In the Garden of Eden (PLL Fanfiction): Chapter 3
“But…but…,” Spencer stuttered, unable to form the proper words. “You’re—“
“Dead?” Aria interrupted and nodded her head. “Yes, I am. For six months exactly, I believe.”
“But you…” Spencer skimmed her palms across her face and felt the clamminess on her cheeks. Was this a dream, perhaps? Or did Aria the ghost have mind-reading superpowers and had read Spencer’s thoughts on longing to see and hear her again? After a moment of emotional and mental turmoil, Spencer stammered thoughtlessly, “W-we said goodbye a long time ago.”
“Yeah, I know that, too. But I just had to see you again, Spence.” Aria sighed and looked Spencer up and down. “Because you’re a mess.”
“I’m not saying you are. Trust me, being dead doesn’t make the pain go away as easily as people think it does. I was lost for a long time without you or Ezra or our friends or my family…,” Aria explained and stood up. She strode to Spencer’s bedside and sat next to her, Spencer’s bugged-out eyes widening to their full capacity as the mattress molded to fit Aria’s petite shape as though she was a solid body and not just a drifting soul. Curiously, Spencer reached out and watched as her hand passed right through Aria. In a way, Spencer was kicked in the heart, because for a moment she genuinely wanted to believe with all her being that this was real, and Aria had never been buried in the first place.
“Hey, that’s my spleen!” Aria joked as Spencer straightened up and scooted away a bit from Aria. “Or, was my spleen.” The smile on Aria’s face dropped into a frown while Spencer continued to just blink, dumbfounded, at her, as though she was a grotesque mythical creature. “I’m sorry I just dropped in like this. But I saw that you were still stuck in the same place you were six months ago, and I…” Aria shrugged her shoulders and glanced at the embroidered bedspread. “I wanted to help, and…I wanted to see you again.”
“Are…,” Spencer stammered, her throat closing up and tightening with each word as she prevented the multiplying sobs from bursting out. “Are you here to stay?”
Again, Aria shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know how this paranormal stuff works.”
“B-but—“ Spencer paused for a moment and just stared at Aria, the figure who looked so real and built of flesh yet her hand had gone right through her a minute ago. Eventually, a forced laugh exited her throat, and she shook her head to convince herself that none of this was true. “This can’t be! I said goodbye thinking that that was the last I’d see you until my dying day.”
Aria chewed on her bottom lip and guiltily shifted her gaze away from Spencer’s broken, betrayed, astounded eyes. “If it makes you feel better,” she mumbled, “I had no idea I was able to come here until a couple months ago.”
“A couple months ago?” Spencer blurted without thinking, an unexplainable fury roiling inside her. “Aria, if you knew you could come back like this, then why the heck didn’t you come as soon as you found out?”
“Because look at yourself!” Aria slid off the bed and stood up, now as riled up as Spencer was. “I’ve been back for five minutes and already I know that you’re going to cling to me until you’re dead!”
“Because I just might!” Spencer shouted and stood up also, intimidatingly crossing her arms as she and Aria had a showdown.
“Then why would you want me to come back, huh?” Aria threw back. “If you’re only going to be miserable looking at me, then why would you want to see me again?”
“Because…because…” Spencer struggled with the right words and let all of her breath out at one time, placing her hands over her eyes and rubbing them roughly. “I don’t know, okay? It’s like, yeah, it’d be great to see you, but seeing you is like a slap in the face every time I have to remind myself that you’re dead and none of this is real!” Spencer peeked through her fingers and saw Aria standing there, a five-foot-two young woman with her hands on her hips, and bit the inside of her cheek. “God, I still can’t believe you’re here.”
Aria gulped and her shoulders loosened into a slouch. Uncertainly, she headed towards Spencer’s desk and picked up a picture of Spencer, Emily, Hanna, Toby, Caleb, and Paige at prom. Looking closer, Aria saw a boxed corsage in Hanna’s hand, and Aria assumed they had bought it for her as a tribute, since a dead person couldn’t really attend prom. The sight was a bit unsettling, seeing her friends smiling at the camera yet holding that lonely corsage meant for someone who was no longer alive. “Maybe…” Aria hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.”
At first, Spencer opened her mouth, ready to agree. But then she clamped her lips shut and made herself think before she spoke and realized that Aria was here now, and if she shooed her away she’d forever feel guilty. “No,” she spoke up after thirty seconds of silence. “You’re here anyway. So you might as well stay and…fix me, or whatever.”
