Author's Note: Whoa, it just decided to change fonts. Anyway, I've been dealing with a lot of bull at school. I am looking forward to your words of encouragement. If you guys have a question, please either PM me or go to my ask. I feel like you guys are my friends. Let's break this weird barrier of author/reader and let's just be friends. My Ask username is CassieClifford (not my real name). Even if you don't have an ask, you can ask me a question. And if you do have one, I will be glad to ask you lovely readers questions as well. Note: if you go to my ask, don't really be surprised if you see some hate. For some reason, which I cannot imagine, people at my school don't like me (that was sarcasm). So, if you ever need someone to rant to, I am here, my lovely friends. PM me, I will be glad to respond. I just feel like after twenty-five chapters, we've moved past this phase of just me being your go-to girl when you're looking for a quick read. I will also happily be your go-to girl when the going gets rough. I've seen a lot in fourteen years, and anything you may want to share will never leave my lips (and even if it did...nobody knows who you are. What harm could it possibly do?)

Anyway, in this chapter, Analeigh is absent (I am warning you in advance). You also get to see some Toby drama, and this chapter kind of leads into the next one, which I am in the midst of writing. I am going to take a shot in the dark and guess that chapter 26 will be up by about Friday or Saturday, but I'm not making any promises (since I don't like making promises I can't keep).

Chapter Twenty-Five

Toby touched the bloody scratch on his arm. He winced as he put hydrogen peroxide on the gash.

"Toby!" Emily called from his living room. She walked in on him in the bathroom and saw the giant gash. "Oh my God! What happened to you?" she inquired worriedly.

Toby scoffed. "Nicole happened."

Emily didn't look surprised. She looked anxious. "What did she do this time?" she asked.

Toby sighed. "She knew that I went to find a girl named Analeigh. So of course, she thought I was—"

"—cheating," Emily finished for him.

"Yeah."

"Toby. Can't you see that you deserve so much more than her? You need someone who is going to respect you and trust you," Emily explained sadly.

"Don't go there again, Emily," he said sharply. "I know that you and Hanna and everybody else want me to get back together with Spencer."

"What if it works?" she inquired.

"What if it doesn't?" he fired back.

"Isn't love taking that risk? Love is putting yourself on the line to the point where you know you might get hurt. Love is not caring about pretenses and the past; it's only thinking about the future. And I know for a fact that you loved Spencer," Emily claimed.

"So what if I did? That's in the past. It's done and has been for fourteen years," Toby insisted.

Emily shook her head. "It's not over. I know that you still love her. I can see the pain in your eyes when you look at her or think of her, Toby. And I know she feels the same about you."

Those words lingered in the air as Emily closed the bathroom door.

"I've always wanted to go to Paris! Tell me about it!" Dianna exclaimed as Aria picked up a strawberry.

"Well, the Eiffel Tower is gorgeous at night. The clothes are to die for, and the food is amazing," Aria explained.

Hanna walked into the room to find Dianna and Aria talking. She rubbed her sleepy blue eyes and yawned in drowsiness. "What are you guys doing here?" She sleepily poured herself a cup of coffee and pulled out the half-and-half. "It's way too early," she added.

"You texted me and told me to be here at eleven," Aria informed her.

"Oh, shit. It's eleven already?"

Dianna and Aria nodded, and Hanna glanced over at the clock. Sure enough, the time was 11:07. Hanna shrugged and drank her coffee.

"So what were you girls planning today?" Hanna asked as she raised her Work with me, people cup up to her lips.

Dianna looked at her expectantly. "You're the one who called us here," she reminded Hanna.

"Oh…right." Hanna touched the cup gingerly with her fingers after setting it down. "I knew that."

Aria rolled her eyes. "No, you didn't, Han."

Spencer looked like she just rolled out of bed as she walked out of her own bedroom.

"Hey, Spence," Aria greeted her eagerly. Spencer mumbled something incomprehensible in response.

She sat down next to Aria and Hanna passed her a coffee cup. Spencer drank it black. It didn't faze her at all.

"What? You're not going to add in some liquor for an extra kick?" Aria asked innocently.

Spencer was too groggy to respond, but Hanna shot Aria a death glare. Aria backed off, not wanting to question it.

"What? You didn't invite Analeigh over?" Spencer asked.

Hanna opened her mouth to speak, but Dianna cut her off. "She's not in town. She went with her friend to New York for the long weekend."

Spencer nodded. Of course, she is.

"So…what do you want to do today? I have cuticles that are in serious need of some TLC. And then I need to catch up on some reading in something that isn't in French," Aria informed them.

Hanna made a face. "You had me going until you said 'reading'," she winced.

"I'll come with you. Mostly for the reading, though. I finished 'The Catcher in the Rye' yesterday and now I'm really bored," Spencer said.

"I could use something to read after 'To Kill a Mockingbird'…" Dianna agreed.

Hanna scoffed, "When did I get stuck with a bunch of book worms? I need Analeigh here. Like, now."

Toby came into the living room, where Emily seemed to be waiting for him with a steaming cup of coffee. He sat down wordlessly.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Emily asked as Toby raised the cup to his lips.

He took a sip before answering. "What is there to talk about, Em? She got jealous and lashed out," he answered.

Emily sighed. "You're unhappy. As your best friend, I can't stand to see you unhappy. I want nothing but joy for you. You're one of the best people that I know and you deserve it."

"I know you want to see me with Spencer, but the past is the past. I've moved on. And despite your protests, I'm sure she has, too," he answered.

