Paige's heart raced when she saw the number on her phone. The caller came up as unknown, but it had to be Emily or one of Emily's friends.
The four of them, Emily's crew, had changed phone numbers regularly in high school; - their futile attempt to keep themselves safe. Paige was out of that loop by the time that the latest round of numbers went through. But she recognized the area code, and it told her all that she needed to know.
She knew that it had to be something big for any one of the three to be calling her directly, rather than going through Spencer to get to her.
Paige took a deep breath and closed her eyes, steeling herself for whatever the news was about Emily. (It had to be about Emily.) She pushed talk and offered a tentative hello. All that she heard from the other end was crying, in deep, breathless sobs.
Emily was livid, and there were a thousand things that she wanted to say to Paige, but, in a fit of rage, she called before she had thought it through; before she considered what state she would be in once she was actually on the phone with Paige again.
Paige had never heard Emily cry like that. She had seen Emily's grief and her wrath, but never this. Even on the phone call where Paige ended things with Emily, Emily had held it together, willing herself to delay her breakdown until she was alone, or in the comfort of her friends. The least that she could do, she thought, was honor Paige's request for space. Paige had made it out. Emily was determined not to react in such a way that her pain or Paige's guilt would draw Paige back into the Rosewood drama.
So, there on the phone, as Emily wept inconsolably, Paige was in uncharted territory; powerless, stumped, never having learned how to read Emily's thoughts when Emily was like this.
After several minutes, Paige gently said, "Emily?" hoping to help pull her ex-girlfriend back from the emotional brink.
Emily screamed back her response: "No!" and Paige couldn't tell whether it was desperation or rage that she heard.
After a few more moments of listening to Emily cry, she tried again. "Emily?"
"No!" Emily spat back, and it landed like a punch to the kidney.
So Paige could do nothing but wait it out, as painful as it was for her. For both of them.
When the phone finally went silent, it remained that way for what felt like an eternity. Paige was too afraid of what the response would be if she tried speaking again. She didn't dare move the phone from her ear, lest Emily utter something and she miss it.
Finally, Emily's voice came over the line, composed, low, and spiteful.
"How could you?" she said, and she ended the call.
Paige was unable to move the phone away from her ear. The three words traveled past her eardrum and down through her throat, where they formed a lump almost too large for her to swallow. The words finally crash-landed in her heart, the weight of them reverberating with its every labored beat.
How could you?
Emily could have asked, "How could you do this to me?" - making it personal. This was more serious. Emily's question wasn't, "How could you do this to someone whom you once loved?" but, much worse, "How could you do this to anyone?"
How could one human being be so inhumane to another human being?
Paige was shocked from her thoughts of guilt and self-hatred by the blaring of her phone. It was the ringtone that she had reserved for Spencer - "Girl Power" by the Cheetah Girls - its bombast made all the more obnoxious by the fact that Paige still had the phone pressed right up against her ear. She jerked it away and rejected the call. By rejecting it, rather than letting it ring over to voicemail, Paige was letting Spencer know that she was there; that she hadn't missed the call; that she knew why Spencer was calling, but she wasn't going to talk about it just yet.
Paige looked at her phone and saw two texts that Spencer had sent just before Emily called.
S_Hasty: You might be hearing from Emily.
At first, Spencer's thought was to cushion the blow, alerting Paige but not in a way that would send her into panic.
S_Hasty: It's bad.
Spencer sent the follow-up, still trying to protect Paige, but having realized that she needed to let Paige know to be prepared for the worst.
The facetime session that preceded those texts was the reason that Spencer had sent them.
Spencer and the girls still kept in contact on a regular basis, mostly by voice or text, but, occasionally, by Skype or facetime. Like that morning. With Emily.
Emily ended nearly every one of conversations with Spencer with a lighthearted mention of Paige: "Are you being nice to her?" "Is she doing okay?" "Tell her that I asked about her."
This time, as things were winding down, Emily joked, "Well, I can see that Paige is rubbing off on you. You two are even starting to dress alike."
And then the penny dropped, and Emily's face with it.
