When Emily met Hanna later that morning for their regular Saturday brunch, she had no idea that Hanna had also talked to Paige earlier in the day. Hanna, uncharacteristically, kept the conversation a secret, not wanting to ruin Paige's surprise. She couldn't really hide her excitement, though, so she had to deflect it.
"Why are you so happy?" Emily asked, her tone and her expression implying that none of her friends had the right to be happy when she was still in a funk over Paige.
"Oh, Em," Hanna said, her eyes dancing and her body-language playful. "Last night, Caleb…"
"Oh, God. Please, Hanna." Emily waved her off. "You're not going to dangle your sexcapades in front of me when I'm single and pathetic."
Hanna scrunched her nose. "Sorry, Emily."
"Yeah, you're so not sorry," Emily said, managing to smile.
"And you're not pathetic. Seriously, Em. You could have any girl in this town."
"I've had every girl in this town, Hanna," Emily deadpanned. "And the girl whom I want isn't in this town anymore."
Hanna nodded with a half smile. She was biting her lip to keep from telling Emily the one bit of news that would actually make her feel better.
"Ugh. Look at that," Emily said, pointing out a couple that was making out in the corner. "Everybody's getting some except me."
Hanna grabbed Emily's hand and gave it a squeeze. Suddenly, her eyebrows furrowed and she flipped Emily's hands over. "When was the last time that you had these done?" she asked.
Emily looked down at her claws. "Seriously - why bother?"
"And when was the last time that you went to the gym?"
"Hanna, don't start on me, okay? Please?"
"I'm just saying, Em. Maybe the reason that you feel pathetic is that you're just checking out from everything. You can't let this get to you." Hanna squeezed Emily's hand again, her eyes begging Emily to take her advice.
Emily let out a deep breath. "I'm in mourning, Hanna. Just let me wallow a little while longer."
Hanna nodded. That was fair. And she had a pretty good idea that Emily would get over her wallowing in the next few days. Still, with the way that Emily was, emotionally, mentally and physically, she wasn't in any condition to see Paige. Hanna would have to work on that.
Aria stopped by Emily's house later that afternoon, the girls having decided among themselves that they needed to rally around Emily and her get out of her funk.
Aria sat on Emily's bed with her, leafing through some fashion magazines, occasionally pointing things out to Emily. Other than that, she didn't say much. In a way, it was what Emily needed. She didn't have to hold up her end of a conversation and pretend that things were okay. And Aria's presence always had a calming effect on her. But Emily was still hurting on the inside, and the silence gave her more time to wallow in her pain and to think about missed opportunities.
Aria gave Emily a hug before she left and told her to call her any time of the day or night. Emily thanked her, truly grateful to have such great friends.
Later that evening, Spencer set a mug of coffee down in front of Emily and sat beside her, blowing on her own mug to cool it off. "Well, you look like hell," she pointed out.
Emily was wearing a stained grey sweatshirt, with the collar and the wrists falling off, that looked a couple of sizes too big. She had paired it with some faded maroon sweatpants and flip flops. Her hair was thrown up into a bun that didn't hide the fact that she needed about a gallon of conditioner. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"Thanks, Spencer. I love you, too," Emily said snarkily.
"Do you think that you might be depressed?"
Emily looked into Spencer's eyes, defeated. This wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to be able to forget about everything for a while, not to have to be reminded of how much of a loser she was. "Spencer..." she said weakly. Spencer put her hands up in surrender. They sat silently sipping their coffees until Emily spoke again.
"Did you guys ever talk about me?"
Spencer gave a sympathetic half-smile. "All the time." Emily looked down into her coffee cup sadly. "Emily," Spencer sighed, "I can't betray Paige's trust." Emily nodded. "But it's no secret how she felt about you."
Emily let out a deep breath that sounded as if she were crying. "Why did I let her go to California?"
