Aria leaves for Iceland before anyone knows anything about Alison being really gone. The sleepover in the barn was supposed to be her Bon Voyage party. The whole Montgomery family is scheduled on a flight out of Philadelphia on Iceland Air at 2pm.
They were all waiting for Alison to come back. Maybe with donuts and a laugh, later that morning. Or maybe the next day, they’d get a call from some seedy motel where she’d shacked up with some older guy. “Don’t be so provincial,” she’d say, her voice dripping with that trademark bullying confidence.
“Do you think we should tell someone?” Emily asks in the early hours of the morning.
“Tell them what?” Spencer responds. “We don’t know anything.”
So Aria spends her last morning in America combing through the woods with Spencer’s hand on her shoulder and a flashlight in her hand, texting Hanna and Emily who were scouting around town. But there’s no sign of her. Alison is gone.
Back at the barn, they exchange uncertain looks, Alison will be furious if she’s in the middle of one of her top secret schemes and they freak out and tell her mom she’s gone. Aria shudders at the thought that it could be anything else - anything related to the scream that Spencer said she heard. How can they decide what to do without Alison herself around to tell them? It’s Spencer, finally, who declares that they need to get Aria home.
“You can’t miss your plane,” she says, firmly. “We need to act like everything is normal.”
And so Aria stows her bags and her growing sense of dread in the back of Byron’s car, waving to her three friends, as they stand at the edge of her driveway, looking sad and scared and a little off balance. Which is to say, exactly the way that Aria feels.
“Where’s Alison?” her dad asks.
“I’m not sure,” Aria says. “She took off, I guess.” A sharp pain rises in her chest. Maybe Ali didn’t want to say goodbye.
“Without her, those girls are like a smile with a missing tooth,” her mom observes.
------
She can’t turn on her cell phone, the international data plan is so expensive that her dad ruled it out entirely. So she has to wait for her friends to email her, to let her know what’s going on. Hanna tells her Ali never came back. Spencer tells her they told Jessica after Aria left. Emily says Jessica waited until after dinner, then called the police.
-------
Aria’s first week of school is surreal. Everyone is taller than she is, her classmates are hardy and blonde and have names like Baldur Halldorsson, Johanna Magnusdottir. She’s an oddity, with her pink streaked hair and her feather earrings and her loud print shirts. She barely notices, living for her emails. Her dad is embarrassingly enthusiastic, shepherding them through an endless list of family bonding activities. Aria is listless during the whale watching tour. She looks out from the top of Hallgrimskirkja, wishing she could see all the way back to Rosewood, to wherever Alison is.
Hanna thinks Ali might have spontaneously combusted. Spencer thinks she probably ran off with some older guy none of them knew about. Emily doesn’t say much, which Aria understands is her way of not saying that something really bad must have happened, that she doesn’t believe Alison would have run away without telling her.
Aria emails Alison, even though she knows she won’t get a reply. She tells Ali about her dad and his big Icelandic do over. About how everyone wears lumpy wool sweaters, and how she saw a girl with seriously high fashion rain gear yesterday. I really hope you’re okay, she types. You’re my best friend, she adds, even though she knows it sounds stupid. She wants to stay hopeful, keep things in the present tense.
------
Aria’s mom is worried that she’s not making friends, so she pretends to be staying after school, looking into a few clubs. She takes long walks around Reykjavik, usually ending up by the harbor. Sometimes she sits in the back of the Harpa, doing her homework or writing long letters to her friends back home. Aria sits underneath the wall of glass, staring out at the water.
One day she sees a sign for Cinema No. 2, a small upstairs room where an old man shows videos he’s made about Iceland. He has a friendly white dog, and lets Aria pick what movies he shows. He also has a friendly grandson, who is sixteen and works on a fishing boat. He likes Aria, invites her to go out with him and his friends.
She wishes she could tell Ali about him. She emails Emily and Hanna and Spencer instead.
“That’s great,” Emily replies, with an undertone that clearly communicates that it’s not. She doesn’t like the idea of anyone doing anything important until Alison comes back, it’s her way of holding the door open for Ali’s possible return, trying to make sure she won’t have fallen too far behind.
