Guys I don't even know what I was thinking. Enjoy.
Emily was sitting on her couch watching Netflix. It was Friday night and her friends Hanna, Aria, and Alison were all busy. Hanna was at home, probably holed up in her room, watching the newest episode of her favorite show Project Runway. Alison was out at the mall with some of her field hockey friends, probably shopping for prom dresses. Aria was out on a date with her boyfriend of 2 years, Ezra. It was their anniversary and Emily had spent hours helping Aria pick out the perfect outfit. The credits started rolling on the T.V. screen and the brunette clicked on her phone to look at the clock. She winced when the screen lit up and temporarily blinded her. She quickly turned down the brightness and looked at the time. 2:19 am. She sighed, figuring one more episode couldn't hurt, and quickly grabbed the remote to continue watching the next episode of Gossip Girl. She took a sip of her hot chocolate that was currently resting on the coffee table beside her. No sooner had she fluffed her pillow and readjusted her blanket there was a frantic knocking on her door. An immediate rush of panic went through her. Her mom was in Texas for another week visiting her father and none of her friends would be out at this hour. Slowly she rose up from the couch and went into the kitchen. She grabbed a knife from the drawer and went to the window. She peered through the frosted glass only to see a short, brunette silhouette standing on her doorstep. She knew immediately who the figure was and relaxed her muscles, setting the knife down on the table beside her. She opened the door to reveal Aria standing on her porch in the rain, shivering, with makeup running down her cheeks. Tears cascaded down the sides of her face as she sniveled violently and look up at Emily with pleading eyes. Emily grabbed her arm and pulled her into the house quickly, wrapping the shorter girl in a tight embrace.
"Aria what's wrong?" Emily asked in a worried tone.
"Ezra and I broke up. He's been cheating on me with Maggie." She said, bursting into fresh tears. The heaviness of her words lingered in the air as Emily pulled her closer and rubbed small circles on her best friend's lower back.
"Oh Ar I'm so sorry. You need to spend the night here, you can't be out driving like this. Come sit on the couch and I'll go call your mom okay?"
Aria sniffled and nodded as Emily led her over to the couch and wrapped her in a blanket. She pulled out her phone, which had fallen between two cushions in her panic, and dialed Aria's mom. After telling the woman what had happened and gotten her permission to let Aria stay the night, she went over to the couch and gave Aria a glass of water. They sat there in comfortable silence as they waited for Aria to stop sniffling, the hum of the T.V. playing softly in the background.
"Hey Em?" Aria asked, breaking the silence.
"Yeah shorty?" Emily answered, using the nickname that she knows makes Aria smile.
"Since I didn't actually get to eat any of my dinner with Ezra, is there any chance we can go out and get food?"
"Ar, it's almost 3 in the morning! Can't you just find something to eat in my pantry?" Emily laughed, nudging her best friend playfully on the shoulder.
Aria groaned and leaned her head on Emily, wrapping her arms around the brunette's neck. "Emmy I realllllllllllly want some McDonalds. Please? It'll make me feel better," she sing-songed.
"Fine, let me go grab my keys. You don't think there'll be anyone at McDonalds at 3am do you?"
"No why?" the shorter girl asked skeptically.
"Because I really don't want to change out of my pajamas," Emily laughed, referring to her grey t-shirt and blue plaid pajama pants."
"No Em I don't think anyone at McDonalds this time of night will care about whether or not you have pajamas on."
"Alright, come on shorty. We better get there before the line gets too long," the swimmer said sarcastically.
They drove through the pouring rain for about 10 minutes before they pulled into the deserted parking lot of a 24/7 McDonalds. They got out and ran for the door, desperately trying to avoid getting their clothes too wet. When they stepped inside they noticed that it looked oddly like a scene from a zombie movie. More specifically the part of the movie where the zombies have killed everyone and the last remaining refugees find themselves in a dimly lit building that looks like a ghost town. The low buzz of electricity from the dim, flickering overhead lights filled the room. The teenage guy working the counter jolted awake when he heard the bell that signals the opening of the door go off. He automatically reached behind him for the soda gun, fearing that someone was there to rob his restaurant. When he saw that it was only Emily and Aria he relaxed, shrugged, and dropped the soda gun.
"Hello, welcome to McDonalds, what can I get you?" he asked, clearly half asleep
"Um we'll take 2 cheeseburgers, a 20 piece chicken McNugget, and 2 orders of large fries please," Emily said smiling warmly.
"That'll be $21.27."
Aria fished around in her purse for her credit card but Emily put her hand on her friend's arm and took out a twenty and two one dollar bills. Once she handed over the cash and took her receipt the two girls went to find a seat. It wasn't that difficult, considering they were the only two crazy enough to be there at this hour, and they quickly got situated in a booth near the bathroom doors.
"Her Ar can you wait for the food? I really have to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah sure Em," Aria answered, her eyes beginning to droop.
"You're a lifesaver," Emily sighed in relief as she quickly shot up from the booth to go to the toilet.
