Authors note: In the show, Alison disappeared, and a year later they found her body. But in my story i wanted to make it a much shorter period of time so i said they found her body 2 months after she disappeared. (She disappeared in the beginning of September) They found her body in november. (of course, was that really alison's body...? You'll just have to keep reading and see if she truly is gone or not ;) ) enjoy the super super long chapter :D
Recognition
Emily's heart practically stopped.
All eyes were wide. Hanna's especially. Emily could tell Hanna was about to blurt something she didn't think through. Hanna tended to do this a lot. In fact, almost nothing she said was ever thought through very carefully.
"Wait, wait, hold on," she said. "You're not straight, either?"
"Hanna..." Emily said, giving her blonde friend a disapproving look.
Katherine laughed. "No, it's fine. Not a lot of people expect that from me," she said calmly. "I still remember the first day I realized I loved her." She said after a small pause.
"And, just my luck, it just happened to be the same day I was told she went missing."
2 years ago
"Ugggghhhhh," was all Katherine could manage to say as her sophomore Biology class was getting ready to start. First period on Monday always sucked. And, they just had a 5 day weekend. She slowly brought her head down to her desk and moaned some more.
Tina, a good friend of hers since she moved to Ohio, sat down next to her. Her hair had several colorful feathers weaved into them, and they stood out with an incredible beauty on her dark, thick strands. "I feel the same way," she sighed. "I can't believe break is over. I was in Costa Rica, like, yesterday. I miss it already."
Katherine eyed her friend with jealousy. Tina had skin on the darker side to begin with, just a shade or two tanner than her own, but after coming back from Costa Rica, her skin tone had completely changed. It was so much darker, and it was gorgeous. She was jealous of how much Tina traveled, too. Katherine had never even left the country before, and Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia were the only three states she had ever been to.
She was about to respond to her friend when she noticed someone walking in the classroom. Oh, no, she thought. Here we go...
She eyed the famous 10th grade couple, Josh and Charlotte, with complete annoyance. But also with jealousy, just as she had when she glared at Tina. She wasn't annoyed by them because they were mean. In fact, they were both nice, and made a very cute couple. It was the fact that she had developed a pretty healthy crush was what annoyed her. She was annoyed with herself by letting this crush grow into something so much bigger than she ever expected.
Josh wasn't the one she was crushing on.
Jealousy continued to creep in through her stomach. Katherine watched as they said goodbye and Josh, after moving his hands through his short, brown hair, walked away. Charlotte's dark-blonde hair reflected the sunlight as she moved to the closest open seat. Katherine loved her hair. It was such an interesting color, really dark at the roots but turning into the color of honey as it reached the tips. She sighed, putting her head in her hand as her eyes traced Charlotte's every move.
Tina raised an eyebrow as she looked at Katherine. "Why are you making a face like that?" asked Tina.
Katherine looked away quickly, hey eyes filled with panic. "...Uhhh..." was all she could manage to say. She could feel her cheeks getting warm with embarrassment.
Tina's eyes widened. "Wait, I know that look!" she exclaimed. She moved over quickly towards Katherine, jamming herself into the seat with her. "It's a universal look. Everyone does it. You totally have a crush on someone!"
"Shhh! Could you be any louder, Tina?" she asked sarcastically.
Tina grinned. "Tell me," she demanded. "Who is it, Katie?"
Katherine rolled her eyes. "I told you not to call me that," she muttered.
Tina ignored her remark. "Is it Rodger? I saw you talking to him yesterday. Ooh, no, wait! It's Alec, right? He's soooo cute, I wouldn't blame you."
She glared at her incredibly tan and annoying friend. Although she loved her, Tina could sometimes babble. "No, no, no, it's not any of them. And Rodger's my partner for math, I had to talk to him."
"But the guy you like is in our grade, right?"
"Yeah," Katherine replied, clearing her throat awkwardly. She was starting to get nervous- what if she told her friend the truth and Tina hated her afterward? After all, she wasn't sure if her friend was cool with the whole 'girls liking girls' thing. Tina and her family were pretty religious, too. In fact, most of the kids at their school were religious. She decided she would lie, and tell her it was some guy, just to be safe. But she was going to keep Tina guessing, so she could choose the perfect lie, the one that made the most sense.
"Keep guessing, if you really want to know," said Katherine.
Tina groaned. "But, there's like 150 guys in our grade! Can't you just tell me?"
Katherine shrugged. "Only way you'll find out is by guessing."
"Okay, fine," she said reluctantly, and Tina began guessing.
