Twenty-Five: The Surreal Life, Starring Hanna Marin.

Saturday night, Hanna rode the elevator up to her suite at the Philadelphia Four Seasons, feeling taut, loose, and glowing. She'd just had a lemongrass body wrap, an 80-minute massage, and a Kissed by the Sun tanning treatment, all in a row. The pampering had made her feel slightly less stressed. That, and being away from Rosewood…and A.

Hopefully she was away from A.

She unlocked the door to their two-bedroom suite and strode inside. Her father was sitting on the couch in the front room. "Hey." He stood up. "How was it?"

"Wonderful." Hanna beamed at him, overcome with both happiness and sadness at once. She wanted to tell him how grateful she felt that they were back together—and yet, she knew her future with him hung in the balance—A's balance. Hopefully, blurting out stuff to Naomi and Riley yesterday would keep her safe, but what if it didn't? Maybe she should just tell him the truth about Jenna, before A got to him first.

She pressed her lips together and looked at the carpet bashfully. "Well, I have to shower really fast if we're going to make it to Le Bec-Fin."

"Just a sec." Her dad stood up. "I have another surprise for you."

On instinct, Hanna looked at her dad's hands, hoping he was holding a gift for her. Maybe it was something to make up for all those lame birthday cards. But the only thing in his hand was his cell phone.

Then came a knock on the door to the adjoining suite. "Tom? Is she here?"

Hanna froze, feeling the blood drain from her head. She knew that voice.

"Kate and Isabel are here," her father whispered excitedly. "They're coming to Le Bec-Fin with us, and then we're all going to see Mamma Mia!. Didn't you say Thursday that you wanted to see that?"

"Wait!" Hanna blocked him before he got to the door. "You invited them?"

"Yes." Her father looked at her crazily. "Who else would have?"

A, Hanna thought. It seemed like A's style. "But I thought it was going to just be you and me."

"I never said that."

Hanna frowned. Yes, he had. Hadn't he?

"Tom?" Kate's voice called. Hanna was relieved that Kate called her dad Tom, and not Daddy, but she rightened her grip on her dad's wrist.

Her father hesitated at the door, his eyes flickering back and forth awkwardly. "But, I mean, Hanna, they're already here. I thought this would be nice."

"Why…?" Why would you think that? Hanna wanted to ask. Kate makes me feel like shit and you ignore me when she's here. This is why I haven't spoken to you in years!

But there was so much confusion and disappointment on her father's face. He'd probably been planning this for days. Hanna stared at the tassels on the Oriental rug. Her throat felt clogged, as if she'd just swallowed something enormous.

"I guess you should let them in, then," she mumbled.

When her father opened the door, Isabel cried out with glee, as if they'd been separated by whole galaxies, not just states. She was still overly thin and too tan, and Hanna's eyes went immediately to the rock on her left hand. It was a three-carat Tiffany Legacy ring—Hanna knew the catalogue backward and forward.

And Kate. She was more beautiful than ever. Her diagonal-striped slip dress had to be a size two, and her straight chestnut hair was even longer than a few years ago. She gracefully placed her Louis Vuitton purse on the hotel room's little dining table. Hanna seethed. Kate probably never tripped in her new Jimmy Choos or slid on the hardwood floors after the cleaning lady waxed them.

Kate's face looked pinched, like she was really pissed to be here. When she noticed Hanna, however, her puckered look softened. She looked Hanna up and down—from her structured Chloe jacket to her strappy sling-backs—and then she smiled.

"Hey, Hanna," Kate said, her surprised obvious. "Wow." She put her hand on Hanna's shoulder but luckily didn't hug her. If she had, she'd have found out how badly Hanna was trembling.

"Everything loos so good," Kate breathed, staring at her menu.

"Indeed," Mr. Marin echoed. He flagged down the waiter and ordered a bottle of pinot grigio. Then he gazed warmly at Kate, Isabel, and Hanna. "I'm glad we can all be here. Together."

