A/N: Okay, looks like I somehow posted Chapter 2 twice ... I have no idea how I managed to do them, it displayed the correct chapter for me in the preview ... Anyway, I re-uploaded everything and hopes this fixes it! Thanks to dayabieberxo for notifying me!
She glanced at her phone to gauge the time until the movie would probably end without feeling bad about not having turned off her phone in a movie theatre for one second. The movie was actually sort of okay but it definitely didn't pique her interest in Katy Perry at all. Emily leaned her head back on the back of her seat and let out a long but quiet sigh, as to not disturb the few other moviegoers. For a moment, she just closed her eyes and tried to refocus.
The movie did not matter; she was not here for the movie. She was here because she had invited Paige to come here with her, because she wanted to spend time with Paige. And she was spending time with Paige now, after all. Sitting in a movie theatre was not a very communicative way to spend one's time, though, unless you meant the sort of communication that involved the exchange of saliva.
Slowly, Emily reopened her eyes and stared at the dark ceiling of the theatre – she had to admit that the sight of the movie was more entertaining than the ceiling, so she lifted her head back into a normal position again. When she did so, she was fairly sure that she heard Paige make some sort of abrupt movement next to her. Emily looked at Paige to see if maybe she had fallen asleep and collapsed into the seat in front of her. Paige was looking at the movie screen with intention, though, and thus Emily returned her attention the movie as well.
The next time she checked her phone, there were about thirty minutes of the movie left. As the ceiling had already been declared an uninteresting sight by Emily, she looked around the theatre a bit. Maybe some of the other people in here did something that would entertain her – but safe for one girl who was busy texting, everyone else in front of her was just silently watching the movie. Emily slowly let her view pan across the entire room, not finding anything interesting – at least not until Paige's profile came into view in the far left corner of her vision.
Turning slightly left in her seat, Emily gave Paige the third once-over of the day. Unsurprisingly, her wardrobe had not changed since Emily last appreciated the tie. In attempt to be at least slightly less creepily staring, Emily turned her view back to Paige's face and watched how the movie screen was reflected by Paige's dark eyes. Maybe the movie would be better if she watched it in Paige's eyes rather than on the screen. Then again, maybe that wasn't such a good idea because Paige's eyes were rather easy to get lost in.
Emily started to feel herself settle into a dreamy, aloof mood as she relaxed in her seat and watched the reflections move on Paige's pretty eyes. When Paige turned her head and reached into her bag of popcorn that was sitting between her and Emily, the first thing Emily noticed was that the pretty reflections she was watching were now gone. The second thing she noticed was that she was still staring at Paige like a complete creeper and that oh my God, Paige was now looking at her with a curious expression. Quickly Emily repositioned herself in her seat so that she was looking straight forward; she turned her eyes very far away from Paige's eyes and blushed profusely as she gripped the handles of her seat tightly.
Paige didn't say anything for a solid half minute, which made Emily uneasy. Was she angry or creeped out by Emily's staring? Was she actively ignoring Emily? It was not like Paige had not seemed at least intrigued, if not actually interested by Emily's sight in her bedroom last week – surely, Paige would not take her staring that badly. Staring should be regarded more of a personal compliment anyway, should it not? Wait no, that sounded really creepy.
Emily still had her seat handles gripped firmly as her mind raced with incoherent thoughts. Barely, she noticed movement in her peripheral vision. Then, she noticed something on her finger. At first it was very, very light, like a soft blow of warm air to the naked skin. But then, the feeling got more boldly and Emily was finally able to correctly analyse the feeling – it was a touch. Not just any sort of touch, either, but a touching of her skin with the skin of another human. There were not exactly a lot of humans other than Paige close enough to touch her. Slowly, Emily moved her head to see if her conclusion was correct.
