When you first arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, the first thing you see is that old town sign that the town says that they're going to replace every summer but never do. It's blue paint is peeling and the once white letters look a bit yellow now. The lighthouse logo on top of the letters has the date that it was made carved into it, but even that is hard to make out. For a town that is so popular during the summer, you would think that the town would fix its sign to that people have a good first impression when they first enter the town.

Alison DiLaurentis isn't bothered by the old and worn sign, even though those sorts of things normal annoy her. Passing the sign each year when they entered Cape May was a ritual now, officially starting her summer. Each year her family would pack up their things in their Rosewood house and drive to New Jersey for the summer only returning a few days before the start of the school year. Alison always loved going to Cape May because her life in Rosewood would basically be on pause. When you're in Cape May, nothing there reminds you of Rosewood to a point where you almost forget that it exists. The only thing that reminds Alison of Rosewood is Noel Kahn, some Rosewood students that are irrelevant to Alison but she still recognizes them, and the days that her best friends visit her.

In Cape May, there was no worrying about keeping a database of everyone's secrets. The other people her age that also had beach houses in Cape May lived in different parts of the US, so knowing their secrets were a waste of time. It was a nice break from 'reality' almost, which is what summers should be like. There was plenty to do and her parents aren't breathing down her neck all the time since they were up to their own things. It was almost as if Alison had an unlimited amount of freedom, unlike in Rosewood.

This year was going to be different though. It was the summer before her senior year at Rosewood High School and this year, she could drive. This added more to her unlimited freedom to do as she pleased. Now she could get places in Cape May faster than before since she would have to get a ride from someone older or walk there. Both were a hassle because the people that did pick her up always wanted something in return, and walking hurt her feet after a while. Even though Cape May was a fairly small town, going to places in the surrounding towns was a bit of a trip. But at least now, her parents wouldn't think twice about her taking her car to Wildwood and go to Morey's Pier.

Another plus of this year was that her creep for a brother Jason, decided that he was only going to come for a few weeks and spend the remainder with his best friends Garrett and Ian. Things only seemed to be going up this summer, nothing was going to spoil this summer. Alison spent many of her last few days of her junior year, day-dreaming about the things that she was planning on doing in Cape May.

Finally, the day was now here and the long car trip from Rosewood to Cape May was making Alison grow more and more impatient with every second she spent in the car. The Kahn family had left the night before, Noel in fact left for Cape May right after school was let out for the summer. He, his parents, and his brother Eric, were already all unpacked out at their beach house in Cape May. Like his house in Rosewood, Noel's beach house in Cape May was probably one of the nicest houses in the town. Noel's life in Rosewood was now basically on pause as well, there wasn't any of his famous parties happening this summer (much to the Rosewood students displeasure) because this was Noel's first time staying for the full summer. Normally, he would come up from the end of June to the middle of July. This year though, his parents decided to stay for the whole summer (not that Alison was complaining.) When Noel used to leave Cape May in the middle of the summer, Alison was left with befriending the other teens there that didn't meet her standards; until her friends showed up at least.

An hour into their car trip, Noel had already sent Alison a picture of him out on his yacht which he took out occasionally during the day, usually bringing along Alison and a few other people. There they would go out and swim, drink, and hang out. During the summer, Alison and Noel would go a lot of places together (with about six or seven other people as well of course). They would surf, have beach bonfires at night, go to Morey's Pier, which had an amusement park, parasail, go to the zoo, go to drive up movies on the beach, and just about anything else. Although they were incredibly close, Alison and Noel never had feelings for each other, other than friendship...well at least Alison didn't. Sure, they made out a few times, but who doesn't make out with their guy friends every once in a while?

Alison was practically already out of the car before it stopped in the driveway of their beach house. She jumped out of the backseat and eagerly hurried to the back of the car to get her duffel bag and suitcase out of the trunk.

"Woah, slow down there. Bit eager?" her father asked, as Alison tried frantically to open the locked trunk door. Alison stepped aside as her father unlocked the trunk for her. Once the lid was open, Alison pulled her heavy suitcase out from the trunk and grabbed her duffel bag.

"Slow down Alison." her mother said.

