A Rocks glass in one hand and a bottle of scotch whiskey in another.
When she swirls the liquid in the glass and holds it a little higher to look above through the glass, is when she realises that the sun has set long ago, because she now sees darkness instead of the sunlight entering the glass and illuminating the dark liquid turning its mahogany colour auburn.
She has been sitting here alone, in the outdoor seating area of a cafe, a little outside Rosewood since this afternoon, drinking away a bottle of scotch. She chose to come here, because outside Rosewood she is a nobody (something she learned while she was on the run), and since she is a nobody, she can be anybody here. No one knows she is the dead girl who isn't dead anymore, so no one looks back at her twice.
She would have taken pains to dress up and disguise herself as herself as her alter ego Vivian, but she didn't. She didn't because it doesn't matter anymore, she had always found solace in being her alter ego self whenever she could not handle what life offered her or whenever pain became too much too handle, but this pain is something she now wants to endure because she brought it on herself, because she knows that there was an innocent soul which she had played with like a child playing with a yo-yo drawing in and spitting it out till it got deformed, got battered and bruised and now is just a shadow of what it used to be. It hurts to know, that this is what she has done to nobel soul, a good heart, a beautiful person, probably one of the best kind of person she ever met.
Life was never too easy for her, she never had a normal childhood that every kid deserves. A father who was never home, a mother with countless extra marital affairs and a stoner elder brother doesn't call for a normal household. Even though she had a family for the sake of it, but she never knew what it felt like to have someone who will have your back or be with you through thick and thin times, she always felt lonely at heart. So, to curb that she covered her lonely heart with an invisibility cloak so that no one can see it and masqueraded herself as a cold heartless bitch everyone knew her to be. Love, compassion, friendship, sympathy were the words which were missing from the dictionary she was handed out.
Then there was Emily, Sweet Emily with a good heart. She came into her life like a ray of sunshine and suddenly Alison realised that Emily was in fact her sun. She warmed her life with her love, she loved her when Ali didn't love herself. She saw through her mask and through her invisibility cloak and shook the walls Ali had so dextrously built around her heart that it felt like an earthquake and the wall tumbled down all at once. It would have been so easy for her to let Emily enter into her heart and to keep her there at this moment but this powerful force scared Ali to her core. She wasn't supposed to feel like this, not for her best friend who happened to be a girl.
'And so, the lion fell in love with the lamb, what a stupid lamb? What a sick, masochistic lion?'
She thought to herself and smiled sadly.
When a waiter tapped her on the shoulder and slid a bill to her table saying 'Sorry Ma'm, We are closing' this made her come back from her rumination. It was 10 at night and she knew these cafes never stayed open later than this. So, she kept a few hundred dollar bills on the table and stood up taking the bottle of scotch and rocks glass with her, she wavered a little while standing up but managed to stay on her two feet. She made way to a nearby grocery store and bought a pack of Davidoff lights, although she was never the kind of person who believed in smoking but tonight was one of those nights. When she reached to her car, she knew she wasn't in a state to drive it to Rosewood and reach there in single piece, so she just put it in drive and slowly, very carefully drove it to the point where there were no people around. She tilted the back rest of her seat and hooked her phone to the audio system of the car and put the songs on shuffle. She knew no one was going to miss her in Rosewood, so this seemed like as good as any other place to spend the night, her father was as always out of town for business and none of her friends wanted her around now, not even Emily. She sighed loudly.
She twisted the cap of scotch bottle and poured some of it into the glass, spilling some in her car, thanks to her already hazy mind. Then she lights one of the cigarettes and put it to her lips and inhales deeply letting the poisonous gas fill her lungs, drawing analogy in her mind of how she has poisoned Emily's life by ushering into it. She then puffs out smoke, hoping that these thoughts will leave with every puff she smoke out.
She tries to concentrate on the song that has been playing on the car audio system while taking a swig of her scotch, letting it burn her insides, the song is music piece from a french movie Amélie, named 'Comptine d'un autre été l'après-midi' (Rhyme of Another Summer Afternoon) by Yann Tiersen, and it seems like that tonight the world is going to make her feel as bad as it could. This music piece that used to make her smile, make her feel hopeful sounds anything but that right now, it makes her reminisce every single thing about Emily, her tanned skin, her dark hair, her chocolate brown caramel eyes (which have the warmth to melt icebergs of Antartica or so Alison believes), her strong arms which always felt like home to Ali (because Emily knows how to hug her right, the way which make her every single problem trickle away), her fragrance (which smells like mild vanilla and something that Ali can't put a finger on, but loves all the same), her soft lips.. The way Emily kissed Ali every time, like everything Ali was and had to offer was all Emily would ever want, like Ali was everything that mattered to her. Argh! and Ali misses that, That feeling of having Emily so close, that she could hear her heart. But, what Emily didn't know was that she was the only one Ali had ever allowed to be so close to her own heart.
Her head is clutter fuck of thoughts about Emily, which she can't escape even if she wants to. But, deep down she knows that she doesn't want to get over this feeling, because feeling like this means that she loved Emily with all her might, the way that she could and she still loves her. Emily is the only reason, she is in Rosewood and is willing to stay. Even if this love doesn't end well, she knows she will always love Emily no matter what and this pain that she is feeling right now is a testament to her love for Emily and she would't trade it for the world. Even if this pain leaves a scar, she would love it, would let this pain carve out Emily's name on her heart, because she know Emily is already permanently in her heart. She is missing Emily like crazy at the moment, hasn't seen her for days, hasn't been near her for a week and hasn't kissed her since 13 days and 20 hours (and it's stupid that she has kept a count), but Emily needs to be kissed every day, every hour, every minute and every second. The pain of missing Emily is suddenly almost tangible that its suffocating her and Ali knows that the only way it can be cured is by seeing the brunette and holding her in her arms and burying her head in the crook of brunette's neck and losing herself in her dark hair.
And so, Alison starts driving with purpose, the purpose to quench her addiction of Emily. Ali can't see correctly in her partly high state, she drives slowly but surely, and she is angry with herself for drinking so much because she wants to get to Emily as fast as possible. She covers the half an hour distance in an hour and reaches near brunette's house by midnight.
She parks her car on Emily's street and gets out of the car, she goes to the side of Emily's house and looks up to the window of her bedroom, and the sight quenches her insides like the feeling of first rain on heated desert. The brunette is sitting by her window seat looking up at the sky, the full moon shines on her face and if it's possible she looks even more stunning in the moonlight. Ali finally feels like she can breathe again, she can literally feel the knots in her stomach loosening up. She holds the trunk of the tree by which she is standing for support because she is feeling light headed now that she has seen the brunette. She feels safe again after so many days by just being here, a little closer to Emily. A lone, brave tear falls down from her eyes to her cheek, because her heart still breaks at the sight of Emily with a pensive look on her face, because this is what Ali would have had if she was brave enough and this is what she lost, She did not just lose her chance at loving someone or being loved but she also lost her only chance at happiness. So, she slumps down next to the tree, with her back supported by the trunk of the tree, and she just keeps gazing at the brunette, hoping that maybe Emily would save her in her dreams. She closes her eyes, and mentally pictures Emily holding her in her arms and slips into slumber with tear tracks still shining on her face.