A/N: Sorry for the long wait between updates! I've gone back to work full time after a couple months off so I've pretty much been working and sleeping this month. I should be back on track with regular chapters pretty soon though.
"Emily, can I have a quick word about your essay?" Paige asked just as the last bell went and the rest of the class scrambled out of their seats. Emily packed her things away slowly, waiting for the other students to leave.
"Extra credit?" Spencer shot her friend a knowing smile as she passed her on the way out the door. Emily just rolled her eyes at her teasing and waited for Paige to finish talking to Mona. The other girl had caught the young teacher by the door and was busy talking her ear off.
"Ok Mona, have a nice weekend." Paige practically pushed her student out of the door before closing it over behind her. Emily took a seat on the older girl's desk as she heard the lock on the door click.
"You wanted to see me, Miss McCullers?" She teased as Paige made her way back over to her. The older girl placed her hands down on the desk on either side of Emily and leant down to claim a kiss from her. It was the first one they had been able to share all day and Paige was in no particular hurry to pull away as Emily's lips eagerly responded and she slipped her arms around her neck, pulling her down closer.
"I did, Miss Fields." Paige smirked. She felt the familiar surge of euphoria that she got from being around her girlfriend. "I wanted to give you this." She reached in to her pocket and pulled out a small silver key.
"Are you sure you're okay with me spending the weekend at your house?" The younger girl asked for the umpteenth time since Paige had suggested it a few days earlier. Paige was due at the airport in less than an hour. She'd been forced in to agreeing to spend the weekend in Texas with her Dad, since he was going public with his intention to run for senator and he wanted her support. They were hardly a conventional family, but Paige took her commitments pretty seriously and couldn't back out of going; no matter how much she wanted to just stay home and spend the weekend with her girlfriend.
"Of course I'm okay with it. One of us might as well be there." Emily's arms were still wrapped around her neck, so Paige couldn't resist going in for another kiss as she tucked the key in to the pocket of the other girl's hoodie. Her hands moved to Emily's bare legs as she let out a frustrated sigh. "What I'm not okay with is you wearing skirts to class. It's far too distracting. I might have to ban them." She chuckled against Emily's lips as her hand ran up her thigh and they carried on kissing.
"We could extend that ban to all my clothes if you stay home this weekend?" The teenager suggested with a wicked grin that had Paige's stomach doing flips.
"I'd love to babe, but my dad will literally kill me if I cancel on him. It's just one weekend, besides, you'll have your friends to keep you company." Hanna and Spencer had agreed to spend the weekend at Paige's house with her, though as far as Emily's parents knew she was staying with Hanna while her gran was visiting and staying in Emily's room.
"It's not the same." Emily pouted. Her wide eyes and full lips set off some kind of switch in Paige's brain and she couldn't help it as she moved her lips to Emily's collar. She was glad she'd locked the door as the other girl arched in to her, exposing more of the soft skin of her throat to Paige's lingering lips. One of her hands slipped between Emily's thighs; she really hadn't been kidding about her skirt being distracting. She'd spent most of last period trying not to openly stare at the teenager's seemingly endless legs.
"Jesus, Em…" Paige sighed softly, completely unable to help herself around the other girl.
"Jesus!" Emily jumped back so abruptly that she almost fell off the end of the desk. Paige reached out to steady her; afraid she'd done something to upset the younger girl. Emily's wide eyes were no longer staring at her teacher though; they went straight past her, to the teenage girl standing by the open door. The colour drained from Paige's cheeks as she turned to find Mona standing watching them.
"Oops! Sorry, I should have knocked!" Mona apologised for her social faux pas, as though she hadn't just walked in on the young teacher with her hand up Emily's skirt. Paige had never felt so flustered as she backed away from her desk, almost knocking in to one of the student's desks behind her. She'd been certain she'd locked the door, but there was Mona standing in her classroom as clear as day.
"Mona, this…it's not what it looks like." Paige spluttered as Emily sheepishly adjusted her skirt and got to her feet.
"We were…" Emily started, but she had nowhere to go after that so she just fell silent.
"Talking about your essay?" Mona suggested with a sly smile as she walked further in to the classroom and let the door shut over behind her. "I'll let you get right back to that, I just forgot my purse. She walked past the mortified couple and picked up her bag from one of the desks near the back of the classroom. Paige wasn't sure what shocked her most, the fact that a student had caught her and Emily making out, or how casual Mona was acting about the whole thing.
"Mona-" She tried to stop her by the door, but the teenager held up the palm of her hand to stop her before she could start babbling.
"Relax Miss M, I was never here! Oh, and FYI, you two are so cute together!" She beamed at the pair of them as Emily and Paige shared blank expressions. "I'm just glad I could help you two get your act together." She beamed proudly, like their relationship was the product of some master plan.
