I knew it was pointless. Allison and I... It would never work. It would never even happen so that it had a chance to work. For starters, she was blonde, beautiful, bitchy and very much heterosexual. She was funny, she attracted people to her, boys and girls, like a magnetic field around her. The five of us - Aria, Spencer, Hanna, Ali and I were like the 'it' girls you see on TV. We were the most popular clique in Rosewood High. We were all pretty, popular, with Ali leading us. The other three worshipped her, but I felt that what I felt for Ali was on another plane entirely. It was a different level of emotion. But how could I possibly say that to her? Allison had made it perfectly clear that she liked boys and only boys. But it didn't stop the addiction I had to her. I couldn't get enough of her.

And she knew it. She knew it very well. Some people might be nice about it; be sensitive. But not Ali. Never Ali. The word 'sensitive' didn't exactly apply to her. Like when I kissed her in the library - she just looked at me with those big eyes, slightly surprised, but not hostile. I also remember how soft her lips were - how perfect her body felt pressed up against mine. And I loved her even more for it - if that were possible. But also part of me numb with shock and shame that I was feeling these things - that I could even feel these things. And then she rejected me after that, tearing a piece of my heart off with it, every time. Always, when I saw her, it was like another kick in the stomach, another rock piled onto my ribcage, another hand squeezing my heart just that little bit tighter. Every time she gave me a secret smile. Every time she made a comment that the others didn't understand but killed me slowly inside. Like the comment about me loving the new Beyoncé video 'maybe a little too much, Em?'

Looking back, I could have told Aria, Spencer or Hanna about it - they would have understood. As it was, they found out more than a year later from the detective who was trying to solve Allison's murder case. The same detective that magically held the letter of confession I had sent to Ali days before her disappearance. That bloody letter. The letter that cost me so much to write and even more to send. That letter cost a lot more trouble than it was worth. My own words suddenly seemed alien to me as the detective held out the paper covered with my own round handwriting. I don't know if Ali even ever received the letter. If she did, I don't know what her reaction was - or what it could have been. I see now how obvious my infatuation would have been if anyone had just cared to look for it; the furious way I defended Ali against any accusation or slight insult, the looks, the blatant want in my eyes when I beheld her. Most of my defensiveness was taken out on Spencer, who always seemed to rub Allison up the wrong way.

I remember one day, a week before Allison's disappearance, I had the unfortunate experience of having a sex dream about one with whom one is close to. Mine, of course, was Allison DiLaurentis. I woke at about 3am, sweating, uncomfortably turned on. My hand crept downwards before I awoke suddenly and snatched it away, mortified with myself. The hot, prickly feeling of shame and discomfort washed over me. That day at school, I could not for the life of me get Ali and the dream out of my head. The others asked me if anything was wrong; I was quiet even for me. I said the standard automatic 'nothing' and they promptly forgot it - it was probably PMS. The word 'lesbian' probably never even entered their heads, apart from maybe Allison's. And when the others had moved on in their heads and headed to their lockers, she looked at me with those penetrative, knowing eyes of hers. She held my gaze for just a second longer than usual. And then she carried on. At that moment I knew two things, suddenly and certainly. First, I was madly in love with Allison DiLaurentis. Second, I had to tell her, properly. Before I lost my nerve. I hated her for rejecting me, but I loved her for her. If anyone ever asks you if it's possible to love and hate a person at the same time, the answer is yes, definitely. It's the most confusing thing to feel.

So I wrote the letter. The version I sent was the seventh version I wrote. And it wasn't even the longest. My first, last and only love letter to Allison. One that she probably never received. One full of love but also of anger, of hurt. When I heard of her disappearance, my first thought, other than that of shock and worry, was the letter. Had she received it? Did she know? Suddenly, my head was full of questions. And when, a year later, they found her body, I felt numb, shock - but also, terribly, relief. She could no longer haunt me, no longer hurt me. No longer look at me with those eyes. No longer know my terrible secret.

Ali had been the Queen Bee, our ringleader. She had been amazing, beautiful, haunting and totally and utterly unique. She made the five of us - she brought us together. She made us into who we are now. We needed her totally for ourselves, for our reputations. But, something that never entered our heads back then; she made us, but we also made her. She needed us just as badly. We were her posse, her loyal band of followers, her army; she was our leader.

The question is not what would have been without her, but, as Spencer pointed out, what she would have been without us. I mean, what good is being a leader, without the army?