Inside the house:
"Where is she?" Emily asked Ashton, pacing around the room in anticipation.
"Ashley just went up to get her. She was taking a nap. All the excitement got to her and she tuckered out." Ashton chortled. Ashley was Ashton's maid, but she also served as another purpose. Emily was getting really antsy. This would be the fourth time that she would see her. Oh how she missed her. The sound of footsteps descending the stairs broke Emily out of her thoughts. She turned around and immediately happy tears sprung to her eyes. There in the arms of Ashley, wriggling around trying to escape Ashley's hold was Estella, her daughter. Once Ashley –who's other purpose was being a nanny for Estella– had descended the whole way down, she placed Estella on the floor and stepped back and stood next to Ashton and his girlfriend, to watch the heartfelt reunion between Emily and her daughter.
"Estella!" Emily cried out, tears falling down her cheeks. She crouched down and opened her arms up and saw Estella running towards her with the small legs she had. Ashton and his girlfriend Katie also had tears in their eyes while watching this heartwarming reunion.
"Mommy!" Estella squealed happily, launching herself into her mother's arms, kissing Emily all over her face and receiving some of her own kisses from Emily in return.
"How is my little girl?" Emily asked looking down at Estella who had now made herself comfortable in her mother's arms.
"Good!" Estella grinned happily up at Emily, showing off a toothy smile. Estella was wearing a pair of overalls that had a picture of a dog sewn onto the front chest and a pink long sleeved shirt underneath them. Emily admired her darkened, dirty blonde locks that curled at the ends and her warm mocha brown eyes. When Estella didn't get her way for something, her eyes would turn an extremely dark brown, almost black, but not quite. She definitely had her mother's eyes.
(This was honestly the only picture I thought could portray Estella, even if she doesn't have brown eyes in the picture. Picture on Wattpad)
Back outside with the girls:
All the girls were in shock of what they had just learned. Emily, their sweet, innocent, Emily had a daughter. Now they all had even more questions.
"Wowwww!" Hanna exclaimed shocked, elongating the word 'wow' to put emphasis on it, "I never would have guessed this to be Emily's secret."
"Me neither." Aria said, expressing her thoughts about the situation at hand.
"Even though I'm equally shocked as the rest of you, I'm just glad that Emily's secret wasn't like she murdered someone or anything." Alison said.
"Well her nickname is Killer..." Hanna said slowly, trying to make a joke at the situation. Alison narrowed her eyes at Hanna.
"Finish that sentence, I dare you." Alison threatened. Hanna just rolled her eyes. She knew Alison was overprotective of Emily. She swears that something is going on between the two of them, but nothing has happened out of the ordinary to raise suspicion. Alison is kinda jealous of the man because he seems very important to Emily. She knows she's important to Emily but she wishes she were the only one. She is faintly aware of Emily's crush on her. Which Emily doesn't know.
The girls turn back to the window. The next words they hear practically break their hearts.
"Mommy, are you staying dis time?" Emily looks up and the girls see a guilty look on her face. She looks at Ashton. They see Ashton nod his head toward the child while saying something. Emily nods and looks down at Estella again.
Back inside the house:
Emily knows she has to choose her words carefully because Estella can pick up on lies, like Alison, which is ironic because this isn't even her child. But Estella is very intuitive. She asks a lot of questions that sometimes Emily can't even answer herself. Long story short Estella was way smarter than Emily was at this age, and Emily has Ashton and his girlfriend and sometimes nanny/maid to thank for that.
"Estella, I know I always leave, but remember, I will ALWAYS," Emily puts emphasis on the word 'always', "come back for you. But right now, there are a lot of things going on that could endanger you."
"What does endanger mean mommy?" Estella asks innocently, gazing up at Emily. Emily looks up at Ashton, silently asking for help. Ashton saw Emily's silently asking for help and stepped in and answered for her. He kneeled down in front of the little girl, who's eyes were full of curiosity.