What she saw was just as frightening as it was endearing – Paige had put her hand on her own arm rest, next to Emily's, and their pinkies were touching. More accurately put, Paige's pinkie was touching Emily's pinkie; Paige carefully used the berry of the finger to softly caress the length of Emily's finger. Emily was frozen into her seat as she watched the slow, steady movement. The feeling on her skin was at the same time calming and exciting, warm and electrifying. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to think about this – was she supposed to be offended because Paige was clearly overstepping the lines of friendship? Was she supposed to be relieved because Paige was not angry at her staring? Was she supposed to be taken aback by Paige's bold move and quickly retract her hand because friends did not touch like this?
Ultimately, Emily decided to be charmed and pleased. A small smile crept on to her lips and she moved her finger closer to Paige's, so Paige would know that Emily liked the stroking, that she would like for it to continue. Although Emily couldn't see Paige's face, she was sure that Paige was smiling. Paige's pinkie curled around Emily's, linking them together in a tight embrace with their hands right next to each other. Emily looked up from their partially intertwined hands to look at Paige's face, only to find Paige looking right back at her. They broke out into a grin when their eyes met and Emily thought that she'd be very content with just sitting like this for a few hours. The finger around hers was very soft and warm, she could feel its faint pulse against her skin, and her mind was beginning to simply float around in Paige's eyes without being able to think clearly.
A tiny voice somewhere in the back of Emily's head told her that she should be absolutely not okay with this. She had made clear to Paige at the masquerade that she wanted to start a friendship with her – a friendship as in two girls who were friends and talked to each other and did stuff together, not as in two lesbians that got touchy in a movie theatre. Inside her head, the tiny voice scolded Emily for her misleading behaviour. How did, 'I'll change right in front of you in this barely lit room' not scream 'Please be attracted to me'? How did taking Paige out to see a movie with her not look like a date? Emily realised she desperately needed to get her intentions straight – if she herself did not know what she wanted her relationship with Paige to be, she could only send Paige mixed and potentially hurting signals.
But what did Emily want? The question was not easy to answer. On the one hand, Emily was still hurting for Maya, and her previous attempts to date Paige had not ended well. On the other hand, those attempts had ended because Paige had been in the closet, which she now wasn't anymore. Also, Paige's finger was fitting around her own finger rather perfectly right now. The tiny voice in her head remarked that her ability to think straight was severely impaired right now. Nevertheless, Emily decided for now that her first intention was to feel as much of Paige's fingers on hers as possible. Finally, a clear motive that she could act on.
Emily untangled her pinkie that was still locked with Paige's and lifted her hand off of the arm rest. She had wanted to put her whole hand onto Paige's – but Paige looked at Emily with hurt in her eyes and quickly placed her hand back in her lap. Silently, Emily cursed this misunderstanding. Now she had reached the exact opposite of what she had wanted to achieve. Telling Paige to place her hand where it used to be because Emily wanted her hand to be on it would probably make for a very awkward conversation. It also interfered with Emily's plan of making the change in hand positions appear rather casual, as if she was just absentmindedly holding hands with her friend that she happened to be watching a movie with.
"Holding hands" seemed like a very strong expression for what Emily had wanted to do. It also seemed like a word that left little ambiguity to Emily's actions and placed them fairly plainly in the flirting/dating area. Was that what she was doing? Flirting? Rather, Emily preferred to think of it as … positively inviting Paige to further explore in which direction they wanted to take this. Yes, that sounded very good in her mind.
With a cautious glance to her side, Emily determined the exact position of Paige's hand which rested limply on Paige's thigh. Emily took a deep breath for encouragement. It was rather funny – it was fairly clear that Paige was interested in Emily; that she would not be opposed to physical contact with Emily at all – yet Emily still felt herself hesitating in fear of an adverse reaction from Paige. What sort of reaction did she have to fear? Worst case, Paige would tell Emily that she didn't want to hold hands and their friendship would simply continue as just that, a friendship. Maybe, though, Emily was only telling herself that she was afraid of Paige's reaction when in reality it were her own actions she was afraid of.