“What’s he like?” Spencer asks. “Is he as smart as you?”
Aria isn’t sure how to answer the question.
“He knows a lot about fish?” she writes back.
Hanna never answers.
------
The police call, eventually, but Aria can’t tell them anything. She went to sleep and Alison was there. Then she was awake, and Alison was gone.
------
Ella takes her out to dinner one night at the world’s northernmost Pakistani restaurant.
“Would you like to invite one of your friends to visit for Christmas?” she asks, splitting up an order of Aloo Kaju Curry. “We’d discussed a plan with Jessica-” she cuts herself off. “But now, maybe one of the other girls?”
Aria thinks about it. Hanna is incommunicado. Emily’s emails are barely more than two sentences long anymore. “Spencer, I guess,” she says. “But she’s probably busy with student council stuff.”
“Maybe,” her mother smiles. “Maybe not. I’ll call Veronica tonight.”
-------
Spencer arrives wearing a puffy jacket and a tiredness in her eyes that Aria doesn’t remember seeing before. They hug awkwardly in the airport, Spencer’s duffel bag thumping Aria’s elbow. Aria doesn’t remember her being so tall, or so thin. She can feel Spencer’s heartbeat through her ribs.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Aria says, surprised to find that it’s not a lie.
Spencer gives her a crooked half-smile.
Aria gets a fluttery feeling in her stomach.
-------
“How is...everyone?” Aria asks later, showing Spencer around. She’s leaning into Spencer unconsciously, clutching her arm and using her as a bulwark against the wind.
Spencer doesn’t answer right away, waits until they push open the door to City Hall, warm air rushing against their faces. Aria wants to show her the big topographical map of Iceland.
They’re staring at the map, all blue and dimly lit, when Spencer says, “Fine, I guess.”
“Do you all still...hang out?” Aria asks, taking off her mittens.
“Not really,” Spencer shrugs. “I think we were all more friends with Ali than with each other. Now that she’s - gone - we don’t have that much in common.”
Aria hates that thought too much to even consider it. “We’re friends,” she insists. “That’s what we have in common.”
Spencer smiles in a very Hastings way that means she doesn’t want to argue about it, but she still thinks she’s right.
“Do you still eat lunch together?” Aria asks, remembering how Alison loved to hold court in the cafeteria. “You and Emily and Hanna?”
“Hanna’s different,” Spencer says with a frown.
“Different how?” Aria asks, mystified.
Spencer considers her answer carefully. “She got a popular girl makeover. She’s skinny and she’s dating Sean Ackard. She sits with a new crowd now. And Emily sits with Ben and some of the other swimmers.”
“Who do you sit with?” Aria asks, curious.
“I study in the library,” Spencer says. “I eat an apple or something.”
Aria feels a weird swell of indignation on Spencer’s behalf. “Well, if I were there, we would still sit together,” she says.
Spencer’s hand is next to hers on the railing, and she flexes her fingers, almost like she’s thinking of grabbing Aria’s hand. But the impulse passes.
“I wish you were,” she says instead.
------
At dinner that night, Spencer does her usual perfect friend and model student patter for the Montgomerys. She tells them about the field hockey team, Rosewood’s chances in the academic decathlon. She even gives Mike the low down on how poorly the boy’s lacrosse team did this year.
Aria twirls pasta around her fork as she listens. Spencer sounds lonely.
-------
They get ready to go to sleep, Aria suddenly conscious that her bed here is a twin, the only possible size for her tiny bedroom with its sloping rafters. If Spencer minds, she doesn’t mention it. She slides under the covers in her t-shirt and shorts. Aria scoots as close to the wall as she can, unsure why sharing a bed with Spencer feels strange. It might be the way it gets so dark here in the winter, or the absence of Hanna and Emily and Alison giggling on the floor. She feels a pang at the thought.
“Where do you think Alison is?” she asks, quietly.