"It's really lovely to see you again, Hanna," Isabel cooed.

"Yeah," Kate echoed. "It totally is."

Hanna stared down at her dainty silverware. It was surreal to see them again. And not the cool, Zac-Posen-kaleidoscopic-dress sort of surreal, but nightmarish surreal, like when that Russian guy in the book Hanna had to read for English last year woke up and found he'd turned into a roach.

"Darling, what are you going to get?" Isabel asked her with her hand over Hanna's father's. She still couldn't believe her father was into Isabel. She was so…plain. And way too tan. Cute if you were a model, fourteen years old, or from—not if you were a middle-aged woman from Maryland.

"Hmm," Mr. Marin said. "What's pintade? Is it fish?"

Hanna flipped through the menu's pages. She had no idea what she could eat. Everything was either fried or in cream sauce.

"Kate, will you translate?" Isabel leaned in Hanna's direction. "Kate's fluent."

Of course she is, Hanna thought.

"We spent last summer in Paris," Isabel explained, looking at Hanna. Hanna ducked behind the wine list. They went to Paris? Her father, too? "Hanna, do you study languages?" Isabel asked.

"Um." Hanna shrugged. "I took a year of Spanish."

Isabel pursed her lips. "What's your favorite subject in school?"

"English?"

"Mine too!" Kate exclaimed.

"Kate got her school's top English prize last year," Isabel bragged, looking very proud.

"Mom," Kate whined. She looked at Hanna and mouthed, Sorry.

Hanna still couldn't believe how Kate's pissed-off look had melted when she'd seen Hanna. Hanna had made that look before. Like the time in ninth grade when her English teacher volunteered her to show around Carlos, the Chilean exchanged student. Hanna stormed resentfully to the front office to greet him, certain that Carlos was going to be a dork and bring down her cool quotient. When she got to the office and saw a tall, wavy-haired, green-eyed boy who looked like he'd been playing beach volleyball since birth, she stood up a little straighter and discreetly checked her breath. Kate probably thought they shared some sort of cute-girl bond.

"Do you do any extracurriculars?" Isabel asked her. "Sports?"

Hanna shrugged. "Not really." She'd forgotten that Isabel was one of those mothers: All she talked about were Kate's honors classes, languages, awards, extracurriculars, and so on. It was yet another thing Hanna couldn't complete with.

"Don't be so modest." Her father poked in the shoulder. "You have plenty of extracurriculars."

Hanna looked at her dad blankly. What, like stealing?

"The burn clinic?" he prompted. "And your mom said you joined a support group?"

Hanna's mouth fell open. In a moment of weakness, she'd told her mom about going to V Club, sort of to say, See? I actually have morals. She couldn't believe her mom had told her dad. "I…" she stuttered. "It's nothing."

"It's not noting." Mr. Marin pointed his fork at her.

"Dad," Hanna hissed.

The others looked at her expectantly. Isabel's bulgy eyes widen. Kate had the tiniest whisper of a smirk on her face, but her eyes looked sympathetic. Hanna eyed the bread basket. Screw it, she thought, and shoved a whole roll into her mouth.

"It's an abstinence club, okay?" she blurted out, her mouth full of dough and poppy seeds. Then she stood up. "Thanks a lot, Dad."

"Hanna!" Her father pushed his chair back and stood up halfway, but Hanna kept walking. Why had she bought into his little I'd love a weekend with you story? It was just like the last time, when her father called Hanna a piggy. And to think what she'd risked to be here—she'd told those bitches she puked three times a day! That wasn't even true anymore!

She shoved through the bathroom door, slammed into a stall, and knelt down in front of the toilet. Her stomach gurgled, and she felt the urge to take care of it. Calm down, she told herself, staring dizzily at her reflection in the toilet's water. You can get through this.