Spencer picked up on the look of betrayal before she picked up on what was going on. Keying off Emily's statement, she looked down to see how she was dressed.
The criminal must always make a fatal mistake, because, deep down, the criminal wants to be caught. This desire comes not from a feeling of guilt, but, rather, from a desperate yearning for relief from living under the constant threat of being caught.
Spencer hadn't expected to see – or to be seen by – Emily that day. Even if she had, though, she probably wouldn't have thought twice about the shirt that she was wearing. It was Paige's shirt, or it had been, once. Spencer had laid claim it so long ago that it no longer even occurred to her that she was wearing Paige's clothes.
The worst thing, Spencer suddenly realized, about dating your best friend's ex is – that you're dating your best friend's ex. She knew that Emily had an almost infinite capacity to forgive and to rebuild bridges, and she knew that Emily would have been able to forgive her, had she been upfront about her feelings for Paige at the outset, when they were still just feelings. But to have kept this from Emily; to have dated Paige behind her back; to have spoken to Emily almost every week as if nothing were going on – that was the unpardonable sin.
Spencer had a quick mind. She could have come up with half a dozen excuses for being in Paige's shirt. She could have denied that it even was Paige's shirt, and she and Emily could have laughed at the crazy mix-up.
But she knew that she couldn't keep up the charade forever. And she knew that continuing the deception would only make it much worse when the truth inevitably came out.
And her gut was telling her that it would be less painful for Emily to hear it from her than from Paige.
So, she cracked. She broke down and told Emily everything – from the stolen glances and pre-flirtation in the locker room all those years ago, to the thrill that she felt in the secret part of her heart when she started getting recruited by Stanford - Paige's school, to the break-up with Toby, to the way that the stars finally aligned for her and Paige.
Emily had her phone face-up on the bed, filming the ceiling of her dorm room, throughout Spencer's confession. She couldn't look at Spencer, and she wouldn't let Spencer look at her.
"She still loves you, Em," Spencer said softly in conclusion. That crossed the line. Emily picked up the phone so that Spencer could see her face when she told her to fuck off.
Paige sat on her bed, stunned into paralysis. She knew that she owed Emily an explanation, but she had no idea how she could even begin – or when Emily would even be ready to hear her apology.
She owed Spencer an explanation, too. She knew that Spencer would be shitting bricks, her latent fears of having to compete with the memory of Emily building by the moment. And, surely enough, Paige's phone pinged with a text from Spencer.
S_Hasty: Paige?
PMac: I need time.
Paige knew that Spencer would understand why she chose to ask for time, not space. She wasn't pulling away from her, the way that she had pulled away from Emily. There was hope. Paige just needed to figure out how to navigate.
Paige and Spencer had known, of course, that the day would come when Emily found out their dirty little secret, but neither one of them acknowledged it, to herself or to each other. And because they were firmly committed to denial, they knew that, when Emily did find out, it would be in the worst way possible. Someone would post a picture of the two of them sharing a private moment, or Hanna or Aria would hear some rumor.
Paige didn't know how Emily had found out. She only knew that Spencer knew.
Because they were in denial, Paige and Spencer had never come up with an action plan for this situation. They were like students who showed up for a final exam unprepared, hoping that the right answers will magically come to them. And, like those students, when the test came, they had nothing.
Paige knew that Spencer would want to talk things through and strategize. To Paige, that was the worst possible way to approach it. Paige had never planned her interactions with Emily. That infamous encounter in the pool? Unpremeditated. That surprise kiss in the car? Ad libbed. Calling Emily up on stage at Karaoke night? Winging it. That first kiss in the window seat? Paige couldn't have come up with it if she had tried.
And on those occasions when Paige did go in with a plan, it never went according to plan. It always ended the like the speech that she was planning to deliver on the night that she waited on Emily's porch to beg Emily to take her back. Everything went out the window as soon as she saw Emily.