Spencer pauses before she answers. “I like to think about her in a penthouse, somewhere, with closets full of fur coats and fancy jewelry. And a boyfriend who’s older and rich, and probably married.”
Aria understands that Spencer is adhering to a code, only mentioning places that aren’t the trunk of a car, the basement of some perverted kidnapper.
“There are cruise ships that come here, sometimes,” Aria says. “I see them in the harbor, and they’re so enormous. I always think maybe she just got bored, you know? She could have stowed away on one of them. She could be out there seeing the world by herself.”
She likes the idea of that, even though she knows she’s spinning a fairy tale. She might as well say Ali’s living in a house made of gingerbread, sweeping floors and making the beds for a gang of singing dwarves.
“She would have told us, though,” Spencer sighs. “I mean, maybe not me. But she would have told you. Or Emily.”
Aria reaches for Spencer’s hand, and squeezes. She feels Spencer squeeze back, interlacing their fingers. They lay there for a long time in silence, Aria starting to doze a little bit, obscurely comforted by the idea of falling asleep holding Spencer’s hand.
“I miss her,” Spencer mumbles, half asleep herself.
“Me too,” Aria responds drowsily. “I wish she were here.” It’s not until Spencer jerks her hand away, as if she’s been burned, that Aria realizes how that might have sounded.
“Hey, no,” she protests, as Spencer rolls on her side, turning her back on Aria. She puts a hand gently against the white cloth of Spencer’s t-shirt. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant - I wish we knew. That’s all.”
Spencer makes a stagey harumphing sound, acts like it’s a joke. “Yeah well, if Ali were here, she’d take up the whole bed and make you sleep on the floor.”
Aria smiles at the idea, hugs Spencer from behind to make sure she’s not mad.
She falls asleep like that, with one arm wrapped tightly around Spencer Hastings.
---------
The next morning, they’re eating breakfast at a bookstore cafe that Aria loves. Spencer, put off by the smallness of the coffee mugs, orders two cups and drinks them in quick succession.
“Can I have your bacon?” Spencer asks.
“I’ll trade you for half a pancake,” Aria suggests.
Spencer has a look on her face like she wants to negotiate, wants to point out that Aria is a vegetarian, and clearly only ordered a breakfast with bacon so that Spencer could share. Instead, she takes a whole pancake and lays it on Aria’s plate with a smile.
Aria smiles back, feeling genuinely happy for the first time in months.
“You can get books here,” Aria tells her. “For presents, if you want. There’s this whole Christmas Eve book exchange tradition.”
“I know,” Spencer says. “I brought book presents in my luggage. I did my homework.”
Aria laughs, because of course she did. Spencer Hastings always does her homework.
“Do you know about the Christmas cat, too?” she asks. “The one that eats anyone who doesn’t get at least one new piece of clothing?”
“Don’t worry, I brought you some socks,” Spencer adds, going for extra credit. “I didn’t want you to get eaten.” She chews a bite of bacon thoughtfully. “They have birds on them.”
Aria beams at her.
----------
Byron and Ella are busy all day, helping with a big holiday shindig at the university. But her dad booked them a bus tour since he’s too busy to be their guide to everything Icelandic. They’re spending the day going around to geysirs and waterfalls and because it’s Spencer, a geothermal power plant.
They stand with their shoulders touching, watching the Stokker geysir explode.
“Everything is different here,” Spencer observes. “Like, at home, this would be totally blocked off with guards to make sure no one tried to run through it like a sprinkler. Here, they just have these little ankle high ropes and the thermometer signs to warn you about burning your face off.”
“America,” Aria says. “Always trying to protect people from themselves.”
“Look at you,” Spencer says, nudging her with an elbow. “Are you all European now?”
“Please,” Aria giggles. “Reykjavik is like, a tenth of the size of Philadelphia. There’s a limit to how cosmopolitan I can be.”
Getting back onto the bus, Aria realizes this is the longest amount of time she’s ever spent alone with Spencer. Or as alone as you can get on a bus full of elderly tourists. Alone, in the sense of it being just the two of them with no Alison around. Part of Aria feels sad at the thought, but another part, one that feels like a warm coal glowing her belly, feels glad.
