A/N: If you're new to this story, welcome! A little background: I previously was a writer on FanFiction about 8-11 years ago when I was only a mere high schooler. I am now 26 and am getting back into writing after going to college and all that jazz.

More Like Her is my first foray into a girlxgirl fanfic and is also my first PLL/Emison fic, so please feel free to leave commentary whether you are new or old!

If you are old to this story and you saw that I was going back to edit some of the early chapters, you just found the most significant edit! After looking at the voice of the rest of this story, I determined that the original first chapter ended up not fitting with the overall theme. It was a great starting point, but I think the tone ended up detracting from people reading further, so I'm hoping that this chapter speaks enough for itself.

Whether new or old, whether this is your first time reading this (or your 5th), please enjoy and thank you endlessly for your support.

When I look back on it all, I wonder if I deserved it. I wonder if all of my insecurities stacked one on top of another. The foul, hateful words I spoke to myself aloud and silently, unknowingly cemented the insecurities together, until I had built a wall too high and cumbersome for her to cross.

'There's no point in trying. You're just a prop.'

'She'll move on as soon as she as she finds someone better.'

'If you can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror, how could she ever want to touch you?'

'What purpose do you even serve? You're a waste.'

And it repeated daily. Maybe it was because of my upbringing. Maybe it was because of the shitty people I previously called friends. Maybe it was because I had never even attempted to be with a woman before. Maybe it was because I wasn't even confident in my identity as a bisexual woman. Or maybe I deserved it.

Two Years Ago…

Welp. Today was the day. Emily and I were finally meeting to discuss that genuinely awkward interaction from the week prior. I didn't even know how it happened and yet, here I was having to explain my actions. I mean, Emily was… perfect. She had a way of being that I envied and adored. She captured attention with merely her smile. She captivated entire rooms with one look in her chocolate brown eyes. But that didn't mean anything to me, did it?

Walking into the Brew made the answer to my question loud and clear. It absolutely did mean something. There at a 2-person table top Emily looked up and smiled, and there was potential in that moment for me to collapse instantaneously. Her maroon v-neck baggy t-shirt paired perfectly with her white denim shorts that left nothing to the imagination when it came to her long, athletically-toned legs. I attempted to smile back without my anxiety getting the better of me, and she walked toward me, coffee in hand, to adjust for the complete lack of movement that had occurred in my legs since I entered the coffee shop minutes prior. Full minutes.

"Hey, Ali…" her voice tapered off, indicating that she might be as nervous as I was, "I saved us a seat and got you a Vanilla Latte. I mean, unless you want to walk, or maybe just uh, have our conversation somewhere else."

"Emily, the table's fine. Thank you." I lightly interrupted and smiled sincerely back to hopefully put ease into the conversation we were about to have.

Sitting in the chair with my back to the door, I immediately questioned what I should do with my hands. Do they go in your lap? Or is that too formal and stuck-up? Do they both go on the table? Or does that indicate more nervousness than I want to exude? Do they stay to my side, or go across my chest? No, both signs of too many emotions. Ali, snap out of it. It's just hand placement! Put your hands somewhere! Damn.

I settled on having one hand on my latte and one in my lap before beginning the conversation. "Thanks for meeting me here today. I just wanted to clear the air between us because it seems ridiculous to let a silly misunderstanding get in the way of our friendship."

Emily scoffed, before gradually increasing the severity of her tone through her next comments, "Misunderstanding? That's what we're calling it now? A misunderstanding? And here I thought you set up this meeting to explain your side of my apparent miscues."

"Well, Emily, you know how much I love you." I said, my voice catching at the phrasing of my words, "uh, as a friend. But… and I don't know where this got twisted, but I'm not gay."

As much as I expected her reaction to be anger, her actual response was more unexpected, uncharacteristic laughter, "Really? So, over the past few months what do you consider reaching over to hold my hand during a movie? How do you explain 'Good Morning' texts? What do you call kissing my cheek every time we say 'Goodbye'? What do you think pushing back my hair behind my ear indicated, Alison? Because it sure as hell didn't indicate to me that you were as straight as they come!"

I coughed to give myself time to process. Yes, Emily and I had been friends since 7th grade. We had been through two years of an impeccable friendship where she had been nothing but there for me throughout every up and down. But nothing about our friendship could have prepared me for her reaction. Anyone who knew Emily knew that she hated raising her voice. Being raised in a military household made her pretty adverse to harsh tones of any kind. In this moment, she spoke to me in a harshness that devastated my understanding of the entire situation. It was just an accidental kiss, right?

"I think you just misread some signs. With your dad gone and you and your mom not communicating, I think I was just trying to take care of you?"

"Okay, Alison. I'm gonna play along. How about we go back to last Tuesday? I'll tell the story from memory, and you stop me when I misread the situation."

I didn't like this idea because I hadn't reconsidered what had even happened, but I lightly nodded my head, and she began.