She pushed open the heavy door to the public bathroom and cringed. The lighting in the room was even worse than it was out in the actual restaurant. The air around her smelled of cheap air freshener desperately trying to mask the aroma of a disgusting bathroom. Emily wrinkled her nose and darted into the nearest stall, trying to get out of there as soon as possible. She looked down and saw a mysterious green substance floating around in the toilet and immediately gagged. She backed up and went into the next stall, checking wearily for any colorful toilet surprises, and did her business. She came out of the stall, releasing the breath she'd been holding in attempt to drown out the smell, and went to the sink to wash her hands. She went over to the other side of the bathroom to dry her hands when she heard a loud bang behind her. She jumped and turned quickly, shocked at what she saw. She opened her mouth to scream but stopped short when two hands clad in black gloves quickly covered her mouth. She reached up in attempt to peel the hands away from her face and call for help, but the grip only tightened. She finally looked up from the hands on her lips and couldn't believe the scene in front of her. A figure dressed in black with long brown hair was hanging upside down from the air vent above. Emily flinched when the figure finally spoke.
"Please don't scream. I promise I won't hurt you. Promise me you won't scream?"
Emily nodded quickly, eager to have her mouth free so she could ask this girl what the hell she thought she was doing. The girl above her slowly moved her hands away from the swimmer's face. Emily jumped back so she could get a better look at the girl suspended from the air vent. She was lean and tall, from what Emily could tell, and her long brown tresses fell in waves around her as she hung upside down. She also had deep, chocolate brown eyes and an indentation right in the middle of her chin. She didn't look like a psychopathic murder or violent criminal. In fact, she looked about Emily's age and completely harmless.
"Hi," the girl whispered, giving Emily a crooked smile.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? You do realize that you're hanging from an air vent in a McDonald's bathroom at 3 in the morning?" Emily whisper-yelled.
"Yes I do realize that, but before you ask, no, I'm not a criminal nor do I intend to kill you."
"Good to know," Emily whispered back in a calmer tone than before, a smile threatening to grace her lips.
"I'm Spencer, by the way," she said, flashing Emily another perfectly imperfect half-smile.
"Emily," the swimmer said, finally breaking into a smile. "So if you're not criminal or a serial killer, what are you doing crawling around fast food air vents at this hour?"
"Well this is going to sound crazy, but I like the challenge."
"The challenge?" Emily answered skeptically.
"I like to attempt crazy things just to say I did it. Just to prove to myself that I can do anything I set my mind on. I love planning, so I make these elaborate plans that have absolutely no point or objective, and then try to carry them out. For example, I planned this out for weeks. I just wanted to crawl around the air vents of a building at night without anyone finding out. The plan I made up covers any and every possible outcome and, if something goes wrong, I push my brain to the limit by coming up with a solution to get myself out of virtually any situation," she said, finishing with a proud smile.
"Wow… that's equally crazy and genius," Emily said in awe, wishing she had the confidence to do what Spencer did.
"Yeah, I like to think so. I've come up with a plan to get myself out of anything that could happen tonight. What to do if the cops were called, if I got caught, if I got stuck in the vent, anything you could imagine. But you know what the one thing I didn't account for was?"
"What's that?"
"I didn't expect the most beautiful girl at Rosewood Day to stumble upon me hanging out on an air vent in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant," Spencer said, smiling wide and chuckling.
Emily blushed a deep shade of red at the girl in the air. "You go to Rosewood Day? How come I've never seen you around? What grade are you in?"
"I'm a junior too, I'm in your art class. I kinda just sit back and read. I don't really have many friends and I try to avoid most social stuff… one of the main reasons I like doing these things at night is because it's just me. Me and my thoughts. That's all I know. My parents are always out of town and my sister lives across the country. Lonely is just how I like it. But I've noticed you around… it's hard not to. You're the best swimmer at our school, you're unbelievably popular, and not to mention gorgeous. Every girl AND guy at school, gay or straight, is dying to get with you. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't one of them." Now it was Spencer's turn to blush as she couldn't believe she was openly revealing all of these personal details to a girl she just met.
"You think I'm pretty?" Emily asked, her shyness beginning to get the best of her as she ducked her head and tried to avoid eye contact with the girl above her.
"I think you're beautiful," Spencer said as she decided to be bold. She used her weight to swing back and softly lunge forward, enclosing Emily's lips in a "Spiderman" kiss. Emily kissed back, shocked at first, but quickly getting over it as she brought her hands up to the other brunette's cheeks in attempt to steady her gently swinging body.
When they broke apart, Emily opened her eyes, unsure of when she had actually closed them. Spencer opened her eyes and smiled at Emily one last time.
"Bye Emily," she whispered as she used her body weight to launch herself back up the air vent, carefully placing the vent cover back so that she wouldn't make any noise.
"Bye," she whispered back, sitting on the floor dumbfounded by what had just happened.
"Hey Em you okay? It's been like 10 minutes," Aria said, breaking Emily from her thoughts as she entered the bathroom.
"Yeah I was just on my way out," Emily said standing up and following Aria out of the bathroom, looking back over her shoulder one last time before closing the door to a McDonalds restroom at 3 in the morning.