-------
Spencer likes the Icelandic words, their long strings of almost unpronounceable consonants and vowels. She does her best to sound them out, through the umlauts and accent marks, the strange looking P’s that are pronounced with a ‘th’ sound.
“My favorite word is snyrting,” Aria admits. “It means bathroom, but it has a fun sound.”
“I like álfur,” Spencer replies.
“Elves,” Aria grins. “You’ll have to tell Emily about that one.”
The easy smile on Spencer’s face turns brittle. “Yeah,” she lies, “Maybe I will.”
---------
The books Spencer brought are perfect, of course. A leather bound Epic of Gilgamesh for Byron, an art history coffee table book for Ella, the latest Jack Reacher novel for Mike, and a hardback Sense and Sensibility for Aria.
“I know you’re more of a Bronte fan,” Spencer tells her, while Aria is putting on the yellow bird patterned socks that Spencer gave her. “But the sensibility stuff - it always makes me think of you.”
Aria feels herself almost blushing at how happy the idea makes her, the thought of Spencer thinking about her while reading Jane Austen, maybe sitting in the sunlight that pools into her big bedroom window back in Rosewood.
“I love it,” she says earnestly. “But I have something else for you, too.”
Spencer tears off the wrapping of the small package that Aria hands her to reveal a black wool knit beanie.
“In case your ears get cold,” Aria says. “And to ward off the Christmas cat.”
Spencer puts it on right away and looks incredibly adorable.
“Here,” Aria says, moving over to adjust it a little. “Let me help you.” She smooths Spencer’s hair behind her ear, then pulls the edge of the hat down a little. Then, acting on an impulse she doesn’t bother to analyze or resist, she stands on her tiptoes and brushes her lips against Spencer’s cheek.
She can actually feel the heat rushing to Spencer’s face, the flush under her skin so soft and smooth. She thinks about Spencer's lips, just inches away from her own, imagines how they would feel against hers, then pulls away, suddenly keenly aware that she was seriously thinking about kissing her best friend. Like the way she would kiss a boy, although without the smell of hair gel and too much cologne. Probably with the smell of coffee and the taste of lip gloss, she thinks.
Spencer isn’t moving a muscle, as if she’s suddenly turned into a rock or a tree like a fairy story. But she’s staring hard at Aria with a quiet intensity that makes Aria’s breath catch a little bit in her throat.
There’s a loud crash from Mike’s room, it sounds like he knocked over most of his handball gear, and they both startle at the noise. The moment passes, and the air starts to feel normal again, instead of electric with the charge of possibility.
They crawl into bed to read their books, propped up on pillows with their arms touching. Spencer falls asleep still wearing the beanie.
----------
On Christmas Day, they walk all over Reykjavik with Aria’s family, looking at the Christmas lights.
Aria feels the tingle of a secret in the back of her head all day. Now that she’s thought about what it would be like to kiss Spencer, it’s as if she can’t stop thinking about it.
She thinks about it when her dad is droning on about solstice traditions and Viking heritage. She thinks about it when they’re drinking hot chocolate and Spencer has a tiny foam mustache above her lip. She thinks about it whenever Spencer laughs or smiles or brushes the sleeve of her puffy jacket against the cloth of Aria’s black trench coat. She’s almost afraid she’s going to do it without thinking, without even realizing, like she’ll just lean in and kiss Spencer in front of everyone the moment she stops to peer at a display of fuzzy yarn in a shop window or something.
Spencer, for her part, seems to always be looking at Aria. Aria can feel her eyes on the collar of her jacket, the side of her face when she’s talking to her mom. And she keeps touching Aria in small ways that might mean nothing at all - a hand on her elbow if they’re walking over an icy spot on the curb, a gloved hand on the small of her back to ask if she can throw away Aria’s hot chocolate cup, a hip bump that’s either accidental or a signal of a code that Aria thinks she might like to crack.
