As Spencer shut the front door of her house and walked down her driveway, she pulled the printed photo out of her back pocket. She met the sidewalk and stopped for a minute to inspect the little present from A, which she mysteriously discovered on her laptop when she woke up this morning. She inferred that the window in the picture belonged to Emily. Inside, she could make out two heads leaning into each other for a kiss. One head belonged to Emily and the other to a red-headed girl with bangs. Spencer knew of only one girl with such hideous hair. After all, this was Rosewood, the town of gorgeous hair.
"How can Emily be doing this to herself again?" Spencer began wondering, feeling a slight pang of rage mixed with jealousy. These conflicting emotions confused her greatly. All she knew is that she needed to talk to Em. She had to talk some sense into her.
With this resolve, Spencer turned and headed for Emily's house. She walked up the front steps and stopped at the railing to stuff the photo back into her pocket. As she looked down at her flannel shirt and paint-stained shorts, she wished she had worn something a little more girly for Emily's mom, who had begun looking at her funny ever since Emily came out.
Spencer rang the door bell and waited for an answer. To her surprise, Emily came to the door. "Oh hey Spence. My mom went to town for the day, so I'm just hanging out by myself. Wanna come up to my room?" Spencer sighed with relief, nodded, and gave Emily a little half smile.
Emily sat down and cleared her bed of the magazines that covered it. Spencer took a seat next to Emily and took a deep breath.
"Spencer, is something wrong?" Emily inquired. "A sent this to me," Spencer replied and shifted her body to take the photo out of her pocket. She handed it to Emily, whose jaw dropped and then closed as her lips pursed. Emily flung her beautiful, black hair over her shoulder as she turned to Spencer and began to explain, "You know, Paige isn't so bad, she's just-"
Spencer interrupted, "Emily! Paige has always been manipulative. She's just taking advantage of you like Alison did. The only difference is that Paige may actually have feelings for you."
"So then what's the problem? Paige likes me and I like her. We're happy together," Emily said defensively.
"What about when things don't go her way? Remember when you took her place on the swim team and she went crazy on you? The same thing will happen if you stop giving her what she wants and I won't just sit around to see that happen! I care about you too much," Spencer said as she rested her hand on Emily's arm.
Spencer looked into Emily's eyes but had to look away as tears began to form in the corners of her own.