Chapter 4
Paige's POV
"I might have a solution," I breathed out. Never would I have thought things would turn out this way. I took a breath and looked at Danielle again. "Paige! There's someone here for you," my mum called up the stairs. "Coming!" I called back down and shot Danielle and apologetic glance before making my way downstairs. I walked down to see Spencer standing awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs with a weird expression on her face. "Spencer, is Emily alright?" She cocked an eyebrow at me and rolled her eyes. "She's fine, sorta. We need to talk, Paige." She glanced over to my parents whom were doing a terrible job of pretending not to eavesdrop. "Let's go outside and sit by the pool," I gestured her outside and we went to the back of the house.
"So what's up?" I asked after we set down by the pool deck. "Emily's a mess. I don't know what happened between the both of you this morning but ever since breakfast she hasn't said anything and ever since you left she hasn't gotten out of her room or her head out of the pillow you slept in." I sighed out and rubbed my temples. "I called her babe this morning and she brushed it off saying that I thought she was Danielle," I looked over at Spencer and she had both eyebrows raised, silently asking me to continue. "She bounded out of the room after that, before I could even say anything. Truth is, I wanted to tell her it was because I thought we were back together. Spence, you don't know how happy, no that's not the word, how whole I felt when I woke up to her scent and her body on me this morning. It's been so long and it felt so good. I missed her and she thought it wrongly and got hurt. Especially after we kissed yesterday," Spencer smacked my arm as her eyes widened. "Ow! What gives? She didn't tell?" Spencer rolled her eyes at me, "are you fucking serious? I told you she didn't say anything to us. You have to come with me to fix this, Paige. We had to make lunch for ourselves in the Fields' and you know how the women in that household preserves their kitchen. It wasn't an easy task to keep it clean while cooking, especially with Hanna around, but getting Emily to eat was proven to be a harder task. We ordered her favourite pizza from her favourite pizza place for dinner and she didn't even look at it when we brought it up to her just now." "Let me grab my jacket and change my pants first."
After I had changed out of my pajama pants and gave everyone a quick explanation and apology, I rushed out of the house and into Spencer's car. One thing to know about Emily, her favourite pizza, especially from her favourite pizza place, was the key to fixing her through everything. It was like her kryptonite. I wouldn't be surprised if she chose that pizza over me. We arrived shortly, thanks to Spencer's speed and the close distance of my parents house to what was supposed to be my house. I walked in after Spencer and saw Aria and Hanna's face light up. "There comes Batman. Please, your biggest challenger awaits," Hanna gave a dramatic bow and gestured towards the stairs, Spencer and Aria rolling their eyes at her antics. I chuckled and walked up the stairs.
"You can do this, McCullers." I said quietly to myself and knocked on the door. The room was only lit by the small lamp she has on the bookshelf by the window seat. It was mostly dim on her side, also the bed side, and sure enough, her face was still buried in the pillow I used last night. I took off my jacket and draped it across the railing at the foot of the bed. "Emily?" I whispered and gently reached out to stroke her arm. I knew by her breathing that she wasn't asleep, and how she stiffened when she heard my voice, or how she stiffened even more when I stroked her arm. "Baby, hey. It's me." I moved her hair out of her face and found her looking straight at me. It scared me a little bit, I have to admit, but the look in her eyes covered the scare. Guilt covered the scare. There was something about Emily's eyes that have been there since the first time I saw her. They hit you right in the gut and right now, Emily's eyes was clouded with the look of a little girl that was vulnerable. All I wanted to do was to bring her into my arms and kiss her just to keep her eyes closed. I'm so screwed.
"Scoot over, Fields." I told her once I found what I needed to in her drawer. She moved over and I got under the covers with her, pulling her close to me. "Remember this?" I held up the promise ring that we had when we were back in high school, just before I left for college. I felt her nod against my chest and continued. "Do you remember what we promised each other?" I felt her nod and take a breath. "We promised to love each other for the rest of our lives no matter who we find and to take care of ourselves." I smiled to myself. She still remembered so clearly after so long. "Well, since you're still keeping this ring, you have to keep the promise. Now tell me, have you been taking good care of yourself?" I felt her hesitate before nodding. "Then what is it about you not eating since breakfast?" I felt Emily wrap her arms around me and she snuggled closer, taking a deep breath of my scent. "We promised to love each other for the rest of our lives. Do you still love me, Paige?" I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head, taking in her scent for myself. "Of course I do, sweetie. I never stopped," I felt Emily relax after I said that. "Can you say it? Can you tell me that you love me?" See what I mean about little girl that was so fucking vulnerable? I pulled away slightly and saw a few tear streaks making their way down Emily's cheek. I brushed them away with my thumb and pulled her in for a deep kiss. "I love you, Emily Fields."
As stupid as it sounds, since I was supposed to convince her to eat, we fell asleep cuddling on her bed- after a few more kisses of course. The next morning however, Emily had a huge appetite. Not only did she eat up the breakfast she whipped up, she finished the leftover pasta that was prepared for lunch the previous day, and the few slices of pizza that was leftover for her last night as well. "Wow Em, did Paige do you for the whole night? Quite the appetite you have there," Hanna remarked when she saw Emily putting away the last of her dishes. "Hanna!" Spencer and Aria barked out, whereas Emily just flipped her off and I was left blushing. "Girls, thanks for staying over, but I think it's time you guys head home? I mean you've been here for a few days and I don't think any of your guys would appreciate your absence." "You're always thinking about us, Emily," Spencer started. "Yeah, are you sure you're okay? Or do you guys just want to christen the whole house and we're cockblocking?" Hanna asked which again earned her barks of her name. "What she's trying to say is, we can still stay here, Em. Our guys know how much we mean to each other and how important we are to each other," Aria butted in. "I'm fine. All of you should go back, Paige included." I looked at Emily, trying to read her. She was fine, but I could tell that it took a lot of courage to say what she had to. "How about we meet for girls' night on Friday?" Emily suggested. Oh no Fields, you're not getting rid of me that easily.
The moment we stepped out of the house, I told the girls my plan. I was going to head home and stay there long enough to have an arguement with Danielle. Of course the time I had to use for arguing would be used to explain the my parents, my kids and my... and Danielle why I would be going away for Emily's for a few days. Then again, I still had to tell Danielle the solution that I had for her. After explaining everything, I made sure that the stuff I grabbed looked like I was in a hurry and that I was angry. It won't be the first time I ran away from home anyway, oops. "Paige, you still haven't told me the solution that you had," Danielle said as I was walking out of the room. "Right," I sighed out and sat back down with her on the bed. "Dan, why don't you move to Rosewood? I mean, like you said, it's a given that I'm coming back here to be with Emily," I paused as I saw the cringe that Danielle wore on her face. "You can move here with the kids and start a new. I mean, if you sell the house and the car you have in Cali, it's surely enough to start a living here in this small town. I'll be here, and so will the girls and my parents. We'll be here for you and I'm telling you, once you're friends with the girls, it's difficult not to have a family." I could tell that my idea was setting gears in her head and she was actually thinking about it. "Look, when you're frustrated, I already know to leave you alone and right now the frustration from last night haven't seem to go, so I'll just go to Em's okay? Besides, you have the kids here and she has no one. I'll see you next week," I kissed her forehead and walked out, straight to the car and started my week stay at Emily's.