"It was Tuesday, and just like any other Tuesday, you came over for dinner at my house. Me, you, and my mom. And dinner was always perfect together. We laughed. We went over our days. My mom and I had our once a week catch-up session because without you there, we tend to be two separate people living in one house. Am I getting this all right so far, Alison? Stop me any time."

"No. It's good. Keep going." I said, defeated.

"Throughout the night, and remember Ali, this is only one Tuesday night dinner… First, you came up behind me and reached around me for the salt and pepper while pressing yourself directly against my back. You reached over at the table to hold my hand lightly while I was retelling my mom about the sucky group project I presented on the day before. You cleared my plate for me and bent down low enough so I that could clearly see your cleavage through your low-cut blouse. You scratched my back when you returned to the table…"

As she continued, my eyes started moving from hers down to the table, and then to the floor so that I didn't have to face what she was telling me. But I couldn't stop her because there was no inaccuracy in her words.

"So then, it was Tuesday, right? So, we went upstairs to my bedroom to do homework. As always, I sat on my bed, and you sat to my left on the carpet floor below me. We started working silently for about 5 or 10 minutes before I broke the silence by telling you how much it meant to me for you to always come over on Tuesday to break the tension between my mom and me. I told you about how I felt like every week after you came over, the more she tended to accept me being gay. I turned to face you sitting a few feet below me because my eyes had been staring at my comforter, and when I turned, you saw tears in my eyes. I continued pouring out my soul to you. About my dad's deployment. About how my mom emotionally shuts down when he's away so that she doesn't have to feel. How every time the doorbell rings, and it's not 5 pm on a Tuesday when she knows you're coming that she refuses to answer the door in case it is servicemen telling her that my dad is never coming home. And I continued crying, Ali. I was vulnerable and real and begging for comfort. You saw that, and from your seated position, you sat up on your knees and reached out to wipe my tears away with your thumb. You pressed gently against my left cheek and in one action, shifted my focus entirely. You hooked that same thumb on a strand of hair that had fallen and tucked it behind my ear, before using your thumb again to trace down my jawline to my chin and raise my face, so my eyes met yours."

I wish I could tell myself that didn't happen. It did. She needed comfort. She needed a friend. I opened my mouth, attempting to speak, but she continued right on past my pointless effort.

"Sue me that I leaned in and kissed you! How dare I 'misunderstand' your harmless gestures and kiss you! What a jump I made into thinking that you could potentially have feelings for me! And you know what, Alison," she said, standing up from her chair, "that kiss may have lasted less than five seconds, but if you really look back in your heart of hearts, you know you kissed me back! So, take your time. I'm not going to sort through this misunderstanding with you. I'm not going to listen to you explain how I misread every, single sign from the past year and a half, and I certainly am not going to apologize to you when half the actions were your own." She exhaled and began moving towards the door.

"Em, wait!" I asserted, reaching back and latching onto her forearm.

Yanking her arm away, she ended conversation hastily, "No, Alison. Text me again to have this conversation when you're ready to admit that you're just as invested in me as you know I've been since 7th grade. Until then, don't even try to reach out."

With that, she was gone, and I was stuck at a 2-person table in the middle of Rosewood, Pennsylvania trying to figure out what my next step should be now that I was utterly alone.

"BRRRING!" the school bell sounded as I jolted out of my daydream. I shook my head before looking around the room, and before I even knew it, someone was walking straight toward me.

She leaned over slightly so that she could whisper without the risk of anyone hearing, "Hey Alison, next time you decide to daydream, could you not do it while staring directly at me? You staring for over 10 minutes at me in the middle of class may start rumors of us dating again, which Paige definitely wouldn't like. Take the daydreams of your new crush elsewhere. Please."

"Yeah, sure. Of course. Sorry." I replied, but Emily was already walking away from the conversation without any clue that I was just reliving the start of our entire relationship again. The beginning of the best eight months of my life, and also, the beginning of the end.

I deserved it. Just like I deserved her anger that first time we tried to talk. Like always, I put a wall up. I surrounded myself with fake ideas of intention and desire so that I could remain comfortable. If no one could get in, then I would remain safe. I could act bitter to the outside world without any fear of them seeing the brokenness inside. But for eight months, there was a time that Emily broke through. She covered my bitterness in understanding and sheltered my brokenness from further hurt.

And when she left, I rebuilt my wall. I assured myself that every prior notion of insecurity was accurate. I spoke more harshly to myself than I ever had before, and I blocked out the world from ever getting in again.

The problem is that when you build a wall shrouded in pain and dripping with insecurity, not only do you prevent the world from getting in. Ultimately, you've just ensured that you can never even dream of getting out.

A/N: There ya go! So my plan for this is to tell two stories simultaneously. The story of how Alison and Emily originally got together and how it led to their demise, while also telling the story of Alison attempting to get her shit together in the present because of course, Emison is endgame.

So, let me know! Did the Ali POV throw you off? Do you hate how I wrote their voices? Did a paragraph stick out to you? Let me know! I love any and all feedback!