Oh my god, over 150 reviews! Thank you once again to everyone who reviewed, I really mean it. I've slowly been getting through thanking everyone individually, because I really do appreciate it when people take the time to review my writing.
Anyway, so as I said at the end of the last chapter, this one is a bit different than usual. I'm not sure what to think of it myself, so please let me know! Thanks for reading.
Hanna is pacing. She can't help it. She's been stressing out about this date all day, not that she's told Emily that. She needs it to go well. If Emily comes back in tears because Alison has hurt her somehow...
"Hanna." Aria is perched on Hanna's bed, and is looking at her with a soft smile. "Stop stressing."
"I'm not stressing," Hanna answers. Spencer and Aria exchange a pointed look, and Hanna stops, sighing. "Alright, alright, I am," she admits. "It's after midnight and they still aren't back. Can you blame me?"
Spencer considers Hanna thoughtfully from her position on the desk chair. "Isn't that a good thing though? It obviously means that they're having a good time."
"Yeah and I think they would be," Aria adds. "That sunflower was so cute."
"I suppose," Hanna allows begrudgingly. She flops down on the bed next to Aria and sighs. "I just need to hear it from Em herself though."
The truth is, Hanna feels invested in this date herself. She'd been the first person that Emily had come out to, after all.
She remembers the way Emily had been in that first week of Junior Year. They'd hung out together as a group every day, but Emily had been strangely distant. More than once she'd noticed Emily staring off into the distance, biting the inside of her cheek like she does when she is worried about something. At first, Hanna hadn't put too much thought into it, figuring that Emily wouldn't want her to make a big deal out of it. But it wasn't until one day at her house, when it was just her and Emily on their own, that she'd realised something was truly wrong. She'd been in the middle of telling Emily about her crush on Sean, when she'd looked up to see Emily's eyes filled with tears.
"Emily," she'd gasped, feeling sick to her stomach. "What's wrong?"
Emily just shook her head, gazing up at the roof. "Nothing, I'm fine," she'd tried to say, but she'd choked on a sob halfway through her sentence. Hanna had grabbed Emily gently by the shoulders and steered her towards the couch, sitting her down.
"Don't worry about it," Emily had tried to say, but Hanna wasn't having any of it.
"Em, whatever this is, it's clearly bothering you. So I am going to worry about it," she'd informed her seriously. There was no way she was going to leave Emily to deal with this on her own.
Emily had just nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Em," Hanna said softly, leaning forward and taking Emily's hands in her own. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"I know," Emily whispered, staring down at the floor.
"And you know that whatever this is – no matter what – I'm here for you, right?"
Emily nodded again, taking a couple of deep breaths. She swallowed, clearly gathering her nerve, and after a moment she looked up and met Hanna's eye. Hanna braced herself for Emily's secret, fearing the worst, but she knew that she'd stick by Emily no matter what it was.
"Han," Emily had started, before clearing her throat again. "Hanna…" and by then she was squeezing Hanna's hands so tightly that it had actually hurt. She swallowed one more time, before finally finding the right words. "I'm gay, Hanna," she said quietly.
At this, Hanna felt a huge rush of relief fall over her. She leant forward and engulfed Emily in a huge hug, squeezing her just as tightly as Emily had been holding her hands. "Em, I'm so glad you told me," she whispered.
"What?" Emily had asked, confused, as Hanna pulled back from the hug.
"I'd honestly been worried that you had some sort of terminal illness for a bit there," Hanna admitted. "So I'm pretty happy about you being gay, really."
Emily had laughed at this, shaking her head at Hanna.
"Here," Hanna said, passing Emily a tissue. "Wipe away those tears. They really aren't needed."
Emily laughed again, accepting the tissue with a grateful smile.
"You know this doesn't change anything, don't you?"
Emily nodded, smiling at Hanna. "Yeah. Thanks Hanna."
Thinking back to that day, Hanna can't really blame herself for being so stressed about Emily's date. She can't help but feel protective over Emily. No matter who Emily had gone on a date with, she would have been stressing, but the fact that Emily was dating Alison DiLaurentis, of all people, had made her possibly even more nervous about the date than Emily. She's fairly sure she'd hidden her nervousness from Emily, but from the minute she'd left she'd been frantic.
She sits up with a jolt, her mind racing. "What do you think they ate tonight? What about the car ride, do you think it was awk-"
"Hanna," Spencer interrupts, tossing a pillow in her direction. "Stress less. Seriously."
Hanna catches the pillow and throws it lightly back at Spencer. "I know, I know. I'm sorry."
They're quiet for a moment before Hanna sits up and looks at the sunflower, which is sitting on her desk in a vase. She did have to admit, that was really cute. And she couldn't deny that Ali had looked fairly blown away by Emily when she arrived earlier.