Paige and Emily had grown even more distant emotionally than they were geographically. Still, Paige knew Emily. What they once had was genuine, after all. Paige knew that Emily couldn't be reached calmly and rationally; - at least not yet. This would have to be handled emotion to emotion. Paige reached for her phone, not knowing what she could possibly say to Emily's voice-mail. She reasoned that just calling was enough, for now. The first step was for Emily to see Paige's number, evidence that Paige was making an attempt to make atonement.
Even though Paige had no intention of leaving a message, she knew that she would have to let the phone ring until it went to voice mail, or until Emily hit "Ignore." Emily would need to see that Paige was serious about talking it through. Calling and hanging up would make it appear that Paige had never intended to talk; that she was just making the gesture to get her name onto Emily's "Missed Calls" list. That was the truth, of course, but she still had to pretend that it wasn't.
Paige was totally unprepared when Emily actually accepted the call. "What do you want?" she asked without anger or sadness. Paige had to concentrate to come up with what, exactly, it was that she heard back in Emily's tone. Eventually, she recognized it as defeat.
"Emily, I never meant for this to happen."
"What does that mean?" Emily's voice was still heavy with defeat. "Huh, Paige? I know that it's what you're supposed to say, but what the fuck does it even mean?"
Paige could hear her voice crack as she replied, the tears welling up in her eyes. "I always saw you and me ending up together, Emily. I knew that it wouldn't be an easy road, but…"
"So, dumping me and fucking my best friend is just what? A couple of bumps on the road to you and me?"
Whoa… How much did Spencer tell her?
"Emily, I swear to you…"
"Don't you dare cry, Paige McCullers!" There was the anger that Paige had been expecting. "You don't get to fucking cry!"
Paige fell silent, chastened. What could she possibly say? Could she bring up Nate? Alison? Talia? Sara? None of them was the point. Whatever Emily may have done to her, Paige had willfully and with full knowledge of what she was doing gotten into a relationship with Emily's best friend behind her back. The only thing that she could do at this point was admit that she was wrong, and that Emily was right.
"You're right, Emily." (Paige didn't dare try the nickname "Em.") "You're right! What I did was unforgivable." Paige took full responsibility, using the singular pronoun rather than implicating Spencer by saying "we." "And I could tell you what I was going through back then, and why it happened, but none of that changes the fact that what I did was wrong. It was wrong for me to start it behind your back. And it was so much worse for me to let it go on behind your back. As a friend, as an ex, as a person, you didn't deserve that."
"No," Emily said, shaking her head although Paige couldn't see. "I didn't."
"I fucked up, Emily. And I don't know what to do about it."
Paige heard Emily sigh, then sniffle, into the phone. "Do you love her?"
Paige shrugged her shoulders. "I… I honestly don't kn…" Paige let her hand flop down onto her thigh in frustration. "It's complicated," she sighed, bringing that hand back up to rub from her forehead to the back of her head.
"Was it worth it?"
"No," Paige said honestly. "Not the way that I went about it. Not with what I did to you. Emily, if I could go back..." Paige trailed off. She couldn't honestly tell Emily that she wouldn't do it again, and she knew that Emily wouldn't care to hear that she would have done the same thing, only differently.
"I gave you space," Emily chided. "I didn't hear from you for almost a year - and then, this?"
A very large part of Paige really wanted to point out that Emily hadn't just been sitting all alone like a cloistered nun for all of that time, but the part of her that still belonged to Emily wouldn't let her. She didn't want to fight with Emily, and she didn't want to destroy any chance that they might, someday, be able to be friends again. So, she simply repeated, "I was wrong."
"You're damned, fucking right you were," Emily said matter-of-factly.
Paige endured a chilling silence before she dared to ask the million dollar question. "So, what now?"
Emily chuckled once, sardonically.
"I need space."
And then the line went dead.
Spencer couldn't get her body to stop quivering. Paige had said that she needed time, but Spencer couldn't believe that she would let the night pass without calling. Spencer took a look at her phone. It was 2:30. She pulled the blanket over her head so that she wouldn't wake her roommate when she called.
"Hello?" Paige's voice was sleepy and confused.
"You're sleeping?" Spencer whispered into the phone, incredulous. Under any other circumstances, Paige would have found the raspy whisper incredibly sexy. "How can you sleep?"