"Help?" Paige frowned, not quite following her.
"Of course silly! Don't think I didn't notice how jealous you looked whenever Emily and I walked in to class together; and lending Em those comics so you'd have something to talk about. Not to mention taking care of Maya for you-"
"What?" Emily snapped angrily, finally breaking free of her stupor. "What did you do, Mona?"
"I did what any good friend would do, Em." The other girl answered, genuinely surprised by her anger.
"Maya was telling the truth. She really was set up…" Emily collapsed back down on the desk behind her, struggling to absorb everything she was hearing. Paige felt a lump the size of a baseball forming in her throat as she watched Emily wrestling with her conscience over her ex-girlfriend.
"Not really. She did have those drugs in her locker to begin with. I just made sure they were back there for when security got an anonymous tip from a concerned student." Mona batted her perfectly curled lashes, looking the picture of innocence.
The girl had crazy eyes. Paige had never noticed it before. She had never really paid any particular attention to the girl; she'd been too caught up with Emily, but Mona Vanderwaal definitely had a hint of madness lurking behind those deceptively pretty eyes of hers. "Why?" Emily demanded.
"Let's face it, Paige here might be a Shark, but she wasn't going to use those drugs she found on Maya to get rid of her. So I did it for her, for both of you." Mona answered matter-of-factly with her hands resting on her hips.
"Why do any of that stuff? What did you care if Paige and I got together?"
"Because we're friends, Emily. You're the only one out of Hanna's little group that actually bothers to be nice to me. I just wanted to do something nice back."
Paige had fallen silent as Emily questioned her deranged friend. To be quite honest she didn't care why Mona had done any of the things she had, part of her was even grateful for them. Had Maya still been around there was a chance she and Emily would never have gotten together; if Emily hadn't gone to that college party trying to get over her ex…
"You were at that party." Realisation dawned on Paige and ice cold anger washed over her, freezing her blood at the prospect of just how far Mona might have pushed her matchmaking activities. "Tell me you weren't responsible for Emily getting in the state she was in." Paige's hands balled in to fists at her sides.
"That was an accident!" Mona protested. She actually looked guilt-ridden about that night.
"You accidentally drugged her?" Paige snarled, no longer grateful for or amused by the teenager's interference. It took Emily a beat longer to figure out what they were talking about, but there was no trace of the anger Paige had expected from her; even as Mona tried to defend her actions.
"No, that part was on purpose. I overheard Mr Fitz inviting you to that faculty diner at Hollis and I figured if Emily was vulnerable and needed help-"
"I found her walking around on the lawn all on her own, with some frat boy trying it on with her!" Paige roared in anger. She had the same short temper as her father, especially when it came to protecting the people she loved.
"That wasn't supposed to happen! I lost her for like five seconds! But, on the bright side, looked how it all turned out! Let's just call it a happy accident?"
Paige took a step forward. She wasn't sure what she planned to do when she got her hands on Mona, but she was hardly thinking rationally as she reached for her. "Paige, stop!" Emily caught hold of her wrist and rubbed the pad of her thumb against the inside of Paige's palm in a bid to calm her down. "Mona's right. It all worked out fine. Thank you." She forced a smile in the other girl's direction. The teenage narcissist lapped up Emily's thanks without questioning her sudden change of heart.
"Glad I could help! Enjoy your weekend!" She waved at the couple before flouncing back out of the room. Paige slammed the door behind her, grateful that the school had emptied out and there was nobody else lurking around the upstairs corridor. She made sure to double check that she had locked the door before turning back to Emily.
"What the hell was that?" She asked incredulously. "I want to rip her head off, and you're just sitting there thanking her like everything's fine!" Paige was aware she was raising her voice, but she couldn't stop herself. She was angry and frustrated and unfortunately taking it out on the wrong person. Emily didn't seem fazed though. She knew Paige's fury wasn't really directed at her.
"Trust me, I want to wring Mona's neck just as much as you do; but just think about it. She did all of that crazy stuff thinking she was helping. Do you really want to get on her bad side?"
"Jesus." Paige sighed and rubbed at her face. "If that's what she does for a friend I'd hate to be her enemy."
"Exactly." Emily slipped down from the desk and moved to wrap her arms around her girlfriend's waist. "Just let it go. I'll talk to Hanna; see if she can keep her on a shorter leash or something."
"I really don't need this, this weekend." Paige huffed as she held the younger girl against her and ran her hands down her back. "Maybe I should stay? I don't like the idea of you being alone."