"Well GE (Great Expectations), endanger means when you put someone else in harms way. It can be done unintentionally, meaning the person or persons didn't mean to, or it can be done intentionally, meaning on purpose. Your mommy, doesn't want anything to happen to you. So she doesn't want to endanger you." Ashton says slowly, in order for the young girl to understand what he is saying. Estella might be young, but she is a very bright and curious child so Ashton has to worries that Estella won't understand what he is saying. Emily smiled at Ashton and then looked down at Estella, who was staring up at her with love in her eyes.
"Hey GE, why don't you tell your mommy what you can say now." Ashton offers, smiling knowingly. Estella looks up at Ashton and grins back, then turns back to Emily. Ashton puts his hand into his back pocket and pull out a picture and hands it to Estella. Estella takes it from Ashton's hand and hold it up for Emily to see. Emily looks at it and frowns slightly. She remember clearly, the memory of when this picture was taken. But how did Ashton have it in his possession?
"Where did you get this picture? It was on my bulletin board in my room." Emily asked, a frown still planted on her face, though you could see the corners of her mouth beginning to sweep upwards into a smile because the picture held important memories to her.
Ashton looks smirks and says, "Let's just say, you're a very light sleeper." Emily frowns and glares at Ashton. If looks could kill, Ashton thought.
"I already have a someone to deal with who does things like that, I don't need you to do it too!" Emily says. She avoids saying -A because she knows Estella will take the first chance she gets and ask Emily who -A is. Estella who was watching the exchange between her mother and Ashton, turns back to the photo. The photo is of the five girls. They are lying on their stomachs and are smiling and grinning widely at the camera. Estella points to a short girl with hazel eyes and shoulder length, brown hair.
"That's Aria," She then points to a tall brunette with brown eyes, "That's Spencer," Then she points to a blonde, blue eyed, girl. The girls Emily is secretly in love with. "that's Awison."
"Estella can't pronounce her 'L's' just yet but she's been practicing with me." Ashton said in response to Estella's mispronunciation of Alison's name. Emily nodded to Ashton in understanding and looked back at Estella. Estella then excitedly pointed to another girl. This girl had mocha skin and dark, brown hair, her eyes a warm, chocolate brown.
"That's you mommy!" Estella squealed happily, her smiling growing larger in her face.
Emily laughed and said, "Yes it is Estella." Estella then pointed to the last girl. This girl had blonde hair and also had blue eyes, but her eyes weren't as blue and her hair was shorter and not as wavy as Alison's.
"And that's Hanna." Estella stated proudly.
"Good job!" Emily congratulated Estella. Estella smiled widely, happy that her mommy was proud of her.
Back outside with the girls:
The girls looked at each other. They were touched that the man had shown Estella a picture of them. But they really wanted to know who the man was and what his relationship with Emily was, well Alison was wondering that. She wanted to be the most important person in Emily's life. They knew the little girl was Emily's daughter, but seriously, Emily? The shy and timid brunette who couldn't even kiss her boyfriend in front of everyone without blushing, having a daughter? They just could wrap their pretty little minds around it.
"Awww! She couldn't pronounce Alison's name correctly! That is so adorable!" Hanna squealed, overwhelmed with the cuteness of what just took place.
"I'm touched that Emily has shown pictures of us to her daughter. We obviously mean a lot to Emily if she showing her daughter who we are." Spencer infers. They all know they mean a lot to Emily, but they didn't know just how much they meant to her.
"She kinda looks a little like Ali, doesn't she?" Aria asked, putting out what the others were thinking, but hadn't verbalized yet.
"Yeah she does. Though her hair is darker than Ali's, and she has Emily's skin complexion." Hanna said, looking at the little girl through the window. Though her skin wasn't as nearly as dark as her mother's, it was still tanner then most.
"What do you think Ali? Doesn't she kinda look like a mini Ali 2.0?" Aria slyly remarked, "I mean her facial structure is kinda the same as yours when you were a little girl, Ali." Alison who had been deep in thought, shook her head and looked at Aria.
"Um, yeah, she sorta does." Alison said not really focusing on the little girl. Her mind was being taken over by a certain brown haired, beauty.