Turning around, Aria cocked her head and smirked at Spencer. “I don’t want to fix you,” she corrected her. “I’m here to help you cope. Or adapt, if you prefer that verb. And… I was lonely. I missed everyone here.”
Licking her dry, cracked lips, Spencer reached for the chapstick she hadn’t touched in a long time, seeing no need to use it as she wasted away, with a tremulous hand. After uncapping it, she smothered it on the sensitive skin of her mouth, which sighed in relief while soaking up the soothing balm, and glanced up at Aria, the motion of her hand pausing as she noticed the red ooze soaking through Aria’s shirt. “Um…” Spencer was speechless, her mouth moving but no words coming out.
By Spencer’s pale, frightened face, Aria raised an eyebrow in suspicion then followed her path of vision. There, right where her heart was, were a few specks of crimson on her blouse. She undid the buttons of the blouse and pulled it down, revealing a rather clean, deep hole in her chest. “Hmm,” she hummed curiously while Spencer seemed like she was going to faint. “That’s new. Well, not new, because this is the shot that killed me, but for my time as a ghost, yes, it’s new.”
“W-why,” Spencer stuttered once she found her voice again, “why is it there? Does it hurt? How can there be blood if you’re not…human?”
“Of course it doesn’t hurt! I’m dead, remember? Physical pain can’t exist when you aren’t even made up of nerve endings anymore,” Aria reassured Spencer and waved it off as she re-buttoned the shirt. “Like I said, I don’t know how this paranormal stuff works, but I guess if you return to the earth you have to gain what you lost on it.”
Not really sure what to say anymore, Spencer stayed silent and played with a loose strand on her pillowcase. Twiddling with her thumbs, Aria hesitantly said, “Actually…” Spencer looked up, and a pang rushed through Aria’s body-less spirit by the uncertainty in Spencer’s stare. They were best friends, and just because she no longer had a body, did that make her really that much different? She was still the same Aria as before, not some emotionless zombie, but she couldn’t blame Spencer; seeing ghosts wasn’t really a comforting thing. “Before I forget, can you give Ezra something for me?”
Spencer scoffed. “What would he need? I ransacked your room and took everything of value, I promise.”
Aria was torn between saying a sarcastic “thanks” or just waving off the thought that Spencer had torn through her room like a tornado, probably seeing the Barbie dolls she’d hidden in her closet because she couldn’t part from her childhood just yet and the naughty lingerie set from Victoria’s Secret that Ali had made her buy before high school started, claiming that, despite Aria’s discomfort and protest, “you never know what’s going to happen.” It was followed by one of Ali’s signature winks. “See, that’s where you were wrong. Just listen, okay?” Aria finally said indifferently. “Can you go to my house right now?”
…
At Aria’s doorstep that afternoon, Spencer knocked on the familiar door and anxiously waited for a reply. She was about to complain to Aria for dragging her here when the door opened and revealed Byron, looking well for having lost a daughter six months ago. “Hello, Spencer,” he greeted her and forced a smile on his face. By his choice of dress, Spencer had guessed he had just gotten back from visiting Aria’s grave.
“Hey, Mr. Montgomery,” Spencer said politely and awkwardly. “I know this is strange, but… I think I left something in Aria’s room, and I was wondering if I could try and find it,” she lied on the spot.
“Of course,” Byron said emotionlessly and stepped aside, allowing Spencer to come in. “Take as long as you like.”
“Thanks, Mr. Montgomery.” With that, he nodded his head kindly yet forcefully and walked away.
“He looks like he’s holding up well,” Aria commented as she watched her dad stride away into the kitchen. Yet, she could see a lost gleam in his hard, blue eyes. For the first time in a while she thought of how her parents had reacted when the police had shown up at their doorstep to report her death. Even though it seemed like Byron was doing well, it was probably all just a façade and he was struggling inside each day with the reminder that he wouldn’t see his daughter hop down the stairs each morning for breakfast or even wear a graduation cap.
But Spencer ignored Aria’s chitchat. “How didn’t he see you?” she hissed as she and Aria walked up the stairs. “I was waiting for him to break down in tears and try to hold you in a hug.”
“If I want someone to see me, I can,” Aria explained, then shrugged her shoulders. “My dad… I wouldn’t want to put him through that.”