Hanna stood up again, her jaw trembling, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. If only she could stay in this bathroom for the rest of the night. Let them have Hanna's special weekend without her. Her cell phone rang. Hanna pulled it out of her purse to silence it. Then her stomach dropped. She had an e-mail from a familiar garbled address.

Since you followed my orders so nicely yesterday, consider this a gift: Get to Foxy, now. Sean's there with another girl. —A

She was so startled, she nearly dropped the phone on the bathroom's marble floor.

She dialed Mona. They still weren't speaking—Hanna hadn't even told Mona she wasn't going to Foxy—and Mona didn't answer. Hanna hung up, so frustrated she threw her phone against the door. Who could Sean be with? Naomi? Some V Club bitch?

She burst noisily out of the stall, making an old lady washing her hands at the sink jump. When Hanna came around the corner for the door, she skidded to a halt. Kate was sitting on the chaise lounge, applying pale, salmon-colored lipstick. Her long, slender legs were crossed and she looked super-poised.

"Everything okay?" Kate raised her deep blue eyes to Hanna. "I came to check."

Hanna stiffened. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Kate twisted up her mouth. "No offense to your dad, but sometimes he can say the most inappropriate things. Like this one time I was going on this date with this guy. We were leaving the house, and your dad goes, 'Kate? I see you wrote OB o the grocery list. What is that? What aisle can I find it in?' I was mortified."

"God." Hanna felt a twinge of sympathy. That sounded like her dad, all right.

"Hey, it doesn't matter," Kate said gently. "He didn't mean anything."

Hanna shook her head. "It's not that." She glanced up at Kate. Oh, what the hell. Maybe they did have a pretty-girl bond. "It's…it's my ex. I got a text that he's at this benefit thing called Foxy with another girl."

Kate frowned. "When did you break up?"

"Eight days ago." Hanna sat down on the chaise. "I'm half tempted to go back there right now and kick his ass."

"Why don't you?"

Hanna slumped in the couch. "I wish, but…" She motioned toward the door leading back to the restaurant.

"Listen." Kate stood up and puckered for the mirror. "Why don't you blame that support group thing you're in? Say that one o the people in it called you and said she was feeling really 'weak,' and you're her buddy, so you have to talk her down."

Hanna raised an eyebrow. "You know an awful lot about support groups."

Kate shrugged. "I have a couple friends who've been through rehab."

Okaaay. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"I'll cover or you, if you want," Kate offered.

Hanna eyed her in the mirror. "Really?"

Kate looked back at her meaningfully. "Let's just say I owe you one."

Hanna flinched. Something told her Kate was talking about that time in Annapolis. It made her feel squirmy—that Kate remembered, and that she recognized that she'd been mean. At the same time, it gave her a certain satisfaction.

"Besides," Kate said, "your dad said we'd be seeing a lot more of each other. Might as well start it off right."

Hanna blinked. "He said he…he wants to see me more?"

"Well, you are his daughter."

Hanna played with the heart-shaped charm on her Tiffany necklace. It gave her a little thrill, hearing Kate say that. Maybe she'd overreacted at the dinner table.

"What—it'll take you two hours, tops?" Kate asked.

"Probably less than that." All she wanted to do was take SEPTA to Rosewood and curse the bitch out. She opened her hobo bag to see if she had train fare. Kate stood above her and pointed to something at the purse's bottom. "What's that?"

"This?" As soon as Hanna pulled it out, she wanted to stuff it back in. It was the Percocet she'd stolen from the burn clinic on Tuesday. She'd forgotten.

"Can I have one of those?" Kate whispered excitedly. Hanna looked at her cross-eyed. "Serious?"

Kate gave Hanna a naughty look. "I need something to help me get through this musical your dad's dragging us to."

Hanna handed over a packet. Kate pocketed the pills, then turned on her heel and strode confidently out of the bathroom. Hanna followed, her mouth open in awe.

That was the most surreal thing of the night. Maybe if she had to see Kate again, it wouldn't be a fate worse than death. It might even be…fun.