Alison rolled her eyes, knowing she had no choice but to wait for her parents to get their stuff out of the trunk, her dad did have the keys to the house after all. As her dad tried to pull the rest of the suitcases out of the trunk, Alison stood on the light blue porch of the white beach house and waited impatiently. It seemed like they were taking their time and moving as slow as possible. Alison could hear the cawing of the gulls and the sounds of the waves coming from her backyard. Her backyard was a beach after all. The called out to her, beckoning her to go in the water and wearing down her patience even faster.

"Any day now." Alison called, as her dad closed the trunk of the car and began walking towards the front door.

When her dad finally reached the white front door of their house, Alison pushed passed him once the door opened. The front hallway was as they had left it the previous summer, with the pale yellow walls and pictures of various flowers. It was a good feeling to be back in the house. After taking in the front hallway, Alison climbed the stairs that were off to the right that lead to the bedrooms. She passed the doors in the hallway. Jason's room, her parents room, guest room, when finally she reached hers.

She pushed open the closed door and entered, shutting it quickly behind her. Her room was just as she had left it the previous year as well. Her unmade bed needed the sheets back on; but other than that everything looked just like it should. The pale purple walls with the white carpet, sometimes felt more like her room than her room back in Rosewood. The large window with the view of the beach allowed Alison to observe the beach goers. Alison had gotten quite good at spotting tourists, summer people, year-rounders, and all sorts of other people who fell in their own category.

She placed her suitcase on her bed and put her phone on the speakers so that she could play music as she unpacked. The music drowned out the noise of the beach coming from her window, and made unpacking her clothes into her drawers a fun activity as she danced along to the song. As she was hanging up her dresses in her closet, there was a firm knock on the door.

"I'm unpacking, dad." Alison called, thinking that it was either her mom or dad that was on the other side of the door.

Instead of a response, the door to her bedroom opened and in entered Noel. His white polo and navy blue shorts made Noel look like he belonged on a sailboat. In his hand he was holding a half eaten sandwich, and in the other he was holding a card.

"You brought it!" Alison said, dropping her dress on the floor and running towards Noel. She took the plastic card from his hand and looked at what was on it.

"A hello would've been nice." Noel said with a mouthful of ham sandwich. "That's good for the whole summer, don't get caught."

"I know what I'm doing Noel." Alison said as she examined the card with her picture on it. "Vivian Darkbloom?"

"You didn't text me back fast enough, so I had to make up a name." Noel said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a similar card with his face on it.

"Grant Parker? Where did you get that name?" Alison asked as she examined Noel's fake ID.

"I always wanted to be named Grant." Noel shrugged and sat down on Alison's bed. He finished his sandwich as Alison examined her fake ID for the summer. "I'm not surprised you're wearing that shirt."

Alison looked down at her favorite yellow top and rolled her eyes. "First of all, it's a top not a shirt. Second, you know this is my favorite top, I just had to wear it for the first day back."

"You've seriously had that since you were a freshman though." Noel said, rolling his eyes. "Hurry up and finish unpacking, a lot of people are going to meet up at The Shade in an hour. There's some new people who just got a beach house in Cape May this year."

The Shade was just the nickname for a tent like area on the beach since the tents lining the beach was the only place you could get shade. They were small and there was a lot of them lining the area where the beach first started. It had two blue cloth covered sides, leaving the other two sides open. You could look out onto the beach or parking lot behind you. "The Shade" was a specific blue tent that everyone in Cape May knew that the teenagers of Cape May hung out at. No one dared to go into that specific tent. When teens would come to the beach, they would drop their stuff at The Shade and go into the water, play volleyball, or sun tan. Sometimes people would hang out in The Shade when it would get too hot, but it basically acted as a home base for them. At the beginning of the summer, when all the important people would arrive (Alison and Noel), everyone would meet up at The Shade.

Usually, Alison didn't give a second thought to the teens who thought that Alison and Noel were their best friends. Alison and Noel always had a crowd wherever they went, but Alison almost missed them. She and Noel were the center of attention in Rosewood that was for sure, but in Cape May, they were the center of attention in a whole new way. Everyone in Rosewood knew that Alison and Noel were not to be messed with, that they knew things and that they could crush you (literally) if you looked at them the wrong way. In Cape May, people automatically respected them without trying. Maybe it was because they were persuasive, or hot, or that their parents were well off. Maybe it was all three. Maybe it was none. But everyone knew that Alison and Noel were basically royalty in both towns, not that Alison was complaining.