"You don't sound sure. Take a look. She looks almost identical to you when you were younger." Spencer said, guiding Alison to the window so she could take a look. Alison peered in the window and looked at the little girl who was no playing around with Emily on the ground. Alison started smiling, loving how happy Emily looked. She hadn't looked happy these past few days and now they knew why. Emily had been missing her daughter. As Alison took in the features of Estella, she started to notice what the other girls were talking about, but also noticed that not everything they said was accurate. Even though Estella's hair wasn't exactly the same color as Alison's, the ringlets that curled at the bottom, were just like what Alison's hair when she was a young child, even now. Alison couldn't quite see her eyes though, but from where she was, her eyes didn't look blue. In fact, the only part of the little girl's body that look remotely like Alison was the structure of her face. A sort of heart shaped face, rosy, red cheeks that had a dimple on either side, a cute little button nose and two small lips that were moving because she was talking. Alison ducked her head back down and turned to face the other girls.
"She doesn't look exactly like me, but you're sorta right." Alison breathed out, her head full of confusion on how Estella looks a little like what she looked like as a child. She shook it off as a coincidence.
"Are you sure you and Emily haven't had sex and she got prego?" Hanna asked with absolutely no tact whatsoever. The other three girls turned their heads toward Hanna, their eyes widened.
"What?!" Alison almost screeched, but didn't, being mindful of the fact that they were technically trespassing and could get caught at any moment, "first of all Hanna, we're both girls, I can't get her pregnant, second of all, Emily is so shy she blushes starts to stutter the moment anyone starts talking about sex. Do you really think that she would climb into bed with me and take the VIP tour to Neverland?" Alison asked, a little blush adorning her cheeks when she said the last sentence. Hanna saw this and smirked. When Alison saw Hanna smirk, she narrowed her eyes at her, but Hanna merely pretended she didn't notice Alison's glare.
"Well clearly she already has," Hanna said, gesturing toward the window, trying to point towards Estella without getting caught.
"Maybe she didn't have consensual sex," Spencer starts, "maybe she was raped..." Spencer whispered that last part of the sentence knowing what the word held. The girls all looked at each other. If Emily had been sexually assaulted, they couldn't imagine why she didn't go to any of them for help, though it looks like she went to Ashton for help, whoever he is. They all were saddened by the fact that Emily may very well have been sexually assaulted and they didn't even notice anything wrong with her. But if there was one thing they could do, it was to help Emily in anyway, shape or form, with Estella. And hopefully, Emily would tell them the story behind Estella, Ashton, his girlfriend and the nanny/maid. They had overheard Emily telling Ashton that she wants to bring Estella home for while, her parents were in Texas, so they didn't have to worry about them finding out just yet. Ashton reluctantly agreed with the condition that he and his girlfriend would stay with them. The girls realized that the should be heading home soon. It had been a long day and they had about an hour and a half drive home. The girls all quietly sneak away back through the gate to the neighbors yard to Spencer's SUV. Spencer unlocked the car and they all climbed in and buckled up. Spencer puts the keys into the ignition and started up the car. They had all agreed on heading to Emily's house. They wanted to get answers and more importantly, they wanted to meet their new niece. After Hanna made a sly remark about how her, Spencer and Aria wanted to meet their niece, but Alison was going to meet her future daughter, Alison took it upon her self to slap Hanna in the arm, very hard, may I add, while Hanna was laughing at Alison's reaction. Aria and Spencer trying to keep in their laughter. They ultimately failed and burst out laughing at Alison's expense. Alison just crossed her arms and huffed out a breath of air, a light blush gracing her face. Hanna noticed it and pointed it out saying she had never seen the Queen Bee blush so much, to which Alison's blush grew a little darker while the three other girls lightly teased her. After the laughter had died down to a minimal giggle here and there, they were on there way to Emily's house.
Well that was Chapter 3! I hope you guys are enjoying it! I don't know how often I will update, I will just update when I have time. Thanks! Happy Turkey Day! (Insert turkey emoji that Apple really needs to add along with a flamingo emoji! ?￢ﾝﾤ️? ﾟﾏﾼ) I'm thankful for getting up off my procrastinating ass and posting this story! ? And of course my friends and family! ❤️ Comment below what you're thankful for) - Leapyearbaby29