"Patrick?" No. "Rob?" No. "Hunter?" No. "Ash?" No. "Cooper?" No. "Reed?" Definitely no. "Tucker?" Who even is that? "Sam?" No. "Richard?" Ew! Tina! Never! "Gus?" Never heard of him. "Peter?" No. "Forrest? Xavier? Harold? Danny? Misha? Liam? Gregg? Jared S.? Jared K.? Grover? Toby? Dean? Zack? Tiger? Charlie?"
Damn, she thought. She's spitting these names out like fire! And some of these people I've never even heard of! There's a guy in our grade named Xavier? And since when did we have two Jared's in our grade?
None of them seemed right or believable enough for Katherine to say yes, and she was becoming even more nervous. What if they went through every boy in their grade and said no to each one? What would Tina do? But finally, the right one came. She knew it the second she heard it.
"Josh?" Tina asked doubtfully.
At first, Katherine said nothing. She watched as her friend's dark eyes filled with shock. She leaned in closer. "Josh?!" she repeated. Katherine remained silent. Tina smacked her friend on the arm with the back of her hand.
"KATIE!" she murmured with incredible intensity as Katherine rubbed her now sore arm. "You cannot like Josh. Period. He is as off-limits as off-limits can get. He's dating Charlotte."
Katherine gave her an 'I know, I'm not an idiot' look just before their curly-haired teacher finally walked in. "Sorry I'm late, guys," she said to the class. "But I was just talking to Principal Sutter and lost track of time." She then looked at Katherine. "Oh, Katherine? He says he needs to talk to you now. He said it's really urgent and you're allowed to be excused from class while you meet with him."
The whole class 'oohed' like she was about to get expelled or something. Tina looked at her and mouthed, 'What did you do?' Katherine shrugged, gathered her stuff, and walked out of the classroom, worry filling her stomach.
She was completely unaware of Charlotte watching every movement Katherine made as she left the classroom.
-Principal Sutter's office-
"Miss Katherine..." said Principal Sutter as he sunk down into his chair. "I am afraid I have some terribly bad news. Your father called me to tell me the news, and he says he would be here for you to hear it but he is very busy with work."
More like he's busy with Jack Daniels, she though, but decided not to say that in front of her principal. "What kind of bad news?"
He sighed. "You are fairly new to Ohio, yes?"
Katherine nodded. "Moved from Pennsylvania a couple years ago. Why?"
"Your father told me of a good friend you had there. Addison, is it?"
Katherine's stomach dropped. Her friendly face suddenly was replaced with a worried one. "I think you mean Alison," she said, her voice wavering. Why would her dad talk to her principal about Alison?
"Yes, of course," he said. "Alison. My apologies."
"What's wrong?" she asked frantically. "She's okay, right?"
Principal Sutter looked down and sighed, breaking the weak eye contact they had before. "Katherine, I'm afraid not."
She could feel her heart racing so fast she though it was going to explode. Her hand were trembling slightly. "Wh-What?" she stuttered.
He picked up a newspaper from his desk. "This paper was from about a month ago. Your dad wanted me to show it to you," he said, his voice soft and gentle. He handed it to her, and Katherine took it from his hands, hesitant. She unfolded it.
She could practically feel her heart, and lungs, shattering into a billion pieces.
It was a local Rosewood paper, the Rosewood Observer. The date on it was October 2nd. And on the very front page was a gigantic picture of her incredible friend Alison. She could feel the tears rushing out of her eyes as she read the giant letters above the photo, bold and in all caps.
STILL MISSING
"No..." she heard herself say.
"She went missing a month before this paper was printed, on September 1st. Police searched and searched before and after this paper was published, and put flyers up all over town. No lead, no sign of her anywhere. Until yesterday."
Katherine looked up from the paper, sniffling. Relief spread throughout her body. "They found her? After two months of her being missing? Is she okay? Of course she's not, she must be a mess! What happened? Where was she? I have to call her, make sure-"
"Katherine." He stopped her babbling mid-sentence. Principal Sutter's eyes were filled with grief. "They didn't find Alison."
She was confused. "But you said they found her yesterday!"
The principal closed his eyes. "Sweetheart, they... They found her body."
No.
Katherine could feel the entire world come to a screeching halt. Once again her heart was pounded, like somebody ripped it out of her chest and smashed it with a hammer a thousand times. She suddenly felt like she was suffocating and her vision went blurry. She felt herself smash her face into her hands. Nausea suddenly hit her, and she felt the sensation of vomit nearing towards her throat.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to punch the wall. Hell, she wanted to jump off a building. She could feel herself sobbing, but it was as if she had no control of herself anymore, like she was just a passenger in her own body. Like all of her actions were subconscious. She could barely hear anything anymore, like her ears had shut out the world as well.
