CANARY CRY [pretty little liars]

27. the devil you know

Adaline's room was the only safe haven for miles. She couldn't go to school, too many stares. She couldn't go to the store, too many whispers. She could go down to her kitchen, too many concerned looks. But her room was safe. The four corners of her bedroom protected her from the stares, whispers, and concerned looks. She obviously had a bed to sleep in, a laptop with headphones to listen to music, and a bathroom that connected to her room. She'd sneak down stairs late at night, grabbing drinks and snacks to replenish her supply in her desk. She was content with her situation.

She'd sit in her bay window, watching as press cars would drive by, cozied up in a UPenn sweatshirt she thinks she stole from Jason a couple summers ago. Sometimes, she'd grab a book from her shelf and read a few pages. Almost everything seemed meaningless, though. It's not that Adaline was sad over Ian dying, she was exuberant about it. The fact he admitted to killing her best friend AND raping Adaline all in one paper before killing himself instead of facing the consequences is what made her blood boil. She tried to explaining that to Matthew when they met earlier in the week, but the words were too hard to get out. They mostly sat in silence while Adaline's leg bounced up and down.

Gratefully, Adaline's dad and the other girls' parents agreed that they shouldn't have been separated from each other in the first place. So sometimes Adaline would get her friends as visitors. Spencer came a lot a first, spending majority of her day helping Adaline clean her room and doing some of her laundry. All four of the girls never came at once, almost like they were scared of overwhelming her.

It was sometime around 2 in the morning when she peeled herself from the bay window seat and sat down at her desk. She took a piece of sketch paper from her drawer and started drawing. She didn't have any references near her, no exquisite buildings or interesting-looking plants. All she had were photos of people hanging on the wall in front of her. So, she started to sketch herself. Not long into her sketch, she heard a patter on her window.

Going over to the window that overlooked her side of her house, noticed it was little rock's being thrown at her window.

"Seriously?" she whispered to herself.

She stuck her face towards the window, squinting into the darkness. Suddenly, her eyes became adjusted and she saw the outline of his face. Adaline unlocked the window and opened it as wide as she could. Sticking her head out, she hollered in the quietest way, "Jason! What the hell are you doing?"

"I need to talk to you, and you haven't been answering any of my calls."

Adaline rolled her eyes. "Are you drunk?"

"I wish!"

Pursing her lips, she looked at the state of her room and then back at Jason. "You have to climb up the ivy gate."

Jason nodded and quickly started to climb the ivy gate up the wall. It connected to Adaline's window perfectly and always acted as an exit strategy for sneaking out of the house.

Adaline rushed to grab a pair of pants and some socks off the floor and threw them into her closet. She sat waiting on the edge of her bed until Jason slipped into her room. His foot caught in the lip of the window, causing him to trip and fall into her room. He hit the floor with a loud thud, causing Adaline to wince.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Jason replied with a sigh, getting off the floor. "Thanks for letting me come up."

Adaline shrugged, thinking that she probably should've changed her shirt before he came over, considering she was still wearing the stolen sweatshirt and wasn't ready to give it back yet.

"Um," Jason mumbled as he took a spot next to her on the end of the bed. "How are you doing with everything going on?"

"Okay, I guess," Adaline replied. "I mean, I haven't left my room much, but it's alright. How are you? I know you and Ian were friends once, a long time—"