------------
Aria is definitely not sleeping. She’s lying in her bed, wide awake, extremely aware of the length of Spencer’s body stretched out next to her, the rhythm of Spencer’s breathing. She’s not sure how late it is, but well after midnight. She tries to remember if she’s ever felt like this about another girl before, remembers seeing Hanna and Emily and Alison practically naked in dressing rooms and locker rooms and at late night summer sleepovers. But those memories are flat, matter of fact. This thing with Spencer feels different from anything. The only thing she can compare it to how she used to imagine getting asked out by Noel Kahn might feel, all fluttery and special.
She catches a glimpse of greenish light outside the window.
“Spencer,” she whispers, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Are you asleep?”
“Not really,” Spencer says, rolling over.
Aria takes her hand and leads her to the window, putting on a pair of slippers as she goes. She grabs the comforter off the bed and opens the catch of the window.
“Come on,” she says to Spencer, stepping lightly out onto the roof.
“Are you crazy?” Spencer asks, following her anyway. Then she sees the green lights dancing in the sky to the north.
“Get under here,” Aria says, sitting down and pulling the blanket over herself. Spencer scoots next to her, huddling close in the chilly night air as they watch the Northern Lights pulse over the city. Spencer puts an arm around Aria’s shoulders, and Aria smiles and snuggles a little closer.
“This is amazing,” Spencer says softly, and Aria can’t be sure if she’s talking about the light show or this feeling that keeps sparking between them.
“People used to believe they were the spirits of the dead,” Aria tells her, thinking - unwillingly - of Alison.
Spencer shakes her head. “Solar wind,” she says firmly. “And magnets.”
“Magnets,” Aria repeats, turning her head toward Spencer.
“Yeah,” Spencer says, in her gravelly voice, running a fingertip across Aria’s cheek. “Magnets.”
And then Spencer is kissing her and it feels like the swell of an orchestra, like the time the tree in their yard got hit by lightning and split down the middle. Her lips are soft and warm and taste like peach gloss and minty toothpaste and anticipation. When Aria slides her tongue into Spencer’s mouth, it feels like jumping off the high dive, and when she hears Spencer moan a little in the back of her throat she feels a surge of pure desire so powerful it blots out everything else in the world that isn’t Spencer, isn’t all the places their bodies are touching here in this moment under this blanket.
When they finally come up for air, Spencer takes a deep shaky breath, like she’s trying to steady herself. She looks almost scared, her eyes are crinkled with worry as if she’s expecting Aria to take it all back, announce this was a mistake. Instead, Aria sighs contentedly, resting her head on Spencer’s shoulder. “I wanted to do that all day,” she admits.
Spencer’s face breaks into a broad smile. “Your nose is cold,” she says, touching Aria’s face affectionately.
“The rest of me is nice and warm,” Aria grins, pulling Spencer in for another kiss.
They stay out on the roof alternately kissing and talking and watching the lights dance across the sky for hours, until Spencer starts worrying their feet could get frostbitten and insists they go back inside. They burrow under the rest of the blankets on Arias bed and fall asleep happily tangled together.
-------
The next few days are a blur of motion. Byron drives them to see volcanos and waterfalls and glaciers. Aria holds Spencer’s hand inside her pocket, drags her around corners and into bathrooms to make out every single chance she gets. The calendar is ticking down the days to New Year’s, when Spencer is going to have to get on a plane and fly thousands of miles away, back to her regular life, which Aria isn’t a part of anymore.
They go to bed early, claiming to be tired from all the hiking, the fresh air. They spend hours in Aria’s bedroom with the door locked after dark, kissing some more and touching each other lightly, hands skimming under shirts, fingers tracing patterns against backbones, lips on necks and tongues everywhere. Spencer does things that make Aria have to bite down on the pillow to keep from moaning loudly enough for Mike to hear. All of it feels new and special kind of like a new continent the two of them are discovering every night, trees no other humans have walked under, canyons no one else has ever seen.
