"Stranger Than Your Sympathy" An Emily and Alison Love Story
Past the edge of the city, a small wedding chapel lies within the rural town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania . Presently, a beautiful young girl is staring at herself in the chapel's dressing room mirror. The girl's hair is long and curled, a stunning shade of black. A certain vibrancy, however, typical of a young bride, seems absent from her heart. The dressing room door creeks open. ''Emily, thirty minutes 'till the isle.'' Another girl, her hair a lighter brown, yells up to the first. Soon, Emily, the girl in the dressing room, falls to the floor, weary of everything.
The fact that devastates eighteen-year-old Emily most , is that she is not here to marry the one she really loves. Toby Cavanaugh, Emily's Fiancé, is not the person whom she'd always envisioned as her soul mate. No, her true soul mate, Emily has always known, is Alison Dilaurentis. Ali was the blonde-haired, sparkling blue-eyed beauty of Rosewood. At first, Emily and Alison had sworn that they were nothing more than best friends; Ali meant it, but Emily.. always felt something more. In the real world, however, Alison was a girl, and Emily's mom had always told her that loving another girl was disgraceful, evil, wrong.
Today is saddening, but Emily knows that today is not the saddest day of her young life. The saddest day came two years ago, on June 20, 2009. Emily lost the girl she loved that sullen summer day, after everyone proclaimed Ali murdered by her own brother, Jason. Though no one ever actually laid eyes on Alison's body, Mrs. Dilaurentis insisted her daughter was dead, and the family had a closed-casket funeral for Ali. Emily attended the funeral that year, bearing more sadness and pain than she'd felt in her entire life. It was, she now knows, the worst day she has, and will, ever endure.
Today, Emily would try to put all of that gruesome pain behind her. Today, Emily would do what her mom had always said was right; She would marry a young man, by the name of Toby. But as sadness overcame her, Emily missed Ali with an intensity like nothing before, she couldn't help but cry out. "Oh Ali, come back to me sweet girl, everything's all wrong." Emily said this out loud, but not loud enough for anyone to hear. Just then, Hanna, a person Emily truly thought of as only just a friend, walked into the room. Hanna spoke "Em, I know you're thinking of Ali, I know you wanted to marry her, but you have to stop this. You're killing yourself from the inside out, you have to push this sadness out." Hanna finished, hugging Emily as only a true friend could, and in that moment, it was like Ali's spirit lied within Hanna. "She's still alive, I just know it, Ali never left me!" Emily cried out in both sadness and great hope. Running out of the dressing room, and through the doors of the wedding chapel, Emily now has a newfound strength, and knows what she must do.
Emily soon arrives at the gravesite, Ali's gravesite, still in her wedding gown. Running to the gravestone of the girl she has never stopped loving, Emily finds a coffee straw poking through the dirt, a rush of adrenaline coursing through her body. With all of her strength, Emily began to dig in the dirt, splattering it all over her white wedding dress. Suddenly, coming unearthed, Ali's head and dirty-blonde hair appear out of the dirt. Oh my God, her hair! Emily thinks to herself. She can't hold in her emotions any longer. "Ali, princess, I love you, and I'm going to save you, You're not gonna die!" Quickly and frantically, Emily scours the ground until she reveals Ali's body. The body is not limp, discolored or decomposed in the slightest. Ali is Alive! Emily realizes this, and bending down to kiss her soul mate, a tear falls from Emily's cheek. The kiss seems to awaken a spirit of life in Ali, because she awakes and opens her stunning blue eyes.
"Emily, I love you, sweetie!" Ali proclaimed weakly, but in sheer delight. Emily's heart thumped with Joy! Here and now, the girl she loved, the girl who's been incased in earth for so long, was alive. Ali was alive and Loved Emily, just as much as Emily loved her. "Who did this to you, my love?" Emily finally asked her Alison. A single tear fell from Ali's face as she spoke. "Toby Cavanaugh…." She said. Emily's face went ghostly, she felt sick as she asked one more question. "Why?" Emily had to know the answer. Ali Spoke to the girl she had always, and would always love, with horror in her voice. "He always knew I was in love with you, and when I wouldn't have sex with him, I ran away." A tear fell again from Ali's eye. Ali continued. "He found me… Toby buried me alive that night…"
In Pure happiness and devastation at the same time, Emily kissed Ali's lips again, knowing that they would now live happily together in Rosewood, safely in each other's arms. Ali spoke once more. "Why are you wearing a dress?" Ali asked. "Because I Love you, Alison DiLaurentis." Emily said, mortified and overjoyed at the exact same time. And Emily's statement was true.