A/N - I just need to take a quick moment to thank you all for sticking with this story despite all of the ups and downs.
Special thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review - especially those who have weighed in on every single chapter. Your feedback means the world to me.
Emily saw the time on her phone before she saw who was calling. It was almost 4:30 in the morning. She rolled over to go back to sleep before the significance of the time hit her. Paige was calling at after one in the morning Pacific time. Emily worried that she was in trouble.
"Paige?"
"Emily!"
"Paige?" Emily prodded for the reason behind Paige's call.
"Emily!"
"Paige, are you drunk?"
"No!" Paige whined, a little too offended and defensive at the question.
"Ugh! Paige, you're clearly drunk! Why are you calling me at one in the morning?"
"I miss you!" Paige whined. She was drunk, and, in her inebriated state, the guard shielding her emotions was down.
Paige knew that Emily would ignore her call if she called at a reasonable time. Her only hope, she reasoned, was to call Emily after hours, and hope that Emily would pick up because she was worried that something had happened. But she didn't want Emily to get mad at her when she found out that there was no crisis, so she decided to get really drunk and play it off as a drunk-dial.
She was planning to be a jovial drunk and remind Emily of all the fun times that they had together. Maybe, then, they could start talking again. But she hadn't accounted for the fact that alcohol worked like a truth serum on her, and, before she knew it, she was spilling her guts. "I'm out here by myself, and I miss all of my friends, and I don't want to make any new friends, and the person who means the most to me in the world won't even talk to me anymore!"
Emily could hear that Paige was doing her best not to cry, and it was making her feel like crying herself. "I'm sorry, Paige! I'm sorry! I miss you, too!"
"Well, why did you stop taking my calls?"
Emily almost told Paige the real reason: That it was just too hard to talk to Paige, because talking to Paige led to wanting Paige, and wanting Paige led to a dead end. Almost. But she was the sober one, still able to keep a lock on her true feelings. "I'm sorry. I've just been… going through some – stuff."
"But why can't you talk to me about it?" Paige whined. "I can listen!"
"I know that you can, Paige. It's just…"
"Oh, okay." Paige was fuming, the alcohol acting like a magnifying glass for her every emotion. "You have your other friends. I get it."
"Paige…" Emily's voice was pleading.
"Okay, so I should go, now," Paige said. She somehow managed to stop herself before she added, "Have a nice life." Instead, she went with, "I'll talk to you, sometime."
"Paige?" Emily held the phone away from her face and saw that the call had ended. Shit, she thought. I really fucked that up.
In her apartment in San Francisco, Paige was kicking herself for stupidly having tried to do fix things when she was drunk.
Shit, she thought. I really fucked that up.
Emily hit the redial button on her phone, but she canceled the call before it had a chance to go through. She couldn't fix things with Paige while Paige was in that condition. She would have to call when Paige was sober, and when they both were rested. But she would have to do it soon, before the fissure between them widened. The only problem was that she had no idea what she could possibly say.
She decided to sleep. Maybe some brilliant idea – or miraculous burst of courage – would come to her when she was fully rested and alert.
Before she put her phone away, she texted Paige, typing and deleting several times before she came up with the wording that she was after.
[Paige- We should talk. deleted]
[Paige- I'm sorry. deleted]
Paige- You are my [best friend. deleted] BEST FRIEND. And I should have taken your calls. I'm so sorry. [that I hurt you. deleted] [Let's talk when we're both awake. deleted] Can we talk when we're both awake? And sober. :) [I miss you. deleted] I miss you.
Emily's mind was racing. She needed someone to talk her down, but it was too late (or too early) to walk down the hall to her mother's room or to call Aria. She could call Hanna at any hour of the day or night, but that conversation would take too long, and she really needed to get some rest if she hoped to be at her best for her eventual call to Paige.
Besides, she remembered, she wasn't really talking to Aria and Hanna anymore.
Emily was never so grateful for the discipline that she had developed as a swimmer in high school. She had learned how to calm her mind the night before an important meet, so that she was able to get some sleep despite the fact that her thoughts were all over the place. She needed every trick in her arsenal to calm herself and get a couple more hours of sleep that morning before she had to wake up and go to work.
Work was horrible. Emily had never encountered so many inconsiderate and downright rude customers. She must have been giving off some kind of vibe.
This was not the emotional state that she wanted to be in for her talk with Paige. She went straight to her room and stretched out for a nap before the call.
She woke up and took a couple of calming breaths before she called Paige at precisely 9:30 - 6:30 in California. If Paige was still holding to her Saturday schedule from Rosewood, she would have finished dinner and settled in to read and relax for a bit.
Emily was nervous, not only about what she was going to say, but also because Paige had, apparently, been too hungover, too tired, too busy, or to angry to have texted her back. Maybe Paige didn't even remember the call.