"But she hasn't!"

Toby cut her off right there. "Emily, I'm engaged. I don't want to be rekindling things from the past. I want to get married and have children."

"What about those you already have?" she asked cleverly.

He paused. How can he just forget about Analeigh and Dianna? They were as much his children as his possible future children would be. "Analeigh and Dianna are great, but they don't have a place for me now. They're practically adults. They don't need me and Spencer anymore," he insisted.

"Please just tell me that you're open to communicating with them."

Toby nodded.

Emily looked at the floor for a moment. She faced Toby again. "Have you told Nicole yet? About Spencer, Dianna, and Analeigh?"

"We got into a big fight the other day—"

"Separate from the one yesterday?" she interrupted.

Toby nodded again.

He continued: "—and this time it was about Spencer. She was furious. I had told her about Spencer when we met, but she didn't think that Spencer would ever come back. But now that she has, I guess Nicole just thinks that Spencer is—"

"Competition?" Emily offered.

"I guess you could say that. But she got pissed off. And I know that you're going to say that it's because we don't work together; I'm really tired of hearing it, Emily. I'm tired of hearing this from you, from my family, and nearly everyone else that I encounter. I love you, but I also love Nicole," Toby announced.

Emily bit her lips out of nerves. "Doesn't that tell you something if it's all of us who hate her?" Emily murmured.

It was the last straw. "I think you should leave, Emily," he informed her.

Numbly, Emily got up and obeyed his wishes. She bitterly slammed the door closed.

Toby jumped at the loud noise.

Dianna looked down at her newly painted baby blue nails. They were cute. But something just felt fake about this moment. She looked back at her mother and Hanna laughing at something as the Vietnamese women painting their nails glared at them, then turned to the other to curse at them in Vietnamese.

Dianna smiled at the thought of having a bond with her birth mother, which she seemed to be forging. If Alison had told her that this would have happened two months ago, she would have laughed in her face.

"Where to next?" Aria's voice asked from behind Dianna.

Dianna jumped, startled, and turned to face the brunette.

"Sorry for scaring you. Sometimes people completely look over me and they just get scared when I talk," Aria added.

Dianna laughed. "I wouldn't know. I have tall genes," she said.

"Lucky you! Your mother is five-seven and your father is about a foot taller than me," she quipped.

Dianna laughed again. "Like I said—tall genes."

Aria changed the subject. "So, what great classic are you planning to read next?" she inquired.

Dianna considered the question for a minute. "I don't know. I was thinking about getting the book Lolita. I'm not sure why…even though I lived through the abuse, I find it pretty intriguing what goes through the mind of the attacker," she admitted. "But I haven't been able to find it anywhere. It's not sold in a lot of book stores because of the content. In a lot of countries, it's banned," she added.

Aria nodded. "I see. Lucky for you, Spencer and I know this great little hole-in-the-wall book store. I passed it yesterday, and I am well aware that their specialty is classics and banned books. That store was the only way that I was able to read 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. My mother wouldn't let me read it because it had the n-word," Aria informed her.

"It sounds great. If we can get Hanna in there…"

"Oh, don't worry about Hanna. There's also this hole-in-the-wall jewelry store right in between the book store and this coffee shop. That block used to be one of my favorite places in Rosewood. Espresso, emeralds, and Ernest Hemmingway within a single block; what could be better?"

Dianna nodded in agreement. She looked over her shoulder at Hanna and Spencer, who were both staring intently at their nails. Hanna was probably bitching to the woman painting her nails, who was rolling her eyes and likely murmuring Vietnamese curses.

"Let's get them and go," Aria suggested.

"Whoa. You'd better slow down, Pretty Eyes. You're going to wake up with a wicked hangover in the morning," the bartender informed Toby as she took the shot glass away from him.

"Rough day?" she asked.

Toby looked up at the woman. She had reddish-blond hair. Even in his incoherent state, he found her eyes quite interesting—one was a dull gray while the other was a brilliant green.

"How did you know?" Toby slurred.

The bartender smiled. "I've seen a lot of people at this bar. Seldom anyone ever comes in the middle of the week unless they're an alcoholic or they've had a rough day. I've been working here for over a year, and I think I would've recognized you as a drunk if I had seen you on the weekdays multiple times," she explained. "Want to tell me about it? I'm all ears. And I won't tell a soul," she promised.

Toby shut his eyes for a moment, thinking about it. "Sure."

Before he could continue speaking, the woman slid out from behind the counter. She took her keys out of her pocket. "And I make it sort of a policy of mine that I drive the drunk people home when it's around my quitting time," she added.

Toby nodded, too jumbled to really answer.

The woman watched as Toby stirred sugar into his coffee. She had flagged down the waitress to get him a glass of milk. She claimed the milk would dull the effects of alcohol; Toby was sure it was just an old wives' tale.

She waited expectantly for Toby to drink the milk. "Come on," she said finally.

He grimaced at drinking the milk, but followed direction. She smiled. "Okay, now that we've crossed that bridge over troubled water, maybe you can tell me more about why you were getting drunk in a run-down, old bar on a Monday night. Come on, Pretty Eyes. You can't expect me to believe it was the Monday night special. It's a rip off."

Toby thought for a moment. His head was throbbing, but he could create a complete thought, so he figured he was at least kind of sober.

He sighed finally. "Where do I begin?"

So, don't forget about that PM or ask question. Ask me anything! -Kayson