"I won't be, I've got Hanna and Spencer staying over with me tonight. Besides, your dad will kill you, remember?" Emily stole another kiss before pushing her girlfriend towards the door. "So go catch your flight, have fun, and I'll see you Sunday night."
Despite having been the one to calm Paige down, Emily was still silently seething on the inside at finding out it had been Mona who'd spiked her drink that night at the party. Not to mention the fact that she'd just abandoned her too, letting a barely functioning Emily wander outside on her own. Anything could have happened to her had it been someone other than Paige that had found her. Then there was what she had done to Maya as well. Emily wasn't quite sure what to think of that. It had been the other girl's own fault for having drugs on her at school in the first place, but at the same time Maya had been desperate for Emily to believe she'd been set up; but Emily hadn't wanted to listen.
She waited until she was sitting in her car before she pulled out her phone and dialled a number she hadn't called in quite a while. "Mom?" Maya picked up on the second ring and Emily almost lost her nerve and hung up. She didn't though. Swallowing hard she found the strength to answer.
"Hey, it's me. It's Emily."
The only calls Maya was allowed to take while at True North were the ones from her parents, so the first time Maya had been sent there Hanna had talked Caleb in to messing with Emily's phone so her called ID registered as Maya's mom's cell phone instead of her own.
"Em." Maya sighed down the phone. "It's good to hear your voice. I've missed you." Emily fell silent, feeling a knot forming in the pit of her stomach. What was she supposed to say? That she had missed her ex-girlfriend too? She hadn't. She'd been too pre-occupied by Paige to give the other girl a second thought. Her mounting guilt was one of the only reasons why she had called her.
Emily's answering silence must have spoken volumes, because when Maya spoke again there was a hard edge to her voice. "Why did you call me, Emily?"
"Mona was the one who set you up. She planted the drugs in your locker, not Paige." It felt good to finally know that Paige hadn't played any part in sending Maya away, and to be able to share that news with Maya herself. Emily's elation was short lived though as the other girl picked up on what she had said.
"Paige, huh? Are you fucking her yet?"
It felt like someone had put ice in Emily's veins as she gripped the phone a little tighter and fought to keep the tone of her voice level. "I just thought you should know what Mona did. Goodbye, Maya." She hung up before her ex could come up with any more witty remarks. It wasn't like she would have to worry about Maya telling anyone about her and Paige. Who would believe a girl who was locked away in a juvenile facility for smoking pot at school anyway? She'd done the honourable thing by letting Maya know who had planted the drugs back in her locker. She didn't owe her anything else.
Trying to put her ex and everything else out of her mind, Emily drove home. Her grandmother was flying in from Phoenix that afternoon and would be spending the weekend in Emily's room. Her mom had made it crystal clear that she was to go straight home after school, or else she wouldn't be allowed to spend the weekend sleeping out. She'd have to face dinner with her parents and gran and finish off all of her homework before she could go over to Hanna's. Of course her parents had no idea that she was going to Hanna's to pick the other girl up so they could spend the weekend at Emily's older girlfriend's house while she was out of town. Her mother would probably never let her leave the house again if she found out Emily was dating someone almost five years older than her.
"Emily, is that you honey?" Pam called out as Emily slipped through the front door. She wasn't sure who else her mother was expecting to come walking through the front door at that time of day, but she answered her anyway.
"Yeah mom, it's me. I'm just going to go to study before dinner." The teenager was in no mood for making small talk with her mother while her mind was in such turmoil over what Mona had done to her. She just wanted to slip upstairs and get five minutes to herself before her dad got back from the airport with her gran in tow. Pam Fields had other ideas though as she cut her daughter off at the stairs.
"I thought you could give me a hand with dinner?" She suggested, clearly looking for an excuse to keep Emily downstairs to grill her about her day. She was wearing a plastered on smile, trying to hide the concern that was written all over her face. Something was definitely up and Emily felt her heart sink. She wasn't sure just how much bad news she could take in one day.
"I should really go study mom. I have to get it done before I go over to Hanna's."
"Is Ashley okay with you spending the weekend there again?" Pam's worry lines deepened, a tell-tale sign that she had something playing on her mind. With a barely audible sigh, Emily took her foot down off the first step and turned to face her mother.
"Yeah, she's fine with it. Are you still okay with me going over?"
"I just noticed you've been spending an awful lot of time over at Hanna's lately…" Pam bit her lip, wrestling with what she really wanted to ask her daughter. "Are you two…is Hanna…" Emily waited for her to finish, but the older woman couldn't quite get the words out.
"Is Hanna what?" Realisation quickly dawned on Emily as her mom shifted uncomfortably. "No mom, Hanna's not gay. She's dating Caleb, they're very happy together."
seemed visibly relieved. She had come a long way in accepting her daughter's sexuality in the year or so since she had come out, but part of her was clearly still clinging to the hope that Maya had been a blip and that Emily would go back to dating boys.
