Chapter Five
Alison had kept CeCe’s--Charlotte’s--number under lock and key for a week now.
Her mother had tried to pry it from her on several occasions, but Alison had just ignored her much like the way her mother had ignored her when she first returned home from the dead. Jason had been quiet about the whole ordeal. Alison figured he was still reeling from that conversation and revelation they got after dinner a week ago. His brother, who he had been incredibly close to, had been whisked away to an asylum, and then his parents had done their best to convince him at a young age that his very real brother was in fact imaginary and his existence was all in his head. That had messed Jason up and was likely the reason he had such a hard childhood and an even harder time as a teen trying to find who he was.
She told Emily bits about it. She didn’t lie per say. She just omitted the truth. She told her everything but her sister’s identity. She knew how her friends felt about CeCe, especially after they spotted her in the red coat in Ravenswood. She wondered if their feelings had shifted after her own revelations that night in New York.
“Ezra was paying CeCe for information. That's why she was in Ravenswood.”
“So, she was never really Red Coat?”
“No. I asked her to wear that hoping she would distract ‘A’ so i could turn off the saw. ‘A’ put you in that box, Em. Not CeCe. She helped me save your life.”
“Why does this have to be a secret? Why can’t you tell the other girls?”
“CeCe killed a cop, Em, and part of why she did that was for me. Look, if she gets busted getting on that plane, my face is on that passport. That makes me an accessory. And now that you know about it, it makes you one, too. You guys have done so much for me. You do not have to go out on a limb for CeCe. I will take the fall for it alone if it comes to it.”
She remembers reassuring Emily that she trusted the older blonde, and that she was a friend not a foe. She trusted that Emily might be okay with knowing about Charlotte’s existence, but she couldn’t guarantee that the others would be. She refused to take the chance. She refused to mess up the chance of having CeCe in her life as a sister, not just as an on again, off again friend.
And that’s where Alison found herself now, sitting on her bed on an early Saturday morning. The folded paper with CeCe’s new number that she had yet to call on her lap and she was staring at her phone as if it’d burn her if she touched it. She wasn’t sure if she needed to talk herself into calling her, or out of calling her.
What would she say to her? Talk to her like the friend she always did? Or tell her she knew who she was? She knew CeCe—Charlotte, she reminds herself—knew about everything from her mother’s story. While Alison pretended that CeCe was a big sister to her, and felt that connection, she knew it must have been incredibly hard for the older girl to pretend that she wasn’t her sister.
Alison inhaled through her nose before picking up her phone. She stares at the paper for another long moment before tapping the numbers onto her phone’s keypad. Her finger hesitates over the call button before pressing. She listens as it starts to ring with bated breath. Right when she thinks it’s going to go to voicemail, she hears her voice.
“Hello?” Alison is silent, almost like a deer in the headlights. The older girl’s voice us laced with hesitation and concern as the seconds tick by with silence. “Hello? Who’s there?”
“CeCe?” Alison asks despite knowing her voice.
“Ali,” she breathes out. Relief, elation. “I was wondering when you would call. Are you safe? Where did you end up?”
Alison swallows. “I’m home, Ce.”
“Home?”
“I went home that night. I told the police almost everything. I've been on pretty much lockdown since I got back to Rosewood. God, my dad. He's been awful.”
“Yeah...” the older girl sighs. Alison would have thought nothing of it before, but now that she knows the truth, she knows Charlotte is thinking of her own treatment from him.”
“Come home,” Ali blurts out.
“Ali.” Charlotte says her name as if she were talking to a small child. “You know I can’t. They know that I killed Wilden, and that I knew you were alive. And that I escaped police custody—for all they know, I attacked another cop. Mom paid him off and he told me to hit him and take the car, which I did. If I ever stepped foot back in Rosewood, I'd be arrested. For killing a cop, I could be locked up for life. I refuse to be locked up.” Again, hangs in the air, and Charlotte doesn’t say it, but Alison knows it’s there. There's a pause, because both girls realize the slip up. Mom paid him off.
“I know, CeCe.” Alison says it cautiously yet confidently.
“Know what, Ali?”
“Your name isn’t really CeCe Drake.” She pauses, and when the older girl doesn’t speak, she continues, “your real name is Charlotte DiLaurentis.”
The other line is quiet for a long time, but she’s still there. Alison can faintly hear her breathing, and an occasional mutter she can’t quite understand.
“CeCe?” she asks hesitantly after the silence lingers for too long.
“Charlotte,” she finally speaks, correcting her. “How long have you known?”
“A week,” she admits. “Mom told us everything.”
“And what is everything?” Charlotte challenges.
So, all this time you’ve been pretending to go to school while you’re running around Rosewood with my children.
I'm your child, too. I just wanted to be with my family.
Jason asked your father if he could bring his girlfriend to the Cape. He's on his way home right now to meet you.
What would happen if he found out about me? Mom, what would happen if he found out about me?
He thinks you're dead.
You told him that grave was real? All this time, I thought you did that for me, but you did that for you. You did that to protect you. You didn’t just bury Charles; you buried your dirty secret.
Alison almost flinches at Charlotte’s tone. It's one she was never on the receiving end of. Then she realizes it’s not her, her distrust is directed at their mother.
“She told us—”
“Us?” she interrupts.
“Jason and I.”
Charlotte exhales. “Great.” A pause, and then, “keep going, Ali.”
“She told us about how you were born ‘Charles.’ Jason called you ‘Charlie.’ She said that even as a little kid, you acted like a girl. And that when I was a baby, I wouldn’t stop crying and both she and Dad were outside, so you tried to give me a bath. It was an innocent bath. But Dad didn’t care, he made her put you in Radley. Jason and i argued with her, y’know. She should have fought for us all.”
“Thanks, Ali.” Her tone is quiet, and Alison swears it sounds watery.
“She told us that every time she bought me clothes, she’d buy you clothes. And how smart you have always been. You got into college and out privileges. That's when you pretended to be CeCe, to get close to Jason and me. I'm really glad you did.” Alison hesitates, mulling over whether to tell her to the last part. But Charlotte wanted to know what everything was. “She told me about that night. Some girl named Bethany stole your clothes and snuck out. She wanted to hurt her. You saw me in the yellow top, and thought I was her. And you hit me in the back of the head. She buried me alive because she thought I was dead, and she didn’t want to lose us both. She did anyways,” she scoffs tearfully.
“She didn’t lie to you,” Charlotte says almost in disbelief. She's crying now Alison decides.
“Come home, Charlotte,” Alison pleads.
“Ali, I can’t.”
“We’ll figure it out. You're my sister, Charlotte. I want you to come home. We'll talk to the police or come up with something. Mom will, I know she will. If we can, if we figure it out, would you come home? Would you?”
“If you can figure it out...I’d go back to Rosewood.”
“You promise?” Alison asks like she was a little girl, glomming onto that maybe, that chance of happiness and life.
“I promise.”
Alison would hold onto that promise. She'd hold onto it until the day she brought her sister home.