Because no matter how much Emily tried to rationalise it and to trivialise it, what she was about to do was taking a step towards a romantic relationship. She should stop fooling herself and should just accept that for a fact. If she was taking Paige's hand right now, she was telling Paige that she was interested in her romantically. And that really was the most basic question Emily had to ask herself – was Emily romantically interested in Paige? At least to certain degree, she was. Paige was attractive while still being very natural and not at all over-styled; she was quietly supportive of Emily whenever she needed to be supported; and she was extremely good at making Emily smile and laugh. Emily could definitely see herself rekindling her past romantic interest in Paige; that was not the problem.
But could she see herself in a new relationship right now? The wound left by Maya's death was still fresh – was beginning another relationship now respectful to Maya's memory? Would a hypothetic relationship not be overshadowed by Emily's sorrow over Maya? Then again, maybe a new relationship would help Emily put an end to the chapter of her life that was dominated by Maya's violent death. Emily was sure that Maya would want Emily's mind to be full of the time the two of them spent together when she was still alive, not of full of grief over the time they could not spend together. A least trying to slowly get comfortable with being intimate with someone was not a bad idea, Emily concluded, and took another breath for encouragement.
Her hand was almost not even trembling, almost, as she reached over and extended her arm, over the armrests that separated their seats, down towards Paige's thigh and then, finally, closing the distance to Paige's hand. She was certain she felt Paige twitch as if stung when the tip of Emily's fingers first touched her hand but when Emily gently stroked the inside of Paige's hand, Paige seemed to understand quickly and completely intertwined their hands. Their freshly joined hands came to rest upon Paige's thigh, which shot a wave of excitement through Emily that combatted with the calm that she felt from finally putting all her doubts about taking Paige's hand to rest.
There couldn't have been more than ten minutes left to the running time of the movie and both of them had spent too much time being distracted to follow the storyline through the last twenty minutes, yet both were watching the screen very intensively. Emily was still irrationally afraid of what she might find in Paige's eyes should she look over, or what she might cause by looking at her in this fragile moment. Paige on the other hand was probably still busy processing what had just happened. She had been trying to get with Emily for a very long time, and despite her efforts, she had not been very successful; at least not for long. And now, all of a sudden, she didn't even have to make any sort of effort, Emily just came along and initiated what could develop into a romance with her. If she had been in Paige's position right now, Emily was sure it would take her a few minutes to realise that was not dreaming this.
As they were sitting silently and watching the movie come to its conclusion, Emily could feel Paige's fingers getting more and more relaxed until by the time the credits began to roll, Paige was playing around with Emily's slender fingers in her hand. Emily was very pleased to know Paige was at ease with the situation; that there was no unresolved tension between the two right now. With each further name the credits displayed, more people around them rose to their feet, their knees still stiff from sitting for so long, and then scrambled out of the movie theatre. When the complete atmosphere around them had become one of departure, Emily and Paige slowly started to wake from the small trance that they had fallen into; happy in the little bubble that was their world right now.
Slowly and reluctantly, they rose from their seats; careful not to rise at different speeds because they did not want their entwined hands to come apart. When they finally stood, they turned a bit to face each other and be able to look the other one in the eye for the first time since Emily had reached over to the seat next to her. Emily gave Paige a little smile of endearment and immediately started getting lost in Paige's eyes again. Paige grinned back at Emily, her eyes all but shining with incredulous excitement, before she bashfully diverted her eyes to look at the floor. The grin was so cute, Emily felt tempted to put a hand under Paige's chin to lift it so she could look at that grin together with those pretty eyes again. She ultimately decided against it and trailed with her eyes the length of Paige's arm down to the spot where their hands joined. It only now began to dawn on her that they were stood in the middle of a public movie theatre, staring at each other and holding hands. Gently, Emily untangled her fingers from Paige's – but she immediately missed the feeling of Paige's skin on hers, so she slowly started dragging her fingers over Paige's forearm.
