. It was true—she didn’t want to face Tara and the other patients, now that they knew the truth. But all of a sudden, she didn’t really care. Everyone here was screwed up. They were no better than she was.
“I’ll be there,” she decided.
Iris smiled. “Take your time.” The door clonked shut on her way out.
Hanna felt her pulse begin to slow. She dabbed her eyes with more Kleenexes, slid her feet into her Ugg slippers, and walked to the mirror. Fixing her puffy eyes was going to take a lot of makeup. Then, she noticed Iris’s black patent leather Chanel purse on the bureau, the corner of a magazine poking out. Hanna pulled at it, hardly believing what she saw.
It was the newest issue of People. The one with the story about Hanna inside.
Alarm bolted through her. Hadn’t the nurses taken this away? Frantically, Hanna leafed to the page where the story about her began. A Week of Secrets and Lies. Her eyes scanned the text. There were details about their friendship with Alison. Their dealings with Mona-as-A. Seeing Ian Thomas’s body, narrowly escaping the fire. There was the box that said 92 percent of the country thought Hanna and the others killed Ali. And then Hanna noticed another sidebar. And where’s Hanna Marin? said bold type. You’ll never believe it! Next to it was a picture of the front of the Preserve.
Hanna’s blood went ice-cold.
There was a list of drugs Hanna was taking, the sleeping pills and the Valium. There was an itinerary of how she spent her days, down to what she ate for breakfast, how long she ran on the treadmill, and how often she wrote in her leather-bound food journal. Below the article was a blurry picture of Hanna in leggings and a T-shirt, sticking her tongue out at the camera, the graffiti on the walls of the secret attic room behind her. Hanna’s raised middle finger had been cropped out, as had the other girl in the picture. “Oh my God,” Hanna whispered.