After what felt like an eternity, the voice of a girl brought her back to reality. "Principal Sutter, do you still need..."
It was Charlotte.
She noticed Katherine sobbing and rushed inside. "Oh my god, Katherine, are you okay?" she asked, putting her hand on her shoulder.
"She's dead," was all she could manage to say though sobs. Charlotte looked at the principal, and she could hear him explain. After he explained, the principal left, ordering Charlotte to watch Katherine as he went to go to the bathroom and then make a phone call privately to her father. She felt Charlotte help her stand up and hug her. Katherine felt her warm embrace, and she could feel herself become so weak she could barely stand. She felt herself collapse into her arms, violently shaking.
"Shhh, it's okay," she whispered, stroking Katherine's soft brown hair. She continued to repeat this for several minutes until she calmed down.
But the more and more Charlotte comforted her, the more Katherine could hear her voice turn into Alison's voice, consoling her.
Why did this hurt so much? Yes it was her childhood friend, her best friend, but even that wouldn't feel as awful as this did.
And then she came to a heart-crushing realization.
"I was in love with her."
Great. She had gone and done it. She was so off balance and messed up she had just told Charlotte, whom she didn't really even know but had a huge crush on, that she was in love with Alison.
I was in love with Alison.
It was one of the biggest realizations she had ever made in her entire life.
Thank God, Charlotte didn't seem to mind. She just seemed a bit shocked, but then said, "Katherine, I am so sorry..."
She couldn't bear to cry any longer, but the sobs just kept on coming. Finally, ten minutes after, she managed to stop herself. She walked over to the couch to her right that sat against the wall and sat down, her weak legs buckling. A strong headache throbbed in her forehead. Charlotte came over and sat down next to her, handing her a tissue. After Katherine thanked her and cleaned her face, she inhaled as slowly as she could, trying to calm herself down and forget about the pain. She was well aware of how closely Charlotte was sitting next to her. She felt her soft hand slowly moving from Katherine's shoulder to her neck. Katherine let out a weak moan of pleasure. "That, uh, feels really..." she was momentarily distracted from the amazing feeling of her hand caressing her neck before she murmured, "...good, so good..." She felt stupid after saying that, but Charlotte only smiled.
"Turn towards me," she said. "I'll keep doing it."
Despite the horrible news she had gotten, Charlotte was doing an incredible job of helping her feel a whole lot better and keeping her feeling sane. Without thinking, she turned towards her, now looking her directly into her hazel eyes. She put both of her hands on her neck, then moved them upwards, now gently grazing her jaw. "Like this?" whispered Charlotte, her eyes not breaking contact with her own.
Katherine could barely believe any of this was happening. It was obvious where this was headed. Their faces were so close she could feel her warm breath softly tickling her cheeks.
"Y-yeah," she stuttered quietly. "That feels amazing."
And Charlotte, despite her boyfriend, leaned in and ever so softly pressed her lips against hers.
"Wait, she kissed you? Even though she was dating Josh?" asked Emily.
Hanna rolled her eyes. "Its called cheating, Emily. I can practically see your halo glowing from here."
Emily gave her an annoyed look.
Katherine giggled and nodded. "Yeah. Apparently, she had liked me for a while, but didn't want to tell anyone or do anything about it. Also, she broke up with her boyfriend the next day, so she could be with me, I'm assuming," she said. "I mean, she said he was becoming sort of a jerk anyway and she had started to like him a lot less than she used to. And then we dated, in secret, for two years after that. We broke up when my dad told me we were moving, because, you know, long-distance relationships..."
Spencer whistled. "Two years? Wow. That's pretty good for a high school relationship."
Katherine laughed, then winced at her still painful wound. "Thanks."
Suddenly, Aria jumped from her seat on the couch. "I GOT IT!" she exclaimed, her hazel eyes filled with relief and satisfaction. She looked and pointed at a confused and startled Katherine.
Emily raised an eyebrow. "Aria, what's wrong?" she asked hesitantly.
Aria smiled, still pointing at Katherine. "I finally remember why you look so familiar! I saw you at the park with Alison that one day, years and years ago."
Emily watched as basically every color drained from Katherine's face. "Wh-what?" she said.
"I saw you guys playing in the park once, when I was maybe 5 years old. I didn't really know Alison at the time, but she was in my kindergarten class." She frowned, her eyebrows scrunching together. "But something really weird happened."
Before she could continue her story, they heard a noise. It was the sound of a door opening, then a loud thud, then the door closing again. And that was followed by loud, quick footsteps in the hallway.
Someone else had been put in the basement with them.