"Hey," Spencer said, rubbing Emily's shoulder across the table. "That's not the question." Emily raised an eyebrow. "The question is, what are you going to do, now?"
Emily shook her head. She knew what Spencer was going to say: She needed to move on. She and Paige weren't meant to be, so Emily needed to do what Paige had done and make a change, rather than dream about something that would never happen. It may have been rational advice, but Emily wasn't in the mood for rational. "Let's just not talk about it," she sighed.
Spencer nodded and yielded to Emily's wishes. She had been about to tell Emily that she would have to fight for Paige - that it wasn't too late - but she knew that Emily wasn't ready to hear that advice just yet.
"So, did you know that Ethiopian shepherds started drinking coffee when they noticed how crazy their goats became after they ate coffee beans?"
Emily couldn't help laughing. "That's how you came up with to change the subject?"
Out in California, Paige started looking at flights and immediately began having second thoughts. Traveling on short notice like that was expensive. It wasn't the money that made her question making the trip, though. Being able to help get Emily smiling again was worth whatever the cost. It was the gesture itself that had her worried. If Emily knew how much it cost Paige to fly out for the weekend, she might think that Paige were putting pressure on her - making a power play when Emily was in a vulnerable emotional state - which was something that Paige would never do.
And then there was the possibility that Emily would react badly. As much as Paige wanted to believe that Emily's break-up had something to do with the feelings that she thought that she might be picking up on from Emily, if Emily actually did have feelings, then why did she wait until Paige left to break up with Samara? And why hadn't she tried to get Paige to stay in Rosewood? Emily might see Paige's visit as an attempt to force her hand. She would have to tell Paige, in no uncertain terms, that she only saw her as a friend.
Paige sighed. If that happened, at least she would know. At least she could stop fooling herself. She clicked "Book Now." There was no turning back.
Paige was about to get ready for bed when she heard her phone ring. The call was from an unknown number, but the area code was 415, leading Paige to assume that it was a work call. She wondered what she had done wrong, or had failed to do – or what fire she was being called upon to help put out. She steadied herself before she picked up the phone, trying to keep her tone professional, not annoyed or worried. "Hello?"
"Paige?" the voice on the other end practically sang, a bit too enthusiastically.
"This is she," Paige responded, her voice going up at the end, as if in a question, as she wondered what was up.
"This is Dana," said the voice on the other side, as if Paige should know who that was. Dana… Dana, Paige repeated to herself, not wanting to say it out loud and insult the woman.
Oh – Jackie's friend, she realized, just as Dana said, "Jackie's friend?"
"Of course!"
"I hope you don't mind that I got your number from Jackie?"
"No, not at all," Paige replied, still thinking that this was a business call. "What can I do for you?"
"Well," Dana said shyly, "This is a little weird, but I came across a quote, and it made me think of you."
Paige laughed, relieved. "I'm dying to hear it!"
"' What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.' – because, remember you were telling me about your love/hate relationship with pictures? They freeze reality, but they taunt you with the fact that the moment is lost?" Dana was talking too fast, as if to justify having called Paige just to share this stupid quote.
"No, I get it! I get it completely," Paige said, smiling to herself. "That's a great quote. Where did you come across it?"
"Pinterest," Dana admitted meekly. "I mean, I know that I'm supposed to say that I was studying French philosophers or something, but… Pinterest," she repeated.
Paige laughed. "Well, that's the great thing about the internet! Let some other dumb bastard do the research!"
"Exactly," Dana said, with a weak laugh.
"So," Paige said, breaking the awkward silence that followed.
"So," Dana responded rapidly, sensing that she was about to get ushered off of the phone call. "How's the internship going?" Those were the only two topics that she had prepared in advance. She hoped that the question was enough to keep the conversation going.
"It's going well," Paige replied, because that's what people are supposed to say. "I guess?" she backtracked. "I actually thought, when I saw your number, that it was work calling, because I had royally screwed something up."