In Aria’s room, Spencer shut the door quietly behind her and glanced around. The room had definitely been stripped a bit. All of her things that had some relation to Ezra were with Ezra, and Spencer, Hanna, and Emily had claimed some items as well, including clothes from Aria’s closet. Spencer studied the room carefully, wondering what in the world Aria could have in here that Spencer had misinterpreted its importance.
“Open the drawer,” Aria ordered her, a hint of anxiousness in her voice.
Mentally groaning, Spencer did. It was empty. “Okay?”
“Now, reach your hand in as far as you can and you can feel a small, hard-to-grip handle.” Aria pursed her lips. “That’s the best way I can describe it, I guess.”
Spencer was surprised when she felt the tiny presence of what felt like a piece of looped thread. Tugging it, the bottom sprang up, revealing that it was a false bottom this whole time. Under it laid a pile of wrapped papers, and Spencer picked it up curiously.
“It’s for Ezra,” Aria repeated when she saw Spencer’s eyes burn holes into the unknown present, aching to unlock its secrets. “Please give it to him when you can. I can’t, obviously.” To prove her point, her hand went right through her painting propped on the desk. “I was going to give it to him my graduation day, but…” She sighed and drenched herself in her dreary thoughts. “Hopefully, it’ll help him now.”
Mouth open and ready to speak, Spencer was going to say something but was interrupted by a disheveled Ella. “Spencer,” Ella said while barging through the door. She had on loose pants and a tattered t-shirt, her limp, oily hair pulled back in a messy bun. Freaked, Spencer dropped the covered papers and pretended to organize it on the desk like she had just been straightening up Aria’s room. “I don’t want to rush you, but we’re going out to an early dinner in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” Spencer squeaked, darting her eyes at Aria as Aria stood stiffly and held her breath. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
As Ella closed the door, Aria studied her mother until she couldn’t see her no more. “How long has she been like that?” she whispered, her nonexistent heart breaking.
“Since you passed away,” Spencer replied honestly and could barely look at Aria’s shattered face.
“Oh,” Aria croaked. “I guess… I guess I never watched my family.”
“It was too much?” Spencer said in a hushed, soothing tone, as she naturally did when Aria needed to be comforted.
“Yeah,” Aria whispered and glanced down at her toes, jabbing the leg of the bed with her foot. “It was.”
Reaching out for Aria’s hand, the reassuring smile dissipated from Spencer’s lips and she recoiled, realizing that she would go right through Aria anyway. “Come on,” she said, slightly shaken by the reminder that Aria was a ghost. “Let’s go.”
After they exited the house, Spencer headed straight for her car and didn’t notice Aria had lagged behind until she unlocked the doors. “Aria,” Spencer called out as she watched Aria stand in her front yard, gazing up at her house. “Are you coming?”
Sighing, Aria took one more sweep of her home and shook her head. “No,” she confessed. “I actually have someone else to see.”
“Okay.” The nerves in Spencer’s sensitive brain lit up, and nervousness crept in her. “Will I see you later?”
Aria looked over her shoulder at Spencer’s worried face and grinned widely. “Of course,” she replied, and she could see Spencer give a sigh of relief. “After dinner.”
“See you then,” Spencer yelled out while climbing in her car, still suspiciously watching Aria stare at what once was where she lived and grew up. That’s when she realized that if people had been walking by, they would have seen her talking to no one, and she quickly scanned the surrounding area for anyone who might have seen her, turned on the ignition, and pulled out of the driveway, feeling embarrassed for talking to thin air like a maniac at Radley.
For a few more minutes Aria just stood there, hands in her pockets, at the place she’d wished she could return to with more than anything. There, through the kitchen window, she could see her parents and Mike preparing to go out like Ella had said. They eventually exited through the front door and walked right past Aria without realizing it. Tears brimming in her eyes, Aria opened her mouth to say something, but shut it right away when she remembered she didn’t want them to see her. So instead she watched as the family, seemingly put together at the seams, though it had been loosely sewn, piled into the car and drove away from her, too.
Closing her eyes, Aria felt the tears run down her cheeks and wanted to cry more when she realized that she had forgotten the painful sensation of sobbing in the six months she’d been in her own lonely paradise. Aching to get away from this place, she repeated her desired destination in her head, and somehow she vanished to exactly where she wanted to go next.
