❝ 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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The blueish glow of the laptop screen illuminated four faces. Caleb sat at the Hastings' kitchen-island, decrytping the same video file he had been trying to for the past week. He worked with Spencer, Emily and Aria loitering over his shoulders while Halle fiddled with her own device. Every so often her hand would venture out and pick up her phone, itching to check her messages. Eventually she put it down only to pick it up five minutes later to repeat the process.
"Turn the volume up," Aria said.
"Can you make the view full-screen?" asked Emily.
"Maybe make it lighter," suggested Spencer. "The picture seems really dark."
"Alright, that's it." Caleb reached the end of his polite courtesies and snapped. He told them, "I've officially stopped taking requests." Realising the lack of space he had — the three hovering over him and judging every move he made — Caleb stopped typing. He said, "Can you guys, like, back up a little bit?"
"Oh, so now you wanna make a request," Halle sarcastically quipped back, her lips curved up into a teasing smile. Caleb rolled his eyes at her, enjoying the wit, but went back to his laptop.
Defensively, Spencer said, "We're not even standing that close to you."
"Really?" Again, Caleb stopped his typing and challenged Spencer with a dry tone. "Then how do I know that you had a cheeseburger for lunch?"
Realising he was right, Spencer took a step back and let him get on with what he was doing. Aria, on the other hand, was still leant closely in. "Haven't we already seen this before?" Aria asked.
"Uh, yeah, but look here," Caleb said. He paused on a single frame and the girls came back around him to check.
"That's the box Jason game me of Ali's— Sorry, Halle." Aria's eyes had gone up to the cheerleader, who was opposite them, leaning with her elbows up on the island. The group had actively gone out of their way to avoid mentioning Jason for the past couple of days, since they got the last installment of the video. They didn't know Halle had since seen him — or that he was back in Rosewood.
"You guys can say his name, I ain't not gonna flare up," Halle said coolly. "I have my emotions under control." Nobody said anything to that; they simply moved on. If Hanna was here, Halle thought. Hanna would've made some funny, borderline stupid comment about Halle's emotions never being in-check, and Halle would've rolled her eyes but loved it all the same.
Spencer said to Caleb, "I still can't see what's inside of it though."
"Just give me a second," Caleb replied, him still working on it.
