The leaky faucet lets water drip down to an overflowing dirty cup in the sink. Everybody else in the living room is asleep, making her feel as if she's the only person in the world that can hear the constant plopping sound the heavy drops make as they drip down, causing water to spill over the cup and down the drain in the sink that her dad never managed to repair after her nana died. Years of endless trips after that winter made her dread nights in the cabin because she could hear the faucet leak through the walls of the bedroom she shared with her sister. She didn't know how her family could just tune it out, how the girls could sleep through it, when it was so deafening. She stood up and instantly shivered. It wasn't cold, it was just the opposite, the cabin was sweltering. This was the reason why they were all sleeping in the living room with the windows open. It was the first night in years that her small group of friends felt safe enough to let their guard down, safe enough to sleep without all the doors barred, the windows locked and the alarms ready to go off in case of any strange noises outside of their rooms. It was the first night they in a long time that they felt they could breathe without A's shadow looming over them, watching their every move, learning their every secret just so it could use it as leverage to turn them into A's puppets. To turn them against each other just to save themselves.

It's funny how she never thought she had much to hide before A came into the picture. Then every little thing she did became tinged with lies. It had started innocent, at first. Little innocuous things that would have gone unnoticed, but it just kept escalating until moments that were meant to be private could potentially be exposed and everything after that just felt out of control. Their lives stopped being their own. They were at the mercy of an anonymous force that was relentless. A kept taking more and more from them until they were left with nothing. Their parents questioned them, their friends began second guessing them and slowly the circle of people that still believed them began dwindling down until one by one the whole town fell away behind an imaginary line that separated the unbelievers from the liars. It was funny how the line disappeared once the whole A team was rounded up. How the citizens of Rosewood showed up to the arrest not just to witness the downfall of their tormentors but to make sure that they remained silenced forever. It turns out that the dirty looks and dirty remarks they received were born out of fear, not ignorance or denial. It seemed that A had its finger on the trigger of a gun that could point to everyone in town, one way or another. And people, powerful people, wanted to make sure that the dirt they were covered in would never be traced to their backyards. That their sins would remain buried, unlike Alison's body.

It had been too much for her. That night she had to stand in front of the flashing lights as she looked on as Toby struggled against his captors. The black hoodie did a poor job of concealing his identity from her. She knew every inch of his body. Had memorized the stories upon his skin, the tattoos and the scars he hid from everyone else but her. She doesn't remember anything else besides her friends holding on to her, the grief overtook her and she lost a week. Or maybe it was a month. She doesn't really remember anything other than the fact that she had been so far removed from the truth that it physically hurt her. It ached to realize that she had never really seen Toby. She had looked at him countless times, could sculpt him out of clay if she had the talent for such things, but she had never really seen him until that night. He was like a wild and feral animal being dragged away to be held captive in the depths of a Rosewood jail cell but he was much more than that and it scared her, being so blind until the night she was forced to really open her eyes and see everything in front of her.

One of the girls moves in her sleep and she shakes her head, trying to crash back down into reality from where she was because she's been doing that a lot lately, getting lost in her head. She takes a deep breath and takes a mental inventory of her friends, a habit none of them have been able to break, even when people around reassure them that they're safe. Hanna is on the longest couch, her limbs are sprawled out in every direction and her hair is sticking to her face. Even in sleep her lips are pouting, as if she were begging her mother for money to buy a new purse. Aria is curled up on the love seat in the most uncomfortable looking position; she's so tiny that she barely takes up half the couch, leaving space for someone else to sit down next to her. And on the floor, Emily is half-lying on top of Paige. Even in this heat, she's clinging onto Paige so tightly that Paige's wife beater rides up to reveal sweat pooling on top of her skin. But she's not pushing Emily away because she understands, even in sleep, that Emily is still afraid that she could disappear. She can taste bile in the back of her throat, jealousy rising because she had that once. Her face contorts into an angry scowl and the water continues dripping down in the background. This is all too much. She takes a shallow breath, followed by another and then the urge to run away kicks in, so she slips outside to get some fresh air. She needs to clear her head.

Even with the stars out, it's hard to see much in the darkness, she has to navigate through touch and memory. She makes it to the front of the lake house and tries to take in as much air as her lungs can bear before they feel like they will collapse from the effort. She wonders how long she has had this suffocating feeling stuck to the back of her throat, stopping her from truly breathing. Maybe it was way before sophomore year, when A first came into their lives because A can't always be the root of all evil when she has been so unhappy for what feel like most of her life. But lately this feeling is compounded by the knowledge that her life wasn't everything that she had hoped for. She foolishly thought that if she dug deep enough, if she sought the answers until all doubts were cleared from her mind that everything would return to normal. For some reason she stupidly held onto the belief that the truth held mystical powers. Even while everything started slipping from her grasp, the idea that the truth would tip the scales back to the start kept her fighting. It helped her push back when she felt that she had nothing left to give. And now she was empty. All the anger that helped her along the way, the fierce determination, the joy she felt by having her friendship with the girls intact, it had slowly been chipped away and now she was just tired.