Alison began quickly putting away the rest of her clothes and rushed into her bathroom to slip on her bikini underneath her favorite yellow top and white shorts. She tried to do this quickly, but her new neon pink bathing suit was not letting her get it done quickly. When she finally emerged she found Noel sitting right where she left him, tapping away on his phone.

"You ready?" he asked, barely glancing up at her. "People are already starting to get there."

"Do you have your car?" Alison asked, as she checked herself in the mirror.

"Yeah. What do you think I'm poor?" Noel asked.

"Good one." Alison chuckled as they exited her bedroom.

"No! Leave that on!" Alison yelled and pressed the button to go back on the radio. She was yelling because with the top down on Noel's car, the wind and the loud music made it hard for you to even hear yourself think. Noel had pressed a button on the radio to switch to a different station, cutting off Last Friday Night by Katy Perry. After Alison quickly pushed the button for the radio to go back to her station, Noel shook his head.

"It's not even Friday!" he yelled to Alison.

"This is 2011 Noel! Of course they're going to play this song!" Alison yelled and laughed as she wind whipped her hair around. It felt good to be back in the passenger seat of Noel's convertible, rolling up to the beach entrance like the owned all of Cape May.

There was an older man waiting at the entrance in a blue "2011 Cape May Parks and Recreation" shirt, checking the beach passes of the cars trying to enter. When the family in front of them in their minivan finally drove forward, Noel pulled up and flashed the red beach tag to the man. He nodded and signaled with his hand that they could drive forward, allowing Noel to drive down the parking lot of the beach towards The Shade. As they got closer to The Shade, Alison could see some teenagers exiting their own cars or already underneath the tent.

All sunglassed eyes turned as they saw and heard Noel and Alison coming. They parked in the empty space right by The Shade which was most likely free because the other teens knew that Noel always parked there, it was "Noel's Spot." Noel cut the engine and hopped out of the car. Immediately, two guys approached him and did the bro shake. They were being pretty loud, but nothing was quiet when it came to Noel.

Alison walked around the car and hugged Christian, a guy she met in Cape May when she was fourteen. Christian was taller than Noel and had a mop top like her brother Jason used to have. Alison may have made out with him once, but she can't really remember if it was him or someone else. He was nice enough, but a real lady charmer and liked rubbing sunscreen on the girls' backs.

"Any new people?" Alison asked, as she glanced around at the teens watching her, but were too afraid to approach them.

"Yeah, two." Christian said, pointing at the blue tent behind them.

"Who are they?" Noel asked.

"A guy named Quinn from Newport, Rhode Island and a girl named Emily. You're not going to believe where she's from!" Christian said enthusiastically.

"Where?" Alison asked.

"Rosewood! Where you guys live! You must know her." Christian said.

Alison's eye furrowed, Emily was a common name, but she couldn't put a face to the name. She probably was another person from Rosewood who wasn't of importance, or else Alison would've remembered her.

"Yeah...I think I remember her." Noel said, nodding his head. "I met her briefly once...oh wait, she sat next to me in chemistry this year."

"Well she's in the tent. She's kind of shy, but outgoing at the same time. I don't know how to describe her, other than that she's hot!" Christian said.

"Well that I know." Noel said. "I never really talked to her other than doing our chemistry projects, but yeah she was pretty hot."

"Why don't you boys stop drooling over her and go talk to her?" Alison asked, rolling her eyes.

Before they could reply, she grabbed her bag from Noel's car and walked towards The Shade. She walked around it until she reached the opening and ducked down to enter. In the tent were a few people talking, bags were on the side of the tent in the sand. Alison straightened up and walked towards a side of the tent to place her bag down. She reached in and grabbed her towel for her bottle of sunscreen for a lucky guy to put on her back. She examined the people in the room, barely making them out because their faces were shaded.