"What time is it?"
"Paige, you know that I'm going crazy, here. I can't believe that you didn't call me. I was waiting for you!"
Paige pushed herself up onto one elbow and wiped her face with her hand. "I'm sorry." There she was again, apologizing to - not her girlfriend. Paige didn't know the term for what they were. "Bedmates," not "Soulmates."
"What are we going to do, Paige? We can't let this sit. Emily's going to be stewing over it and getting more and more upset. And I can't blame her!"
"I called her," Paige said without emotion, just delivering the facts.
"What?" Spencer whisper-shouted. "What did you tell her?"
Paige thought back to the conversation and remembered what Emily had said about them sleeping together. "What did you tell her?" she challenged.
"Paige!"
"I told her that I fucked up, okay? I told her that she didn't deserve this. And she asked whether or not I loved you, and I said that it's complicated." Paige paused, giving Spencer the opportunity to object to that, but Spencer offered nothing except her tacit agreement. It was complicated. They had never said anything about love.
"And she asked whether or not it was worth it," Paige continued. "And I said no. Not the way that I handled it, going behind her back."
Spencer sighed. "It wasn't just you, you know."
"No, but I'm the one who's responsible for my own choices."
"Well, that's very existential of you."
Spencer couldn't resist the snark, even in a crisis.
"Is she okay?"
"I guess."
"Are you okay?"
"We may be. Someday. I don't know." For some reason, Paige found herself answering in the plural, even though she knew that Spencer was asking about her personally. It gave Spencer the boldness to ask a follow-up.
"Are we okay?"
"Oh, yes," Paige said, without hesitation. "I fucked up with her – that's got nothing to do with me and you."
"We fucked up with her," Spencer corrected.
"Yeah." Paige blew right past Spencer's attempt to make her feel less guilty and got back to her point. "I mean, this had to come out sooner or later, for better or worse. It should've come out sooner, and it should've been handled better, but it's out there. And, whatever else happens, we don't have to worry about it anymore." Paige cringed when she realized that she had just used Emily's own words in this context.
Spencer sighed deeply. It was a sigh of regret and of sorrow, with only a hint of relief. She suddenly realized that she didn't want to be alone. But it was too late to do anything about it. "When can I see you?" she asked softly, not hiding her neediness.
"You know that you only have to say the word."
"Paige, I didn't mean…"
"I'm on my way. My roommate's gone. I'll come pick you up."
Spencer ended the call and held the phone against her chest, feeling new guilt, because Paige was getting out of bed to come and get her. "Thank you," she whispered to her blanket.
This was real, now. They could no longer pretend that it was just a fling or a series of hook-ups. Other lives were involved, now. They had gone down this road, and, in doing so, had hurt their loved ones.
Soon, Aria and Hanna would find out. And Toby. If they didn't already know. Spencer suspected that Emily had told the girls. Emily would have cried on their shoulders and screamed about what a bitch Spencer was. Then, she would have given them strict orders not to confront Spencer until she told them that they could.
That's when Spencer realized that she had been so caught up thinking of herself that she had never contacted Emily. She looked at her phone. Even with the time difference, it was still too early in the morning to call Emily at Penn State. But Spencer had to do something. She fired of a text.
Spence: Emily - I am so sorry for what I did. I want to fix it, but I don't know how.
Spencer tossed her phone on the bed and began tossing some things into her field hockey travel bag. She was about to head to the bathroom to scrub away the tracks of her tears when her phone rang. She composed herself as she grabbed it and continued toward the bathroom, where she would be able to talk without disturbing her roommate or her neighbors.
Spencer pushed the talk button as she hurried down the hall. "Emily?" she said a little too desperately, and with surprise apparent in her voice.
"How could you do it, Spencer?" It was the same question that she had asked Paige; the question that had been haunting her from the moment that she found out. As with Paige, the question came out numbly; emotionless, defeated.
"Emily," Spencer pleaded, pushing the door to the bathroom open and sitting on a bench just inside. "You have to believe me - this wasn't supposed to happen. We didn't plan for it to happen."
