Flawless: A Pretty Little Liars Novel by Sara Shepard

Author:Sara Shepard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins (2007)
Published: 2012-04-13T15:47:05+00:00

19

WATCH OUT FOR GIRLS WITH BRANDING IRONS

The Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio was in a converted barn on the other side of Rosewood. On her bike ride there, Aria passed a tobacco-colored covered bridge and the row of Hollis art department houses, charmingly ramshackle Colonials that were spatter-painted various shades of purple, pink, and blue. She crammed her bike into the rack in front of the yoga studio; it was already full of other bikes, all bearing MEAT IS MURDER and PETA stickers on their frames.

She paused in the yoga studio’s lobby and looked at the scruffy, makeupless girls and hairy, limber boys. Was she crazy to take A’s instructions—Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio. Be there—literally? And was she ready to see Meredith? Perhaps A was baiting her. Perhaps A was here.

Aria had seen Meredith only three times before: first when Meredith came over to her dad’s student-teacher cocktail party, then when she caught Meredith and her dad in the car together, and finally the other day at the Victory, but she’d have recognized her anywhere. Now Meredith was paused in front of the studio’s closet, dragging down mats, blankets, blocks, and straps. Her brown hair was up in a messy ponytail and there was that pink spiderweb tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

Meredith noticed Aria and smiled. “You’re new, right?” She met Aria’s eyes, and for a terrifying second Aria was certain Meredith knew who she was. But then she broke eye contact, leaning over to pop a CD into the portable stereo. Indian sitar music swam out. “Have you done Ashtanga before?”

“Um, yes,” Aria answered. She noticed a big sign on the table that said INDIVIDUAL CLASSES $15, and fished out a ten and a five and laid them on the desk, wondering how A knew Meredith was here—and if A really was here.

Meredith smirked. “And I guess you know the secret, huh?”

“W-What?” Aria whispered, her heart pounding. “Secret?”

“You brought your own mat.” Meredith pointed to the red yoga mat under Aria’s arm. “So many new people come here and use the studio’s mats. You didn’t hear it from me, but you could scrape off the foot fungus on our mats and make cheese.”

Aria tried to smile. She’d brought her own yoga mat to classes ever since she first went with Ali in seventh grade. Ali always used to tell her that community yoga mats gave you STDs.

Meredith squinted at her. “You look familiar. Are you in my drawing class?”

Aria shook her head, suddenly aware that the place smelled like a mixture of feet and incense. This was the sort of yoga studio Ella would go to. In fact, perhaps Ella already had.

“What’s your name?”

“Um, Alison,” Aria said quickly. It wasn’t as if she had the most common name in the world, and she was afraid Byron might have mentioned it to Meredith. Which made her pause. Would Byron talk about Aria to Meredith?

“You look like this girl in the drawing class I TA for,” Meredith said. “But class just started.

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