As Alison was bent over her bag, she heard someone yell, "Look out!" and felt a foot shove her in the butt. Alison lost balance and fell forward, only to be caught by the person sitting down on a crate in front of her. Alison wasn't someone who got embarrassed, or was publicly embarrassed, but this was not the way to start the summer.

"Ow! What the fuck!" Alison said, rubbing her head, which smashed into the chin of the person whose lap, she was sprawled in awkwardly. She pushed off the person and climbed back up to a standing position, whirling around to release her wrath on the person who had pushed her. She saw a guy laughing, beer bottle in hand, but his cocky smile was beginning to fade as he saw Alison's face. Alison didn't recognize him, this must be Quinn.

"Are you Quinn?" she asked the blonde haired guy. He was doing well in the looks department, but that didn't excuse the fact that he had pushed her into the person in front of her.

"Yeah." Quinn said tentatively.

"Well Quinn, I hear you're new here so let me just give you the gist of how this whole thing works." Alison said, hearing the anger in her voice. "I don't care who you are, you don't touch me or fool around if it involves me, understand? I may not seem it, but I am not someone who is to be messed with, got it?"

Quinn gulped and nodded his head fervently. "Sorry, I didn't realize-"

"I'll cut you some slack since you're new here. But next time, you won't be so lucky." Alison spat. In one movement she turned around and took the red solo cup from the guy whose lap she fell into and threw its contents onto him. The red wine cooler looked oddly like blood as it ran down his face, hair, and body.

Smirking at her triumph, Alison left Quinn to his humility as the guys in the tent laughed at him. When Alison exited the tent again, she saw Noel, Christian, and a few other guys talking to someone who she couldn't see. They looked almost mesmerized as they talked, like lost puppies. Alison frowned as she approached them, the guys of Cape May only gave her that look.

"What's going on?" Alison asked Noel. Noel finally broke his gaze from whoever he was talking to and looked at Alison.

"Alison, meet Emily Fields, my former chemistry partner." Noel said, pushing a guy named Owen or Oliver away so that Alison could see.

When Alison saw just who this Emily girl was, she bit her tongue. She was hot, and this was coming from Alison. But why could Alison not put any sort of dirt to her name? She had to be an athlete, she had the body of one. Her Aviators covered her face, making Alison wonder if she took the glasses off Alison would recognize her. Her neon green bikini shined brightly against her already tan body her legs only covered by high rise shorts, making Alison bite her tongue harder in jealousy of the new girls sudden attention.

Emily, who was laughing at something Christian said, turned and looked at Alison. "Hey. I'm Emily." she said cheerfully.

"Alison." Alison replied, not sounding as friendly as Emily.

"Yeah I know who you are. Everyone in Rosewood knows who you are." Emily said casually.

Before Alison could respond, Christian was turning her attention back to him by cracking another joke. Alison stood there awkwardly as Emily told the group of boys surrounding her about how her parents decided to buy a beach house down here.

"-my dad is in the military-" Emily would begin.

"Does he get to shoot people?" a guy would then interrupt. Emily could barely finish a sentence before a guy would butt in and ask a stupid question.

Annoyed with how the boys were acting, Alison huffed and walked towards the water with her towel. She wasn't going to stick around just to watch all the guys stare at her like she was the first girl she ever met. Alison knows she shouldn't be so annoyed by the lack of attention she was getting, so she tried to ignore it by unfolding her towel and lying down.

She pushed her sunglasses further up her face as she saw someone's shadow coming towards her.

"Hey." Noel said, plopping down in the sand next to her.

"Hey." Alison said, looking ahead at the water.

"Upset with the lack of the attention you're getting on your first day?" Noel asked.

"No." Alison lied.

Noel laughed in response, "I know you're lying Ali."

"So what if I am? How did this girl go to our school and I never noticed her?" Alison asked angrily.

"Maybe that's because she didn't wear a bikini to school and look really hot. When she was my chemistry partner, she was wearing like different colored letterman jackets and skinny jeans. She was hot then, but...damn now it's like-"

"I get it Noel!" Alison interrupted.

"Sorry." Noel said. "Do you think I have a shot?"

"Go for it, I honestly don't care." Alison said, chucking the sunscreen bottle at him. "Just put some sunscreen on my back before you go back to eye fucking her."