Her sleeve greedily soaks up the tears that streaked her cheeks. She wipes away at her face and stares out into the lake. The stars are glimmering on top of the water, like diamonds lost at sea, waiting for her to touch them and she feels a flicker of happiness. She smiles through her tears because regardless of where she is in her life, the lake always makes her feel closer to that innocent little girl that couldn't wait for the weekends to come because it meant she got to visit her nana here. At first it was just her summer home. However, after her grandpa died of an aneurism she refused to go back into town. She said that Rosewood was too full of ghosts and she would rather spend the rest of her days in a place that made her happy than one that kept her trapped in the past. As a little girl she didn't understand what that meant, but today it made perfect sense, that feeling of wanting to leave all those ghosts behind, before they shackled her permanently to a town that would take everything from her. The way it already had. The moon peeked from beneath the clouds, lighting up the woods that once held monsters made of flesh and bone and she stood up, she was ready to go back home.

At first she only dips her toes, testing the water, after feeling how cool it was against her warm skin, she decided to press on with a tentative step, followed by another. Careful not to slip on the moss covered stones. As the water reaches above her ankles she remembers days of summer long gone, when the only way to drag her out of that lake was when her body was too exhausted to keep on swimming. The days blended into nights and still she would be outside, swimming alone, floating on her back and staring up into the sky. She smiles softly to herself as she remembers the hours she spent looking for the perfect skipping stone. She crouches down and feels the smoothness of the stones beneath her; she grabs one and inspects it under the moonlight before she puts it in her pocket. She keeps filling her pocket with stones, realizing that there are too many perfect specimens for her collection. For her to throw over the water so they can glide unobstructed until they drop under the ripples. As she keeps wading in and searching for just the right stones, a chill runs up her spine and she pauses, suddenly aware of how exposed she is. It makes her hesitate for a moment. Long enough for her to have to remind herself that there should be nothing to fear, not anymore, there is nothing left. There is no one out here watching her. She will be fine. So she pushes that uneasy feeling deep down inside of herself as she lets her body go forward, deeper and deeper until her clothes are soaked through and her feet are barely touching the bottom. She keeps reminding herself that it was going to be okay, that it didn't matter how wet her clothes got or how heavy her arms felt, that she was fine, so she pushed on further still. And then she drowned.

The thing about drowning that the movies didn't show her is that it's a whole lot more peaceful than it should be. She didn't splash around dramatically as she screamed for help until someone saved her. Drowning is silent. It's so quiet that even the crickets didn't pause their incessant chirping to listen to her be swallowed up by the water. Her friends didn't rush out of the cabin because they only heard the night outside their windows. Nothing was amiss, even from 10 feet away. If they had gotten up for a glass of water and looked outside the kitchen window, they would have seen her die but not heard her cry out for help. They would have thought she was fine because drowning never looks like death. It looks like a baptism, like she was being reborn as her head bobbed up and down the water. Her mouth was barely above the surface, taking big gulps of air until it's mostly just water, until it fills her up and she peacefully goes under. She doesn't fight the grip of death upon her soul; she welcomes it, like an old friend. And instead of understanding that she's dying, she feels as if she's about to take an afternoon nap on top of the weather-beaten raft that would occasionally fill her fingertips with splintered wood. She welcomes the calm after being so utterly exhausted because she had been fighting for her life for so long.

It was Paige, who noticed something was wrong. The heat was suffocating her, making it harder and harder to breathe until she woke up. She looked over the sleeping form of her girlfriend and smiled. Even if it was hot she would rather pass out from dehydration than miss an opportunity to feel Emily's skin against her own. She wiggled out from beneath Emily's death grip, careful not to wake her girlfriend up and got up to use the bathroom. She peeked over the open front door and was about to ask whomever was awake if it was okay to close it as a precaution against animals wandering inside when she noticed that Spencer wasn't sleeping. The hair on the base of her neck stood on end because it was uncharacteristically quiet and Spencer had a way of always taking up a lot of space, even when she wasn't doing anything other than reading. Something big was happening and she ran out the front door. She didn't even think of putting on her shoes or waking up the other girls, her feet simply carried her over dirt and sticks as she impulsively ran towards the dock. That was when she saw how Spencer's glassy stare took in the moon one last time before she went under. In an act of desperation she threw herself into the water without actually clearing the dock, scratching her pale skin against the rough surface as she fell into the water but she didn't care, she swam forward even as she felt the deep cuts bleed into the blue. She easily sliced through the water, even with her pajamas weighing her down, until she managed to reach Spencer's body. It was limp, like a noodle and heavy, like a sack of flour, but the water helped her carry Spencer's lifeless body closer to shore. She was too scared to shout out for help. So she clutched her body and dragged her further away from the water. Spencer doesn't remember being saved. She doesn't remember breathing again. She only remembers the panic before death washed over her like clear blue water that tasted like childhood memories and burned her lungs.