"Oh, Paige," Dana oozed, "They all love you there. At least, that's what Jackie tells me!"
When Paige realized that she was still standing up, her body-language still guarded from her fear at what the phone call had been about, she sank down onto her bed, sitting with one leg crossed over, in half of the lotus position. Her other dangled over the edge of the bed. She hadn't really given two thoughts about Dana before, but she couldn't deny that she was enjoying talking with her.
If Paige were to describe Dana in one word, that word would be "cute." She had dark hair that cascaded in tight, plentiful curls on either side of her round cheeks – cheeks that effortlessly curled into a smile that extended right up to the bottom of the black, rectangular frames of her glasses. Her body was soft and curvy, the kind that was perfect for cuddling up against. She struck Paige as being overly shy, perhaps with a bit of low self-esteem. Paige realized that it must have taken a lot of psyching up for her to have made the phone call in the first place.
But, once they got going, the conversation flowed freely and easily. Paige found herself lying on her back on the bed after a while, playing with her hair – stretching strand after strand as far as it would go and letting it fall back down onto the mattress. Before she realized it, Dana was apologizing for having kept her on the phone for so long.
"Paige, I hope that I didn't take you away from anything tonight! I had no idea that we had been talking for so long," she said in an adorably apologetic voice.
"No worries," Paige said amiably. "I have an unlimited talk plan!"
Dana laughed nervously. The nervousness was for what she was about to say. "So, Paige," she said, hesitantly, as if she was hoping that Paige would just shoot her down and put her out of her misery. "I was wondering…" Don't make me say it, Dana kept thinking. Paige was smiling. She wasn't used to having this effect on people. "I thought, maybe," Dana continued, "you and I could… like, hang out sometime. Next weekend maybe?"
Paige was certain that she heard Dana's breathing stop abruptly. It made what she had to say even harder. "Oh, that sounds great, Dana, but I'm actually going to be out of town next weekend."
Right. Out of town. Dana felt stupid. Why would someone like Paige want to hang out with someone like her? She put on her best cheery voice, trying to save face and make it sound as though it was just a casual suggestion. "Oh, that's fine," she said. "I understand."
"Dana," Paige said sincerely, "I know that it sounds as if I'm blowing you off, but I really am going away this weekend."
"I believe you," Dana said, wishing that the call would just mercifully end.
"I'm going back to Pennsylvania for a long weekend. I actually just got the tickets a couple of hours ago. But I would like to hang out sometime, okay?"
"Yeah, sure. We can hang out sometime. Or whatever."
"Not whatever, Dana, I'm serious."
"Okay," Dana said, laughing lightly.
"Okay. Well, I'm really glad that you called, Dana, and I really enjoyed talking with you."
"I enjoyed it, too." Dana smiled.
"And I'll call you when I get back, okay?"
"Okay! Have a good night, Paige."
Paige let out a deep breath after the call ended. She lay back on her bed, clutching her phone to her chest with both hands. She realized that her heart was beating faster, and she had that squirrely feeling in her stomach. It had been a while since she had felt like this, and she couldn't deny that she was enjoying the feeling.
She almost wished that Dana had called before she had booked her airline tickets. She could have explained to Hanna that the tickets were too expensive, and Emily would never have known that Paige had actually been serious about flying out to see her. She knew that seeing Emily would just confuse her at a time when there might have been a real possibility of something with Dana. Paige had moved to California to get away – if not from Emily, than from the confusion and frustration that being around Emily inevitably caused. Going back to Rosewood would just kick-start those feelings all over again.
But, then, Paige remembered the reason that she was going back. It was about Emily, not about her. She would push her thoughts about Dana to the side for a while. There was no need to bring Dana up around Emily or her friends. Paige remembered how hard it was when she was single, on the outside looking in at Emily and Samara's relationship. Now that Emily had gone through a break-up, the last thing that she needed was to have to hear about whatever might be developing between Paige and Dana.