"Hey, sorry about before." someone said behind her. Alison was bent over the cooler of beer in The Shade, pushing her hands through the ice water to find her favorite Sam Adam's Summer Ale. The good stuff was always at the bottom, so Alison was forced to push away the cans of Bud Light to get to the Sam Adam's. Once she grabbed the bottle and brought it to the surface, she reached towards the bottle opener and got the cap off.

Only then did she look at who was trying to talk to her, and of course it was Emily.

"It's fine." Alison said. "The guys really seem to like you."

"Yeah. I guess."

They stood there for a few seconds as Alison took a sip of her beer and watched Emily. She reached back into the cooler and pulled out another Sam Adam's.

"Do you want a beer?" Alison asked Emily. Holding it out to her. "They always put the crappy stuff at the top, only few know about the good stuff at the bottom."

Alison decided quickly that she was going to get Emily's secrets of how she had gotten all of those guys to drool over her like that. There had to be something that as making them do that, and Alison had to find out. Even if that meant "having a beer with her". Emily stared at the beer in Alison's hands for a few seconds, before taking it from her. Emily opened it and followed Alison as she guided her out of The Shade.

"My towel is over there, come sit with me." Alison said, leading Emily away from the love struck guys. Emily followed Alison and sat down on the other half of the towel that wasn't occupied by Alison.

Alison sipped her beer again and brought her knees to her chest. "So tell me, Emily, how come we are in the same grade and yet I've never met you." Alison began to question.

"Well...Noel didn't seem to care about me until he saw me. I tried to go under the radar in Rosewood." Emily said, taking a sip of her own beer. "Won't people see that we have alcohol?"

"Didn't you get a fake ID?" Alison almost laughed.

"No?"

"Well I'll have Noel hook you up then. Judging by the way he was staring at your tits, I think he would give it to you for free." Alison laughed, trying hard not to look at Emily's chest herself.

"I'll have to ask." Emily said simply.

"Which one do you like?" Alison asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Which guy. You know, which one are you going to plan on hooking up with this summer?" Alison asked, taking a long sip from her beer.

"Oh...well about that. I actually like girls." Emily said. Well there's the dirt on Emily. It still caught her off guard and the beer she as drinking went down wrong, making her cough and splutter.

"Are you ok?" Emily asked nervously as Alison coughed.

"Yeah." Alison said between coughs. "Hang on."

Once her coughs subsided, Alison took some deep breaths to regroup.

"So you like girls?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'm dating Paige McCullers."

Round two of coughs began as Alison once again spluttered and decided as she was coughing that she wasn't going to drink anymore beer until she knew Emily wouldn't say anything that would catch her off guard.

"Pigskin?" Alison asked, her voice now a bit raspy. Emily looked at her funny and Alison quickly said, "I mean Paige."

"Yeah. We're on the swim team together." Emily said, explaining how she had such an athletic body. "She's going to come up here next week for a few days."

"Oh. That's great." Not. Alison hated Pigskin, but she wasn't about to broadcast that to Emily.

"Yeah. What about you?"

"I like guys." Alison stated.

"Yeah I know that. I meant, which guy are you looking to hook up with?" Emily asked. For someone who liked girls, she seemed like she was good at talking about guys. Alison hadn't had much experience with talking to girls who were into girls, but she assumed that all they wanted to do was talk about...well girls.

Alison turned around and looked at the guys that were all admiring Noel's car. She picked a random guy from the crowed, tan with dark brown hair. He was cute enough, but Alison didn't really want to hook up with him.

"Him." Alison said, referring to the brown haired guy.

"He's cute." Emily remarked.

"I guess." Alison said, turning back around and picking back up her beer. "Are you going to come with us to Morey's Pier?"

"When's that?" Emily asked.

"Not sure yet. But we always go down in the evening at least once. It's fun going on the roller coasters."

"I really want to surf."

"You can surf?"

"Yeah. Can you?"

"Probably better than you can." Alison smirked.

"Oh really? Wanna bet?" Emily asked.

"You're on. Meet back here, 3:30PM. Get ready to get your ass kicked Emily."

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