"Oh, that's good. Not that there's anything wrong with Hanna, she's a lovely girl."
"She is, but it would be like dating my sister." Emily laughed; glad that the thing that was bothering her mom was so trivial and non-existent. "So can I go finish my homework?"
"Of course. I'll call you down once your gran gets here."
The evening seemed to drag agonizingly slow as Emily did her homework up in her room. Dinner was tedious and seemingly never ending, with her elderly gran asking questions like why had she split up with Ben, who she had considered such a nice young man, and why wasn't she dating anyone else? Emily bit her tongue as she forced forkful after forkful of food in to her mouth, trying to get dinner over and done with as quickly as possible. Part of her understood why her parents had chosen not to tell the old woman about her granddaughter's sexuality, but that didn't mean her questioning wasn't frustrating. Emily felt like shouting out loud that she wasn't actually single. That she was seeing the most amazing girl she had ever met and she was unbelievably happy for it. She kept her silence though and made it through dinner without any spontaneous declarations of undying love.
She got to Hanna's later than she expected, but it was just a relief to be out of her own house. "Hey Em, I'm nearly ready to go. Caleb's leaving soon." Hanna ushered her inside and led her in to the kitchen, where Caleb was finishing what was left of Hanna's dessert.
"Hey." He greeted her in his usual stoic way, with a nod of his head. He was wearing his usual white beanie and plaid shirt with holes in it. Emily had been as shocked as anyone else when Hanna had announced the two of them were dating. To an outsider Caleb Rivers seemed shifty and dangerous, but Hanna and her friends had gotten to know the young drifter well since he'd move to town and Emily knew he had a heart of gold.
"Hey Caleb, sorry I'm stealing your girlfriend for the weekend." Emily teased as she took a seat beside him at the kitchen table. Hanna had disappeared upstairs to finish packing her overnight bag.
Caleb shrugged his broad shoulders, the material of his shirt bunching around them. "No big deal, I'm used to Mona stealing her away all of the time." He joked back. Though he was a teenage boy he was unusually observant and picked up on the way Emily bristled at the mention of Mona's name. "Everything ok?"
"Not really." Emily bit down on her lip and gripped her hands together on the table top. She was sure Hanna had already told him all about her and Paige's relationship, but she was still nervous about talking about it to someone other than her close circle of girl friends.
"Want to talk about it? Just think of me as one of the girls." He offered her an easy smile, practically reading her mind. Emily relaxed a little bit as she slumped back against her chair. She shared what Mona had done to her, supposedly to 'help' her and Paige. Hanna walked in as she was busy explaining and didn't seem very surprised.
"She was just trying to be nice Em; you know, in her own weird way." Hanna was used to defending her friend, but Caleb didn't seem so understanding. He shook his head, his long locks falling in his eyes.
"That girl has a serious screw loose!"
"You're just grumpy because you had that dream about her again." Hanna objected, making Emily raise her brows at the pair.
"I keep having this recurring nightmare where Hanna and I are getting married. Only the morning of the wedding Mona shows at the church in a matching white dress, knocks me out and marries her instead…then they drive off in a yellow impala."
Emily failed to stifle a laugh at Caleb's nightmare. She could hardly blame him for it, Mona could be more than a little intense at times and Hanna was her BFF or whatever. "And he always gets mad with me when he has it." The blonde huffed, shooting him a sharp look across the kitchen as she carried on trying to push her hair straighteners in to her already overstuffed suitcase. Eventually she gave up and just shoved them in to her purse.
"Because you're only response to it when I told you was that you'd never both wear the same dress!" Caleb sulked. Knowing what she did about Mona, she could only imagine what Caleb endured from her on a daily basis.
"Don't worry baby, Mona's not my type. I'd definitely go for more of the sporty type of girl; like Emily." Hanna teased before bending down to kiss his cheek.
"Gee, great." He rolled his eyes at the blonde before rising to his feet and placing his bowl in the sink. "She's all yours Em. Enjoy your Mona Wanderwaal nightmares."
Emily felt much more at ease by the time she left Hanna's house. It felt good to be able to joke around with her friends without worrying about Mona, or Maya, or any of her other troubles. She was looking forward to spending the weekend with her friends, even if Aria had opted out to spend it with Ezra instead. Emily couldn't blame her though. As much as she loved spending time with her friends, she would have much preferred to spend the weekend with Paige. The other girl had promised to call her once her plane landed, so she tried to put her girlfriend out of her mind as she and Hanna drove over to Spencer's to pick her up. Paige had told her to have fun with her friends and Emily was determined to do just that.