❝ we all eat lies, when our hearts are hungry ❞
Halle Brewster made a promise she would never tell the secrets of the summer Alison DiLaurentis went missing. Only now, someone else was doing the telling - something Alison never got the chance to do...
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"So you hit her?"
Halle rolled her eyes, of course that was the part they stuck on. On Spencer's advice, Halle told the others about her fight with Alison. It personally wasn't something she wanted to do, but it was needed. Even if it meant swallowing the judging looks and disapproving words aimed directly at her. So, in the middle of a shady alleyway, outside of the pawn shop Spencer took her sister's ring to, with sirens in distance, Halle told them the truth — and the lie — she confessed to Spencer and took the backlash.
"Is it really that much of a surprise?" Halle asked Aria, who questioned the slap, sighing. "I fight with fists, not words."
"But Jason?" Hanna questioned. She blinked several times, taking in the new information, which only baffled her further. "You and Jason? But he's Alison's brother."
"That was the point," Halle explained. "I wanted to hurt her."
"So, you went after Jason?" Aria asked.
"I know it was stupid, but at the time, in my head, it made sense," Halle tried to reason. "Jason was always off-limits when it came to Alison, I thought it was the best way to get under her skin." As she said it aloud, she realised how dumb it was. Halle played with a real person — a person Halle started to really care for. Her worst mistake was hurting Jason, and she had been living with it eating away at her since.
"But you and Ali fought before they went to Cape May," Emily said, speaking up at last. She was the quietest of the three. "Why didn't you end it with Jason after you and Ali fought?"
"I tried," Halle admitted. "I wrote him a letter, planning on ending the whole thing, apologising for everything, and I sent it to him in Cape May, but... it didn't end," said Halle truthfully. "We carried on seeing each other that summer. Just getting high and hanging out. I liked Jason, he was nice to me."
"Because he got you topless on video," Hanna fired out dryly.
"He's not like that," Halle defended fiercely.
"Why are you defending him?" Emily asked.
"He's just like Ian," Aria stated.
"First, Jason is nothing like Ian," Halle stressed deeply. "And second, I have to defend him, I played him. I was the bad person in this, not Jason, not even Alison. Me — I was the one in the wrong," Halle claimed it all. "If you need someone to blame, blame me. Don't put that on Jason."
Emily read her best friend better than anyone. She noted the strong and willful determination on Halle's face and knew it was forced over the softness the cheerleader pretended she didn't have. Emily knew there was more from a single look. "Did you care about him?" she asked, stunning the other two. Still, Emily asked the question directly to Halle, eyes watching her intently for any reaction, big or small. "Do you care about Jason?"