But Emily had texted that she would call, so she called.
Emily was surprised when Paige picked up on the first ring: No playing it cool, no making her sweat.
"I'm sorry," Paige said, by way of greeting.
"I guess we both are," Emily said in reply.
"I should never have called you in that condition."
"Can we just start over?" Emily asked.
"Sure," Paige said, and let it drop. Emily realized that she was going to have to start. That was fair. She was the one who had broken off communication, and she was the one who had asked to talk.
"So, the reason that I've been so withdrawn lately is that I've been thinking a lot… about… Samara."
"Oh. I see." Paige wasn't surprised.
"I've been thinking about, maybe, getting back together with her, and I knew what all my friends would say, and I just couldn't handle all the confusion."
"Okay." Paige's response was flat. Emily was frustrated. She wanted Paige to tell her what a stupid idea it was. She wanted her to say that she deserved better. She wanted Paige to say anything other than just, "Okay."
The fact was that Paige had a lot to say, but, since Emily had said that she didn't want her friends to confuse her, Paige held her tongue.
"So, what did you decide?" Paige finally asked.
"I decided that I was stupid to shut my friends out." Paige inhaled once, then another time, as though she were about to speak. When Emily realized that Paige wasn't going to say anything, she continued. "So, I'm asking you, Paige. What do you think?"
"Well," Paige said, slowly and deliberately, "I mean, I never really knew much about your relationship. I'm willing to listen, though."
Oh, great, Emily thought. The last thing that she wanted to do was rehash her relationship with Samara. Especially with Paige. She was cursing herself for the choice of Samara as the excuse for having stopped talking to her friends.
"So, first of all, why did you two break up?"
She wasn't you, Emily wished she could say. Actually, she wished that she didn't have to say it, but, since Paige wasn't picking up on that fact, Emily found herself flailing around for words. "It was just… I mean, I just…" Emily kept sighing as she tried to figure out how to sum it up. "We just didn't fit, you know?"
"Uh huh."
"I mean – say, you had an apartment that you had kind of outgrown." Emily had compared her relationship with Samara to an old car, and now she was comparing it to a lousy apartment. That had to say something about why they should never even have been together in the first place. Emily kept going. "But everything you own was in that apartment, and moving is such a pain, so you just keep renewing the lease from year to year, until finally, you realize…"
"You'd be better off homeless?"
"Ouch," Emily winced. She wasn't expecting a response from Paige, and certainly not a response as caustic as that.
"Sorry – I'm sorry," Paige said. "I should really think before I speak."
Emily laughed it off. "Let's just say, you'd be better off moving back in with your parents. Only, that has its frustrations, too. And you just start to wonder – I just started to wonder – like, maybe that old apartment wasn't so bad after all."
Paige nodded into her phone. "Well, has Samara changed?"
"What do you mean?"
"It just seems, to me, that, if you go back to the same apartment, you're just exchanging one set of frustrations for another. Unless something has changed in the apartment."
"I don't know, Paige. I just wish that you were…" Emily caught herself before she said, "available." But she had to come up with something else before things got too awkward. "My girlfriend?" – no, that would be even worse. "Here," she finally settled on, to get something out there before the buzzer. She chuckled nervously, and Paige chuckled nervously in reply. "And, why aren't you here?" she added melodramatically, just to drive home the point that she was only kidding.
"I know, right?" Paige replied, feeling more comfortable playing the statement off as a joke. But, she added soberly, "There's certainly nothing keeping me here."
"Oh, yeah!" Emily seized the opportunity to get the subject off of her and Samara. And, maybe, to figure out whether or not Paige wanted to come back to Rosewood. "We haven't talked about your internship! How's it going? Last I heard, they loved you, McCullers!"
Paige laughed. "Well, fortunately, they still do. I guess. I mean, if the job were all that mattered, it'd be an easy decision, but…"
"But?"
"There's a lot more to life than work, you know?"
"Yeah. I know."
"I really miss what I had in Rosewood, to be honest."
"So, why don't you come back? We're all still here!" Emily's tone was enthusiastic. She was relieved that her words hadn't come out as desperate.
"It's complicated."
"Hmm." Emily tried to keep the attitude out of her scoff. "Well," she said cheerfully, "If you ever need a listening ear or a biased opinion…"
Paige chuckled. "I think you mean an unbiased opinion."
"Paige," Emily said softly, "You know what I mean."
"Yeah." Paige cleared her throat. "So, listen," she said, in a tone that meant good-bye, and Emily almost screamed. Don't you dare rush off the phone after I just told you twice that I want you to come back to me! But Paige plodded on. "I should probably get going."