"I'm going to go down stairs and see if they're back yet," Hanna announces after a minute, getting off her bed and heading to the door. She turns around and eyes Spencer and Aria, who consider her for a minute, before standing up themselves.
Hanna turns and goes downstairs, Aria and Spencer in tow. She reaches the front door and peeps out from behind the curtain in a nearby window. And she almost has to suppress a squeal at the sight that greets her.
"They're kissing! They're – "
"Hanna! Don't watch them, for god's sakes."
Hanna ignores Spencer's admonishment. "Oh my god, there's definitely tongue in that!" she shrieks. She's never been this happy about a kiss in her life. And that includes any kisses she's been involved in herself.
"How can you tell from this distance?" Aria inquires, genuinely curious.
Hanna pulls her head back from the curtain just long enough to send Aria a haughty look. "Oh, I can tell, Aria."
Aria nudges Hanna over slightly in order to have a look herself, whilst Spencer rolls her eyes, although Hanna notes with glee that Spencer is grinning. After a moment, both girls jump back from the curtain, looking somewhat sheepish. "Emily may have just seen us," Hanna admits.
"Well you weren't exactly being subtle, what did you expect?" Spencer's dry retort earns her a quick glare from Hanna, who starts peeping again nonetheless. A split second later she flicks the curtain back into place, looking stricken.
"Emily's coming! Quick, go back to my room," she hisses, and the three of them race back up the stairs as silently as possible.
Aria and Spencer settle down into their sleeping bags, whilst Hanna props herself up in bed and picks up a book from her bedside table, flicking onto a random page.
"Way to be obvious Hanna," Spencer remarks sarcastically.
Hanna glances up and sees Spencer looking pointedly towards her book. "What?"
"You don't even read," Spencer points out, before the bedroom door opens and they fall silent.
Hanna draws a breath as Emily enters the room. Even though she saw that kiss, she still needs to hear Emily talk about the date herself. Emily's hair is flying around in about a hundred different directions, she's dressed in a weird tracksuit and she still has that ridiculous welt on her head. But Hanna looks more closely, and if she's not mistaken – and she's very certain that she's not– there's only one word for how Emily looks right now: giddy.
Emily comes in silently, a goofy grin plastered all over her face. She starts rummaging around in her bag looking for a change of clothes, and it's not until Spencer clears her throat that anybody says anything.
"So I take it your date went well then?" she asks innocently.
"Hmm?" is all Emily says in response.
"Your date?" Spencer repeats, grinning at Hanna.
"Oh." Emily glances up at Spencer, blinking a couple of times. "It was great," she says dreamily.
Hanna breathes a sigh of relief, as Aria asks Emily what she did on the date.
"She's amazing," Emily gushes, and the faraway look on her face indicates that she didn't even hear Aria's question. "It was amazing," she continues distantly.
"The kiss sure looked it," Hanna says, finally finding her voice. She's trying to make her tone sound somewhat accusing, but by now she's beaming, and she knows it's coming through in her voice.
Now Emily focuses on Hanna. "You saw that," she says simply, and Hanna is surprised that there is no trace of shame in Emily's voice, that instead she seems almost – Hanna narrows her eyes, looking closely at Emily – proud of being caught.
Hanna shakes her head, grinning stupidly at Emily. She's so proud of Em, really. She's come so far from the days when she was too scared to even tell Aria and Spencer about her being gay.
"Han, I can't do this," Emily had said, clutching at Hanna's hand tightly. It was the day of that sleepover, and they were walking towards Spencer's barn. Hanna had encouraged Emily to tell the others, but she hadn't wanted to pressure her. She knew that Emily would tell them when she was ready.
"It's okay if you're not ready Em," she reassured her.
"No, I want to, it's just..." Emily took a deep breath. "They might kick me out of the barn."
Hanna shook her head vehemently. "They kick you out and I'm coming with you," she'd said without hesitation. Emily smiled sadly, before Hanna continued. "They won't, though. They'll be fine Em, trust me."
"I hope so."
"Em." She stopped, and made sure Emily met her eyes before continuing. "I know so."
And so, later that night, they were gathered around in a circle, chatting and laughing like they always did. Aria was giggling about her crush on Noel Kahn, and again Emily was looking distant from the conversation.
"Everything alright Em?" Spencer had asked, and Hanna had to suppress a smile. The conversation was going to go exactly as it had about a week ago.
Emily looked straight at Hanna, who sent her an encouraging nod. "There's something I need to tell you," she said slowly, directing her words to both Spencer and Aria.
"Em," Aria said, looking concerned. "What is it?
Looking at both Spencer and Aria's faces, Hanna knew that Emily had nothing to worry about.
"I'm gay," she said simply.
And Hanna beamed proudly, as Aria and Spencer both leant forward and wrapped Emily in a huge hug.