Spencer thinks that a part of her is still drowning on that sweltering night. A part that Paige couldn't save.

Paige breathed life into her mouth, asking her to come back. Spencer threw water up just as the situation caught up with Paige and she pissed all over herself, both relieved and afraid. Spencer didn't mirror her relief, she felt surprisingly calm and disappointed. She wondered how many more times Paige would show up just in the nick of time before her luck ran out because miracles aren't like lightning, they don't strike the same place twice, but they seemed to be attracted to her body as if it were made out of metal. Spencer stared up at the sky as clouds covered the moon up again wondering if Paige made a mistake by continually saving a girl that couldn't even stand to look at her without feeling revolted by everything she represented. Had it been the other way around, Paige would have surely been added to the list of girls that Emily's love managed to ensnare until it drained the life right out of them because she doesn't know if she would have jumped into the water without thinking of the consequences. She closed her eyes and breathed in. She didn't believe in god but it felt appropriate to pray to something to rectify their mistake, to fill her up with water once again so she can feel something besides this aching emptiness that was too heavy for her body. But nothing happened. And she let her body relax because she didn't expect any less but she still had to exhaust all her options.

Spencer let her head drop to the side and opened her eyes once again. She frowned because Paige was hugging herself and her shoulders were shaking as if she were cold but she couldn't understand why because even with her clothes clinging to her frame, heavy with water, she still felt warm. When she heard Paige sniffle she understood and painfully closed her eyes. She didn't want that image imprinted upon her mind. The one of a crying Paige because all her life she had known Paige to be strong, to be the girl that could take five stitches without anesthesia after catching a field hockey stick hit her right between the eyes and not shed a single tear. She looked more pissed off at being forced to sit the rest of the game out because her wound kept reopening rather than sorry for herself. After that day they named a penalty after her because she had gone back into the field specifically to repay the favor to the girl in the opposing team. They had to retire number 23 because all the blood never did manage to wash out of that shirt. Spencer wanted to choose any other memory of Paige but this one, except her life wasn't a movie and she couldn't erase the painful bits as easily as she would have liked.

She sat up and instantly winced in pain because her ribs ached with every new breath she took. Paige's shoulders tensed as she waited for Spencer to speak up but the other girl didn't say a word so she rested her chin on top of her knees and stared into the water, even if she couldn't see anything in the night, she looked forward anyway. She didn't want Spencer to see her cry, ever since she was little and her dad had acted disgusted by her crying she learned to be weak only when she was truly alone except she couldn't help herself in this moment. It was so overwhelming, seeing Spencer Hastings nearly drown and then not bat an eyelash over it. "What were you thinking?" Paige's voice is so raw that it hurts Spencer's ears just listening to it. "I don't know." She answers honestly for once. The truth doesn't make her feel free, it confuses her because she honestly doesn't remember what she was thinking, she was just pushing forward, like she always did when she doubted herself. Paige's wrists come up to her eyes and cheeks and wipe away the tears that won't stop coming. "Were you trying to kill yourself?" Spencer shrugs because she honestly doesn't think she was but now she's not so sure because with her pockets full of stones and her tired bones it seems like it was the only thing she could have been doing out here by herself. "No. I don't think so." Paige laughs low and close to her chest but it's without humor. "Then what the fuck were you doing out here besides playing at being Virginia Woolf?" She says, anger failing to tint her voice. Instead it sounds as exhausted as Spencer feels. "I don't know." She shrugs, trying to recall the events that led up to this moment. "I remember that I couldn't sleep. I guess I must have come outside to cool down but I really don't remember when or how… I… I just remember that the water called out to me and all of a sudden I couldn't keep my eyes open and then you breathed for me…" She closes her eyes and frowns, leaning forward until her forehead is resting against Paige's back. "I didn't want it to be so dark anymore." Is all she remembers saying before falling asleep again.


Author's Note: Thanks for the encouragement on this super bleak fic. I hope you still want to read the next chapter after this.