-------
Suddenly, it’s New Year’s Eve, the last full day of Spencer’s visit. Ella drops them off at the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa with steaming milky blue water and volcano scrubs and a swim up bar. The water isn’t chlorinated, so they have to shower before going in. Aria can’t help stealing a few glances at Spencer’s body under the spray.
They spend a few hours relaxing in the water, trying not to think about Spencer’s flight the next day. Spencer gives Aria a piggyback ride around the perimeter of the lagoon.
“You’re so tiny,” she says.
“Good things come in small packages,” Aria insists, kissing Spencer underneath a wooden foot bridge.
Spencer looks around at the mountains, the lava rocks, the steaming otherworldly color of the water, and Aria. “I love it here,” she says. “It’s like another planet.”
That night, the streets of Reykjavik are full of revelers, the sky exploding with fireworks. Spencer and Aria climb out on the roof again to watch. The air is cold, but it feels alive with expectation.
When they go back inside, Aria kisses Spencer and slowly unbuttons her shirt.
“Aria,” Spencer says questioningly.
“Shh,” Aria whispers. “I want this. I want it to be you.”
--------
Afterward, they lie sprawled out together on the single bed, naked and smiling.
“Do you think my parents would notice if I just didn’t go home?” Spencer asks.
“Maybe not, but mine would probably would,” Aria smiles.
“Did you ever think about this, before?”
“About what?” Aria says.
“About being with a girl,” Spencer says, sounding a little embarrassed. “Or, I don’t know, about being with me.”
Aria giggles a little, kisses Spencer’s ear in a goofy way. “I’m not sure. I guess it never occurred to me. We didn’t spend enough time together one on one. But I promise to think about it all the time, okay? Now that I know how great it is.”
“So you never, you know, kissed Alison? Like for practice or anything?”
“No,” Aria says, bewildered. “No. Why would you even think that?”
“I think she practiced with Emily sometimes. Kissing and stuff.”
“Since when did Alison ever need practice?” Aria asks, incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Spencer admits. “I just wondered.”
“Did you?”
“Not really,” Spencer says. “Maybe once. Kind of.” She pauses. “Are you mad?”
“No,” Aria tells her, nestling her head against Spencer’s shoulder. “But I’m maybe a little jealous.”
“Of our dead best friend?” Spencer asks.
The temperature of the air in the room seems to drop twenty degrees. Aria sits up, covers herself with a blanket. “Don’t say that,” she says.
“It’s what I think,” Spencer replies quietly. “Don’t you?”
“No,” Aria insists, determinedly. “No way. Alison isn’t, she can’t be-” Even as she says the words, she sees a change come over Spencer. It’s as if she’s folding back up into herself, pulling her clothes back on, closing off the walls of her vulnerability and leaving Aria on the other side.
“Hey,” Aria pleads, a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out.”
“I’m not,” Spencer says, but her voice already sounds distant, far away. “Believe whatever you want.”
“I believe in this,” Aria insists. “In us.”
“It’s fine,” Spencer tells her. “But I should get to sleep. I can’t miss my plane.”
-------------
“I don’t want us to leave things like this,” Aria says the next morning, holding back tears at the airport.
“I have to go home,” Spencer says, dully.
Aria tries to pull her in for a kiss, or even a hug, but Spencer freezes in a way that makes a chill run down Aria’s spine.
“We need to act like everything is normal.”
“This isn’t normal, Spencer! It’s special! Don’t you dare tell me you don’t feel it, too!”
Spencer gives her a sad smile, the tiredness in her eyes returning. “We’ll see,” she says. “We’ll see if you still think so next year. When you’re back in Rosewood.”
She turns and walks down the jetway, leaving Aria staring out the window, watching as the plane takes off.
Aria cries silently the whole car ride home. She cries louder that night, alone in her room.
She wishes Spencer would come back, would walk in the door with flowers and an apology, wouldn’t just disappear into the low gray clouds and silence.
Even more than that, she wishes she had someone to talk to. She climbs out onto the roof and clutches Sense and Sensibility to her chest.
She realizes she’s wishing for two impossible things.
She wants Spencer back. And she wants to talk to Alison.