She halted for a moment when she reached Paige's elbow, insecure whether she should, whether she could carry on. Paige had her eyes closed and seemed to completely concentrate on Emily's light touch, like nothing else in the world mattered right now. Emily slowly made her way up Paige's upper arm, basking in the attention that Paige gave her and in the tingling feeling that seemed to flow through her fingertips right into her chest. What would she do once she had reached Paige's shoulder? What was the next logical consequence – pulling Paige into her arms? Would that be rushing it? Or would that be too public?
Emily had no chance to follow her train of thought through till the end, for a group of annoying girls in their early teens that had sat in their aisle had now rose to their feet and were demanding Paige and Emily would make way for them so they could leave the theatre. The quiet magic of the moment was gone just as fast as it had built up. Paige opened her eyes when she heard the moving of feet near her, and when she felt Emily retract her hand to collect her jacket and phone from the seat. Paige and Emily scrambled out of the aisle and into the foyer of the movie theatre. They both were slightly embarrassed at having been caught while they were getting lost in each other, in their little world. Maybe they should choose a more private setting for their next meeting – their next … date?
After standing around in the foyer and glancing at each other in between looking at their feet awkwardly for a while, Emily decided to end the tensed situation and offered Paige a ride home. Which was sort of an idiotic way out of the situation – of course Emily would drive Paige home; she was not going to let Paige walk all the way home after brining her here. Nonetheless, Paige thanked Emily at least a dozen times for offering to drive – it was obvious that both of them were unusually nervous. They walked to Emily's car and tried to make a bit of small talk about the movie they had just seen, even though Emily had to search her memory to even remember the name of the movie – other events dominated her recollection of the evening. Once they both sat in the car, Emily was about to start the engine and bring Paige home, thus ending the night for them, when Paige put her hand on Emily's arm to halt her movement. Emily looked at Paige expectantly while Paige failed to meet Emily's eyes and was obviously trying to say something but had not yet found the correct words. She mumbled something that sounded like a question but Emily could not understand her. She lifted Paige's face to her with her free hand and asked her to repeat herself.
"I was just wondering, uh, if you were busy the rest of the night. I mean, of you are it's totally okay but … I don't feel like going home to my parents just yet. Could we … Can we go somewhere? Anywhere, I don't care. Just, tell me if that's not cool with you, I don't mean to be an inconvenience, I just thought that would be really nice …"
Emily cut Paige off before she could continue rambling. It made Emily uneasy to see Paige being so incredibly nervous; she wanted Paige to feel at ease around her.
"Yeah, sure, we can. Don't be silly, I invited you to spend the evening with me, of course you're not being inconvenient. Actually, there's this place I'd been meaning to show you. Some people might think it's boring, really, but I like it. It's a peaceful place."
Paige nodded encouragingly and smiled. She slowly let her hand slip off of Emily's arm and settled back into the passenger's seat. Emily finally started the engine and began to drive. The chance that Paige would know the place Emily was talking about was really low, for it was a small place, somewhat hidden away from plain sight, and not at all spectacular if you didn't take the time to appreciate the quiet, sublime beauty there was to this place. Emily was driving Paige into the dark night that had wrapped up Rosewood in its shroud but Paige did not seem to be at all frightened by her obliviousness to where they were going. She trusted Emily and that made Emily feel very proud of herself.
The silence that settled in the car was a very comfortable one and Emily did not mind not speaking a word during the 15-minute-drive at all. It was like the silence carried some mutual agreement that they were drinking in the atmosphere, the delicate tension that was building between them. No words were needed right now. When Emily parked her car on the side of a road on the outskirts of the Rosewood suburbs, Paige looked doubtful for a split second before exiting the car together with Emily.
"So where is your special place now?" Paige asked Emily who was locking the doors of the car.
"Right this way," Emily answered and led the way into a stretch of dark pine trees by the side of the road.
"I'm very glad that I did not drink from any drinks that were not mine tonight, because it totally looks like you're abducting me right now."
"Who knows, McCullers, maybe I am."
A/N: Whoopsie, looks like this is gonna be three chapters after all. I'm horrible with my word diarrhea.