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CHAPTER THREE;
THE JENNA THING
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Gwen does not spend her night at the Montgomery residence sleeping.
And's she's perfectly glad about it, too. Mainly because every time she closes her eyes she sees Alison. Dream Alison is long-limbed and extroverted, angelic and ethereal. Her lips are wet with deception and her mouth stuffed with secrets until she's rosy and bulging at the cheeks. Gwen watches her and is reminded of a Shakespearean line she heard once: Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath. Something along those lines, probably from Macbeth. Or was it Romeo and Juliet?
Gwen couldn't say for sure. All of last year, she spent her 8th period English in the arms of Morpheus and probably missed out on that particular tragedy.
Dream Ali is fuzzy-looking and softened at her edges. Gwen remembers her differently.
Gwen remembers a lot differently, she thinks, as she walks the line of consciousness for what feels like the millionth time that hour. Her mind is spinning record-player speed and she does not know how to feel about anything. She doesn't know how she feels about Alison. And her perfect hair, and long limbs, and blurry edges. She doesn't know how she feels about the murder. And Gwendolyn Brantley definitely doesn't know how she's feeling about the fact that she and her four probably harmless friends are suspects in said case.
6:00AM:
Aria's alarm goes off.
Sunlight is inching slowly up the wall adjacent to where two girls lay still. One is sleeping. The other is wide awake and has been for a while now. The Other is known to be especially considerate in the morning. It's rare to catch her in these conditions: tousled hair, glassy eyes, glowing skin and a crap given about someone else that's not herself. Or Emily Fields. The Other sinks into the sheets like watercolor onto canvas, weak and pale and, in this case, lacking sleep. The Sleeping One groans but doesn't kill the alarm. Or throw it at the wall. Or out the window.
And five seconds later she does. Kill the alarm, Gwen means. Aria doesn't throw it at the wall, or out the window. Or anything like that.
Although that would have been quite the scene.
Twenty minutes later finds Gwen sitting quietly at the Montgomery's kitchen table. Aria and her mother are talking about Hanna's funeral dress over breakfast. Gwen is preoccupied; she's sipping coffee and coiling the drawstring of one of Mike's old hoodies around her finger. (Aria had donated the well-worn piece to Gwen's ensemble that morning, after cutting off its sleeves).