"It didn't just happen, Spencer. You didn't just wake up one day, fuck buddies with my ex." The words cut right to Spencer's core - Emily casually reducing what she and Paige had to just sex.
"I deserved that," she said meekly, not interrupting Emily's progress.
"You chose it. You chose to mess around with Paige. You chose to do it behind my back. That's what I don't get, Spencer. If you didn't think that you were doing anything wrong, then why didn't you tell me? How come it never came up in any of the conversations that we had? Why didn't you say anything any one of those times I asked you about Paige? Or when I asked whether you were seeing someone after Toby?"
"Emily..."
"No, Spencer! Fuck that!" There were tears in Emily's voice. "I was worried about you! I was telling you to hang in there - you'd find someone! And, all that time..."
"Emily, please!" Spencer couldn't bear to hear it out loud again.
"All that time, you were fucking my ex, Spencer!" Emily's words were like a laser: Pointed, accurate, and deadly.
Spencer was a strong person, but she broke down. She wanted to explain - not for her own benefit, but to make Emily feel better - but she realized that there was nothing that she could say. And she realized that the only thing that she could do to make Emily feel better was to sit there and let Emily unleash her venom.
And Emily had a lot more venom to unleash. When she finally wore herself out, Spencer collected herself enough to say, "Emily, please. I'll do anything to make it right."
"Anything?" Emily asked skeptically, continuing before Spencer could reply. "You would leave her?"
"Anything," Spencer sobbed.
"My God," Emily spat. "You really are pathetic."
The phone call ended, and Spencer put her head in her hands and cried. Just then, the door opened.
When Paige came to get Spencer, she heard voice coming from the bathroom, so she stood by and waited. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it was unavoidable. She couldn't just walk away, knowing that Spencer might need some support in her fragile state.
When the door opened, Spencer looked at Paige in panic and fear, realizing that she had switched her phone to speaker because she needed both hands to dry her eyes. "How much did you hear?" she asked desperately. Everything she had was falling apart.
Paige pulled Spencer into her arms and held her, softly repeating "It's okay," into her ear.
When the sobs subsided, Paige took a step away from Spencer, gazing into her eyes to be sure that she was okay. "Let's go," she said. She reached for Spencer's hand, but Spencer backed away.
"Paige, when I told Emily that I would leave you..."
"I understand," Paige said, grabbing Spencer's hand and squeezing it tight.
But Spencer didn't understand. She knew that it wasn't a lie, but it felt like promising to take a bullet for someone. You can swear it and mean it, but if it ever comes to that, there's no telling what you would actually do. Spencer knew that she couldn't leave Paige. But she would leave her, if that's what Emily demanded. But she couldn't choose Emily over Paige.
Paige grunted in frustration when she realized that Spencer was frozen in place, trying to make sense of this paradox. "Spencer," she begged, "it's late. The best thing that we can do tonight is get some rest. We don't have to figure out everything right here and now." The look in Spencer's eyes let Paige know that she wasn't convinced. "We're okay, okay? We're good."
Spencer took a deep and much-needed exhale. She turned to Paige and gave her a long, slow kiss. Lips can lie, but not when they're kissing. She was almost able to smile when they pulled apart. Relieved that Paige was telling the truth, she took Paige's hand and followed her out of the bathroom. "I just have to pick up my things," she said. "Back in my room."
Paige nodded as she let Spencer jog ahead of her to unlock her door. The worst of it was past. The storm wasn't over yet, but they had survived the harshest of what it had to throw at them.
A/N - As I said at the outset, I don't know Spencer well enough to write her character, and I can already feel the Spencer in this story drifting further and further away from the one whom PLL fans know and love.
So, although I've unchecked "complete" for this one, I can't promise regular updates. I don't really know where to go with it. I'm writing each chapter as if it's the last, trying to sew everything up in case I can't figure out how to continue. But, hey - no cliffhangers, at least! :)
Thanks for taking the time to read along, and special thanks to the reviewers.
And, for anyone who may be keeping score, this chapter's title is from Poe's poem, "The Haunted Palace."