"What are you so pleased about?" Emily asked after a minute.
"Because," said Hanna smugly. "I can now officially say I told you so."
And so, for now, she is content to just sit back, relax and enjoy as Emily tells them about her date. And as she listens, she comes up with a plan.
She's a wonderful friend, really. That's what she tells herself as she shuffles into gym class the following Monday, resolving to pay very close attention to one Alison DiLaurentis. She hugs her sweater closer to her body, leaning against the wall of the gym. She's not sure what to expect if she's to be honest.
What she isn't expecting is for Alison to come swanning into class five minutes late, humming a tune that sounds vaguely familiar to Hanna. Alison shrugs off the admonishment of their teacher nonchalantly, and Hanna's surprise is heightened when she realises that Alison is acting in much the same way that Emily had been acting when she got back from the date. They form into teams for volleyball, and rather than boss people around like she had every other time, Alison keeps humming that damn song, and she doesn't seem to care when someone else tells her what to do. It's almost making Hanna feel slightly guilty about her plan, but she feels it's necessary.
It's not until about halfway through the class, when Alison excuses herself for the bathroom, that Hanna sees her chance. She waits a couple of minutes before making up some excuse to leave herself, and then heads straight for the girl's bathroom.
She's about halfway there, when she hears a strange sound of singing. She stops in her tracks. It's that same song that Alison had been humming all through gym, except now it actually has words. She rounds the corner, and is greeted by the sight of Alison DiLaurentis standing at her locker, head bopping, and singing to herself, "Met a girl, cute as can be –"
"I didn't know you were a singer," Hanna says casually.
Alison jumps up in surprise, her books flying out of her locker and crashing down onto the floor.
"Oh, Hanna, hi," she says breathlessly, trying just a fraction too hard to sound casual. Hanna feels a thrill of satisfaction at the fact that Alison's cheeks have turned a flaming shade of red. "I didn't know you were there."
"I figured," Hanna says. Alison is trying to pick her books up off the ground, but she keeps dropping them again, and after a second Hanna sighs, taking pity on her. She bends over and helps Alison pick up her books.
"Thanks Hanna," Alison says gratefully, as Hanna passes them to her.
"No problem," Hanna answers. There's an awkward silence for a couple of seconds before Hanna clears her throat, figuring that it was now or never.
"So," she says. "Alison."
Alison turns to face her, looking at her with the hint of a smile and, Hanna hopes, just a trace of fear.
"Hanna."
She does feel slightly guilty. It's clear to her that Alison does care about Emily. After all, it's not every day that someone like Alison comes to school singing 'Summer Nights'. Still, she has responsibilities. "Emily and I are very close friends." Alison nods. "And she might be the most competitive bitch in the world, but I love her anyway."
A smile, and then another nod. "Very true."
"Right. So I think you'll understand where I'm coming from when I say that I won't be happy if someone were to, you know – " she looks Alison in the eyes – "hurt her."
Alison nods once again, but by now that smile has spread all the way between her cheeks, and Hanna's struggling to think of her next line.
"I was wondering how long I'd be waiting for you to say something like this," Alison says, sounding almost pleased. Hanna feels a pang of disappointment. She'd been hoping to take Alison completely by surprise. "You're a good friend to Emily, Hanna. I mean that," Alison says seriously. She meets Hanna's eyes, and Hanna's starting to wonder when the power in the conversation shifted. "I'm not going to hurt her Hanna."
Having seen something in Alison's eyes that made her sure that she was being completely serious, Hanna nods. Nonetheless, she makes a quick decision to try and turn the regain a bit of control over the conversation.
"Good," she says. "And you won't be a bitch to me in gym ever again?"
At this, Alison's cheeks flush red again. "Hanna, I –"
"Don't worry about it," Hanna cuts her off. And it's true. She'd accepted Alison's apology when she'd said it back in Spencer's barn that night. She'd just enjoyed making Alison squirm a few times, and she'd still wanted Emily to be careful. And now, seeing how positively buoyant – and Spencer would be proud of that word – the both of them are, she's more than happy to leave it in the past where it belongs.
She sticks her hand out to Alison, who accepts it after a second, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Truce?" suggests Hanna.
Alison smiles. "Truce."
They shake on it, before Hanna decides to take things a step further. "One more question," she says casually.
Alison raises her eyebrows. "Yes?"
Hanna claps her on the shoulder. "Want to sit with us at lunch today?"
Alrighty, so a bit of a switch in the perspective there :) I think it provides a bit more insight into Emily and Hanna's friendship, and also to Emily's coming out story. And we also got to see Hanna and Alison interact on their own, which I thought was kind of interesting haha.
Agree or disagree, let me know what you think! I'm particularly interested to see what people think of this chapter. Also, it is 2am on the dot here right now, so I apologize for any errors. Thank you once again for reading :)