"Hey, Tricia! Tricia!" The voice behind her was becoming more and more insistent. Then, a firm hand landed on her shoulder. "Tricia? - Hi!"

Oh, right, she remembered. I'm Tricia.

She had gotten used to the name over the course of countless hours of orientation and thousands of repetitions of it at home with her parents. It was only in times of stress – anger, fear, or nervousness – that she forgot. And, today being her first day of a new school, she was experiencing a little bit of all three of those emotions.

She turned towards the girl with a shy smile. "Hi," the girl repeated confidently. "I'm Spencer."

"Hi, Spencer."

"Hey - that was pretty impressive, the way that you solved that equation."

Shit. She knew the rules. She was supposed to keep a low profile; not attract any attention. If she were branded as a brainiac, people might start probing into her background.

"Thanks." She dipped her head, trying to hide her nervous expression.

"So, I was thinking. You and I should study together sometime!"

"Yeah, um. That would be nice, Spencer."

"Great!"

She diverted to her locker hoping that the conversation was over, but Spencer followed her and stepped to the side to wait as she dialed up the combination. She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. She had the combination memorized, but she knew that she would slip up with someone so close, making her nervous.

"So, what's your sport?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's obvious that you're a jock." Spencer nudged her shoulder, smiling genially.

Uh oh. Her defenses went up. Spencer was being a little too friendly. She couldn't risk that.

"Oh, no." Spencer looked confused by this reply. "I mean, I try to keep in shape, but I don't have the coordination that it would take to play sports." Spencer nodded. "Besides," she found herself adding, "I don't really want to be in a locker room full of women. You never know who's watching." When Spencer's eyelids narrowed in disapproval, she realized that she'd gone too far. She quickly tried to correct herself. "Not... not that I'm homophobic, or anything..."

"Funny thing about people who say that." Spencer pulled her books up to her chest as she turned to walk away. "They usually are."

Paige let her head fall against her locker door. She had really blown it. Here, she had a chance to make a new friend at a new school – someone who had been kind enough to reach out to the new kid; someone whom she could have studied with – and she had offended her in the worst possible way.

She didn't even know why she had said what she said. She knew, without doubt, where the thought came from, because she had been that girl; - the girl whom her teammates worried about in the locker room. Ever since Alison DiLaurentis caught her and Shana Fring making out under the bleachers by the pool. They didn't even know that they had been discovered until Alison's snapchat of their make-out session started making the rounds.

When Paige found out that her family was being relocated, even though the circumstances sucked, part of her was excited. It was a chance for a fresh start, swimming with a team where no one would be suspicious of her in the locker room, and none of her teammates' parents would demand separate changing areas. That excitement only lasted until their caseworkers told them that Paige wouldn't be allowed to swim competitively anymore. They couldn't risk having someone see her picture in the paper if she made the national wire services. Paige was an excellent swimmer; there was little doubt that she would make the papers.

In what turned out to be a cruel twist, her family was relocated to Rosewood, home of Rosewood High, with a swim program that was one of Eastern Pennsylvania's perennial powerhouses. Paige begged her father to let her go to another school – one where she wouldn't be tortured by having to be around such great swimmers, constantly wondering whether or not she would have been able to keep up with them. Nick McCullers was insistent, though: Rosewood High had excellent academics, and Paige needed to stay on the honors track; all the more, now that they couldn't count on an athletic scholarship.

Nick and Claire were delighted to find a house with an in-ground pool, because they knew how much Paige loved the water. They were going out of their way to be considerate, because they knew how hard it was for Paige, having to pull up roots and to give up the sport that she loved. Paige genuinely appreciated the gesture, but it was a kind of torture to have a pool and be able to train, when she had no hope of actually competing.

Paige didn't blame her parents. It wasn't their fault, and there was nothing that they could do about it. That didn't make the situation suck any less.

Paige let out a huff of air. She was really dreading the thought of going home. She wasn't in the mood to face the questions about how school had gone and whether or not she had made any friends. So, when she passed a coffee shop on her walk home, she decided that she might as well stop in for a bit, to clear her mind. She texted her mother to let her know that she was okay and that she would be home in about an hour.

The scent of cappuccino instantly improved Paige's mood. She got a black coffee and found a seat at a booth near the back that seemed to be built for privacy. She pulled her tablet out of her book bag and punched in the WiFi code that was printed on the bottom of her receipt.

"You must be Tricia," a friendly voice said, pulling Paige out of her bubble. She looked up nervously to see the most beautiful creature whom she had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was a golden brown, her features were exotic, and Paige found herself wanting to let down the thick, black hair that was tied at the back of the beauty's head. Stop that! she told herself. Before she could form a word in reply, the beauty spoke again. "Hi - I'm Emily. Spencer told me that there was a new girl in all of her AP classes!"

