A Chance At Happiness
Chapter 1
As she pushed open the heavy door into the crowded hallway she paused, taking in her surroundings she smiled to herself as she sighted three girls gathered round a locker. Taking a deep breath she continued her journey down the busy corridor, she ignored the shouts of the rowdy crowd as she arrived next to the trio of two brunettes and a blonde.
The skinnier of the brunettes was the first to notice her, stepping forward she engulfed the girl into her arms. The two other girls had stopped conversing long enough to notice the new addition to the group, smiles developed on their faces as they merged themselves into the hug. The four girls laughed to themselves as they shared a group hug in what felt like the first time in a really long time. The new addition to the group pulled back and looked at the three girls in front of her. The trio of girls looked back at her and thought of much but at the same time, how very little the girl in front of them had changed.
Emily Fields - a beautiful, tall, tanned brunette swimmer who had been away all summer. She had arrived back in Rosewood three days before the new school year had started. At the beginning of the summer she had flown to Haiti in the Dominican Republic to help with the relief aid of the earthquake that had occurred earlier that year. Her friends had been surprised when she announced her plans for the summer but the knew the only reason she was going away from Rosewood for the summer was because of a tragic event that had occurred in her life at the end of her junior year - the murder of Maya St. Germain.
Emily was very close to Maya, she was close to her in a way that she had never been with anyone else before. Maya was her first girlfriend but not her first love. Her first love was also snatched away from her a year before Maya. Alison DiLaurentis was the first girl that Emily had fallen for, and she fell hard. There was two problems with her feelings for Alison - 1) Alison was Emily's best friend and 2) Alison was very aware of the fact that Emily was in love with her, and she abused it. Alison teased and toyed with Emily about her feelings. She always lead Emily on, flirting with her non-stop and Emily believed that Alison returned those feelings but that was far from reality. Alison loved to be the center of attention and she would do anything to be the main attraction. Alison would flirt with Emily one day and ignore her the next. Every time Alison did this, Emily would still be at her beckoned call.
The day that Alison went missing nearly killed Emily. During the time that Alison was missing Emily was completely numb, she had to see posters of Alison stuck up all over Rosewood everyday. She felt as if someone had ripped her heart out of her chest when they found Alison's body. The same feeling emerged within Emily when they discovered Mayas body in her back yard. It was like deja-vu. Two girls she cared for and loved with all her heart, wiped from the face of the Earth.
Emily had disappeared to Haiti for the summer to get away from Rosewood to try and escape the memories of Maya and Alison that remained on every street of her home town. Emily had thought getting out of Rosewood would help her forget about their deaths, but it only made her feel worse. She missed the place she was trying to escape, she missed Rosewood. The only way she could forget about home, the only way she could find to numb her pain was to drown her sorrows in alcohol. Emily drank until she forgot about herself, at first she couldn't handle the alcohol but after a while she got used to it, she started drinking more and more, hoping that it would wipe away all of her bad memories.
Emily's return to Rosewood had made her realize that the memories were still there and they were not going to go away any time soon. The heartache came back as soon as her plane touched down. Emily had done everything she could do to distract herself from the painful memories around her. School had gone to the top of her distraction list, studying her subjects thoroughly, revising for her make-up tests from the previous year. She had been away from school for most of her spring term because of a stomach ulcer. She had to pass the make-up tests to be able to continue her senior year. The revision had helped to keep her mind off Maya but not fully. She knew that once she got back into a routine of going to school and seeing her friends it would help to keep her mind away from the painful subject.
As Emily walked though the school doors and spotted her friends she knew that they would be able to help her through this hard time in her life. Even though they hadn't stuck together after Alison's death, Emily knew they four of them would stick together and be stronger together than ever.