Emily let out a long sigh. As annoyed as she was that Paige was deliberately leaving her in suspense, she managed to make the sigh sound whiny, not angry. It was more like the sigh of a child who wanted another five minutes of TV before she had to go to bed.
"It was great talking with you again, Emily. Really. I really missed this."
"I did, too, Paige."
"We'll talk soon, okay?"
"Yeah, we will."
It was almost exactly 45 minutes later that Paige's phone rang again, this time announcing a call from Hanna. "Hello?" Paige said tentatively, not sure what mood Hanna would be in.
"Hey, Cali girl!" Hanna oozed.
Paige chuckled, now relaxed. "So how's my favorite blonde?"
"Stunning! And how are things in the Sunshine State?"
"The Golden State," Paige corrected. "Florida is the Sunshine State."
"Whatever," Hanna said, and kept going. "So, thank you. For getting Emily to talk to us again."
"My pleasure," Paige said, "Although, to be honest, she would have contacted you, anyway. She just needed time to process things, you know. About Samara."
"What about Samara?"
"You know, she's thinking of giving it another go." Paige's statement was met with silence. "With Samara," she added, uncomfortable over the silence.
"Uh, no!"
"She didn't tell you?"
"Paigey. Emily is not thinking about getting back together with Samara. And if she told you that…" Hanna stifled a gasp when the light went on. "If she told you that, it was just because she wanted you to fight for her."
"Hanna," Paige said condescendingly, "Don't be ridiculous."
"Paige." Hanna's tone was stern. "We're not going to argue about who's Emily's best friend, whatever she may have told you in that little text. But we both know that, at least right now, I know a hell of a lot more than you do about how Emily thinks. And there's only one reason that she would tell you that she's thinking about getting back with Samara."
"And that's because..."
"Yes, it's because." Paige was stunned into silence. "I'm just saying, Paige. Don't mess her around. She's very vulnerable, right now."
"Hanna, I would never."
"Well, don't. She said that you were the one who talked about coming back to Rosewood. And, if you were just saying that, then you tell her that you were just saying it. If you're serious, then take your time and think it over. But don't let her think that you might come back to her if you're…"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I never said anything about coming back to her."
"Paige," Hanna pleaded, "Whatever you said, that's what she heard. And that's what you meant, isn't it?"
Paige sighed. "Yes," she said, meekly.
"Don't play games with me," Hanna said. "Or her. Or yourself."
"Okay, Hanna. Do you want to know what I think? Yes, I would love to start something with Emily. I've felt that since the first time that I saw her. But I held back once I found out that she was in a relationship. And now that she's single, if I make a try for her, she's going to think that I'm being manipulative."
"Manipulative?"
"Yeah. I told her that she shouldn't get back together with Samara…"
"Paige." Hanna was talking slowly, because Paige was obviously not getting it. "She never wanted to get back together with Samara. She wanted you to tell her that you don't want her to get back together with Samara."
"So you're saying…"
"Yes, I'm saying, Paige!" Hanna couldn't help yelling. She was a little tired of having to fix things between these two idiots.
"Fine, okay? Fine, Hanna." These two phone conversations had left Paige exhausted. "Listen, I should probably get going…"
"Oh yeah. And that's another thing. Never say that to Emily again, okay?"
Paige was stunned at the venom in Hanna's voice. "I… uh… I… okay. I'm sorry."
"Okay. And, Paige?"
"Yeah?"
"Emily's not the only one who cares about you," Hanna said empathetically.
"Thanks, Hanna."
"Do the right thing," Hanna said, adding cheerfully, "Love you, girl!"
Paige needed to process the conversation with Hanna. Emily had obviously called Hanna right after she talked with Paige, and the two of them must have delved into the minutiae of Emily's recent interactions with Paige, since Hanna knew that Emily had called Paige her best friend in that text. Also, there was the fact that Hanna scolded Paige for the way that she had ended the phone call with Emily. However hard Paige found it to believe what Hanna had to say about why Emily brought Samara up, it was harder for her to disregard the harshness in Hanna's tone when she warned Paige not to do that again. Emily had obviously been hurt by it, and not just best-friend hurt. This was something deeper.
Emily smiled when she heard her phone ring, assuming that Hanna was calling her back, since they had just hung up not five minutes earlier. When she saw that it was Paige, she collapsed onto her bed, defeated. Hanna had just rebuilt Emily's fragile ego after round one with Paige. Emily wasn't solid enough yet to face round two.
Before she picked up the phone, she reached for the box of tissues that she had only just put away, after ending the call with Hanna. "Hello?" she said weakly, ready just to give up and take whatever Paige had to say to her.
"Hi, Emily," Paige said, and she jumped right in to the reason for the call. "So, listen. I know that you offered to talk it through with me, but I've made my decision. I'm coming back to Rosewood."