"That would be I," Paige said, nervously looking anywhere but into Emily's eyes, "and I apologize for anything else that she may have told you."

Emily laughed, tossing her head back slightly as she did. "Why? What else might she have said?"

"Well, let's just say," Paige said with a sigh, "that I didn't make such a great first impression." Emily looked puzzled. "Is Spencer..." Paige paused, leaning a little towards the girl standing next to her and continuing in a whisper, "gay?" Back to her normal voice, she explained, "I made a comment that may have come off as homophobic."

"Ohhhhh!" Emily nodded her head in understanding. "Yeah, that's kind of a hot-button issue for Spencer. But, as far as her orientation," Emily squeezed Paige's shoulder, "you'll have to ask her for yourself."

Emily's smile was making Paige's brain melt. "Well," she said, her voice doing even more damage to Paige's ability to reason, "If you need anything, just give me a yell." She added, "Emily," as if Paige could ever forget that name. As she stepped away, she let her hand fall down to Paige's shoulder blade, where she rubbed a single, gentle circle.

Paige nodded her head to acknowledge what Emily said. Only when Emily was out of her field of view was Paige able to relax her shoulders and exhale. She spent the rest of her time stealing glances at Emily, ducking her head behind her tablet whenever it looked as if Emily was going to turn and look in her direction.

Emily stepped around the front counter to wipe it down, with her back turned towards Paige, and Paige couldn't take her eyes off of Emily's jeans; - the way that they wiggled back and forth while Emily scrubbed vigorously at what must've been a particularly stubborn stain.

"Her name's Emily," Paige heard from behind her. The voice startled her enough to send her tablet flying out of her hands. "And she doesn't bite," the girl continued, giggling at Paige's guilty reaction to having been caught.

Paige looked up to see a gorgeous blonde standing next to her with a devilish smile on her face.

"We've met," Paige stuttered. She tried desperately to get a grip on her tablet and her composure. Before she could defend herself for the way that she had been caught staring, Hanna was pulling the Louis Vuitton bag off of her shoulder and sitting down, bumping her butt against Paige's to get her to slide over. By all means, join me, Paige thought, amazed at how forward the girl was.

"So, I'm Hanna, and you're?"

"P…" Oops. Nerves. Paige caught herself in time. "Tricia," she blurted out.

"Patricia?"

"Just Tricia," Paige said. She was trying to sound casual, but it came out more as a question than a correction. "And I wasn't checking out your friend," she blurted out. "I was just trying to read the label on her jeans. I'm… looking for some jeans." Paige was cringing inside at her lame excuse for what she had obviously been doing.

"Oh. Right. Her... Jeans." Hanna shook her head and smiled in disbelief at the ridiculousness of Paige's cover story. She reached around in her bag and pulled out a wallet. "So, I'm going to go grab a muffin," she announced as she slid out of the booth. "Do you need anything?" Paige shook her head. "Save my seat!" Hanna called out in a sing-song voice as she trotted up to the counter.

Paige wondered how many beautiful women she was going to meet in Rosewood. It didn't surprise her that Spencer, Emily, and Hanna were friends. Back at her old high school, the beautiful women all hung out together. Paige, awkward and ungainly, even though she was an athlete, had never made the cut. She wondered how those girls would react if they could see her now, after her body had come into its own over the summer. Of course, if they ever did see her again, it would be big trouble.

Paige watched as Hanna came up behind Emily, who was now organizing the bins at the front counter, and hugged her from the side. Emily turned to her with a smile, waving her off as she went to pay for her muffin.

"You've got a secret admirer," Hanna said, with a sly grin, nodding her head toward Paige's table. When Paige saw that, she ducked her head behind her tablet.

"Who? Tricia?" Emily laughed, patting Hanna on the shoulder. "Nice try, Hanna, but I don't think so. Apparently, she made some kind of homophobic remark to Spencer."

"Who told you this?"

"Tricia!" Emily pointed to Paige before she realized that she was doing it.

"Well, she's either in the closet or in denial," Hanna said confidently, "because there was nothing homophobic about the way that chick was checking out your booty! She's definitely in a Southern state of mind... if you know what I mean!" Hanna gave Emily a playful smack below the Mason-Dixon Line to make her point. Emily let out a brief gasp in shock at the contact before she giggled blew Hanna a kiss, as if Hanna had been flirting with her.

When Hanna strode back to the booth and settled in, Paige, all the more sheepish because of the interaction that she had observed at the front counter, dipped her head and asked, "Is Emily your… girlfriend?" As if it's not bad enough that I got caught staring. I got caught staring by her girlfriend!

"Nope!" Hanna said without hesitation. "She's single. Are you?"

"I… uh… well, not that there's anything wrong with it…" Paige heard herself quoting Seinfeld and shook the thought out of her head. "I'm not into… you know. But I'm not a homophobe!"

"Right…" Hanna drew out the word, trying to make sense of Paige. She spoke slowly, trying to piece the puzzle together. "And that's why you said whatever you said to Spencer?" Paige put her head in her hands. She was doing a shitty job of keeping a low profile in her new town. "Hey," Hanna said with genuine concern, rubbing Paige's back. "Don't worry about it. You've just got the first-day jitters. I understand completely. And Spencer will, too. Whatever you said. She's just a little protective over Emily."

"Oh! So Spencer and Emily are…" Paige put two and two together. "Oh, God! Please don't tell her that I was… I mean, not that I actually was…"

"Checking Emily out, I know," Hanna droned sarcastically. "You weren't…" Hanna rolled her eyes at the lie. There was no misunderstanding the look that Paige was giving Emily's butt when Hanna walked in. "And, as I said: Emily's single. She and Spencer aren't together. Emily just had to put up with a lot of shit when she first came out, so Spencer got in the habit of sticking up for her. She's really a great ally – if you ever need one?" Hanna tilted her head and leaned in with a sympathetic look, giving Paige a chance to come clean about the obvious truth. Paige took her head out of her hands and pleaded with her eyes. Hanna threw her hands up, not wanting to push too hard and scare Paige off. "Got it! You're not gay!" It only took Hanna a nanosecond to shift gears. "So, I hear that you're some kind of genius. Do you hire yourself out to do homework for the less academically gifted?" Paige's eyes got as big as Hanna's muffin. "Oh, my gosh, Trish!" Hanna said, grabbing both of Paige's shoulders from behind and pulling her in from the side. "I'm kidding, of course! Damn - we've got to loosen you up, girl!"

Getting Paige to loosen up didn't take long. Hanna was easy to talk to. They covered the basics: Where Paige was from, why her family moved to Rosewood in the middle of high school; what her parents did for a living.

Paige was relaxed and well-rehearsed, so the answers came easily. She was from a small town in Nebraska. (That was the truth. Her caseworkers knew that it would be too difficult for the family to have to learn an entirely new city well enough to be able to answer questions from the curious.) Her father was a commodities broker (not an accountant), and the position in Philadelphia was too good to pass up, even if it meant that Paige would have to start over in a new school. Her mother was a middle school teacher, and she would be subbing until something permanent opened up.

"Oh - Aria's mom teaches at Rosewood High! You haven't met Aria yet. You two will have a lot to talk about."

Great, Paige thought. The clan is even bigger. And they've accepted me as one of their own. Paige didn't mind having new friends. She just wasn't used to rolling with that sort of crowd.

Hanna was equally forthcoming about her own family, and she filled Paige in on the rest of the girls, too. After a while, she gave Paige's arm a squeeze. "Well, I've got to jet. What's your Instagram?" Hanna made a few punches on her phone.

"Instagram..." Paige hung on the last syllable.

"Don't they have Instagram in the Midwest?"

Paige smacked Hanna on the arm. "Ha ha," she said dryly. "They do. I don't." Not anymore.

"Okay, well Snapchat? Twitter? Tumblr? Facebook? Pinterest?" Hanna scoffed as Paige kept shaking her head as she rattled off alternatives. "Uh... e-mail?"

"That I have."

"Oh. Okay. I was beginning to think that you just didn't want to be my friend!"

"No, no," Paige assured her. "My parents are just really strict. They check my phone. You know." As Paige started typing Hanna's e-mail address into her phone, she saw the time and noticed how late it was. "Yikes! My Mom's going to be freaking out!"

Hanna stood up, fishing for her keys. "Where do you live? - Do you need a ride?"

Paige reached for her book bag under the table as she explained that it was only a short walk to her house, just up the street.

"Oh!" Hanna exclaimed. "You're the ones who bought that house!" Before Paige could get up, Hanna was sitting down again. "So, you're a swimmer, right? Then you'll definitely be seeing a lot more of Emily! And I do mean a lot more!" she nudged Paige in the ribs and gave her a sly wink.

"What? Wait! Huh?" Paige panicked, her cover blown. "I... um, I'm not a swimmer. I mean, I swim, but I could never..."

"Oh. My bad. I just thought - you bought a house with a pool, and it's obvious that you're a jock, so..."

Paige smiled nervously. "I... I, uh, get that a lot."

"Well, Trish," Hanna said, squeezing Paige's arm, "you should definitely take up swimming. I'm sure that Emily would be only too glad to work with you - in and out of the pool."

"Hanna..." Paige whined, rocking her head back and forth.

"I know, I know," Hanna deadpanned. "You weren't checking her out." Hanna rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she was smiling. This Tricia was going to be a tough nut to crack, but Hanna knew that she would get to her eventually.

A/N - This story is based on a prompt from the insanely talented subway20 (thanks!). Do yourself a favor and check out her stories - in English & français!