It doesn't get any easier, seeing Alison every day in school.
Emily keeps expecting it to, keeps expecting a time to come when seeing Alison walking down the hallways fails to make her feel like she's been punched, like she can barely breathe, but so far it's yet to come and she finds her eyes staring after the blonde long after she's gone by. More than once, Hanna has had to nudge her to get her to tear her gaze away.
The class they share isn't any better. She never seems to be able to concentrate, her eyes always wandering to Alison (Spencer had dragged her to the front of the room, one day, in an attempt to stop her, but Emily had just spent the whole hour tense, fighting the urge to turn her head to see if Alison's eyes were on her, and the next day she and Spencer had been back in their usual seats on the back row), her mind always straying to those dangerous thoughts that are slightly easier to keep at bay when Alison wasn't within her eyeline.
She tries not to think about her too much. It's painful – a deep, visceral pain that is unlike anything Emily's ever felt before. It's different, than what she'd been through when Alison had gone missing and then again when they'd found her 'body' – deeper, more heart-wrenching, and she thinks it's because she's confronted with what she's lost daily, instead of being haunted by only memories.
This is… less permanent. Because she sees Alison at least once every day (but usually much more than that – she seems to see Alison wherever she goes, finds her head turning whenever she sees a flash of blonde hair and it's stupid and pathetic and ridiculous but she doesn't know how to stop, doesn't know how she'll ever be able to let go), is confronted by what she could have had, by maybes and might have beens and she can hardly stand it.
She almost wishes that they could be friends, because it would be better than the clawing worry she feels, on those rare occasions their eyes meet and Emily sees the empty look in Alison's. It would be torture, to spend so much time with her, but she thinks that maybe it would be worth it, to be around her again, because this… whatever they're doing now, skirting around one another, never speaking and pretending the other doesn't exist, it's… it's killing her, one day at a time.
But Alison had asked her to stay away, so she does. Because Emily can't deny her a single thing, not even this, no matter how much it hurts. And it helps, knowing that, even if she spends most of the school day alone (Emily's been told, even though she never asked, that Alison had returned to spending her lunch hours in the library), that the girls haven't just forgotten about her. Hanna sticks with Emily, for the most part (she knows it's because she's worried about her, after seeing how bad she'd been before she and Alison had even gotten together in the first place, and it would be suffocating if it wasn't such a nice distraction from her thoughts), but Spencer sometimes slips away to join Alison in the library and Emily knows that both she and Aria have spent some time with the blonde at her house, too, and she's happy that Alison hasn't lost the other girls as well as her.
She doesn't ask how Alison's doing, even though she burns to know, the question never far from her lips, but she doesn't think that Alison will appreciate her curiosity, not after the pained look on her face when she'd told Emily to stay away, so she never does, and the other girls never offer her the information, either. She wonders, too, if Alison ever talks about her to them, but she never asks that, either. She doesn't think she has much of a right to – not anymore, anyway.
She's standing at her locker, shoving the books she'd needed that morning into it before heading for lunch, when Sydney finds her, a wide smile on her face. She's come on leaps and bounds since Emily had taken the position as coach, and Emily expects a question about the swim meet they have that evening – it's the first time she's swimming competitively, and Emily knows that she's nervous – and is surprised when their conversation takes a different turn.
"Hey!" She says as she pauses at Emily's locker, leaning her shoulder against the one next to hers, her voice laced with excitement. "Have you heard the good news?" Emily just raises a questioning eyebrow, having no idea what she's talking about. "Paige got a scholarship to Stanford."
"Oh my god, seriously?" Emily knew that there had been scouts at their last meet, but she'd had no idea where they were from, or that Paige had been on their radar, and she smiles, a flash of pride sparking through her, and suddenly the way Paige had been pushing herself harder than ever starts to make sense.
"Seriously," Sydney confirms, practically beaming. "And we're changing the party tonight to a congratulatory one for her, so you have to come this time." She hadn't gone to the last one, had met Alison instead of celebrating with the team, and she'd declined the invitation to this one because she was definitely not in the party mood.
"Uh, I'll think about it," she tells Sydney, who pouts but doesn't argue. "Do you know where she is right now?" Sydney nods her head to a classroom down the hall, and it's not too difficult for Emily to recall Paige's schedule, remembering she'd used to have Spanish class in a room down this hallway and nods her thanks to the other swimmer, slamming her locker closed before hitching her bag over her shoulder and wandering down the hall.
A quick glance inside the classroom shows that Paige is still talking to her teacher, so Emily settles back against the wall to wait. When the door opens and the teacher strides past her, she steps inside the doorway, a soft smile crossing her face as Paige's eyes meet her own.
"Stanford, huh?" She asks, watching the way Paige's face lights up in a grin. "Well done, you. I knew you could do it." Paige's face falls a little, then, and Emily remembers a conversation, not too long ago, about decorating dorm rooms, and swallows around the lump that forms in her throat.
"Thanks." Paige's eyes never really meet hers, these days, and Emily knows that she'd hurt her when she left, and she wonders if the pain she feels in her gut whenever she thinks about Alison is anything like what Paige felt whenever she looks at her, and she hates herself a little bit more.
"So early in the year, too."
"Well, they uh, they want me to start there in January." Emily blinks in surprise, and Paige shrugs before she elaborates. "I have enough credits that I can graduate early, and… well, honestly, it'd be kinda good to get out of town."
The 'to get away from you' goes unspoken, but Emily can sense that it's there, has known it for a while, in the way that Paige avoids her whenever physically possible, even managing to steer clear of her at swim practice, for the most part, and Emily doesn't blame her, after everything, but she still… she'd lost a friend, the day she and Paige had gone their separate ways, and the thought of never seeing her again pulls at her heart more than she would have expected.
"Paige, I - "
"Don't," she interrupts with a shake of her head, guessing what Emily's going to say, and when she glances up her gaze is heavy. "You don't need to apologize again, Em. You and me… we never would've worked out with Alison in the picture." Emily flinches at the mention of her name, as she always does lately, and Paige throws her a sympathetic look. "Even if you're not together right now, you'll always be inevitable. Getting away from this place, from all the memories here… it'll be good for me."
"And Stanford's a great school." Her mind flashes back to the last time she'd heard those words, at Thanksgiving where everything in her life had seemed so much easier – she remembers the look of paralyzing fear in Alison's eyes as she'd realised how far away it was, and blinks away the memory.
"It is," Paige continues with a nod, and she throws a searching glance Emily's way. "And who knows," she continues with a sad smile. "Maybe one day you'll join me."
"Maybe," Emily shrugs, lips quirking into a small smile of her own. "Haven't decided yet."
"You should," Paige murmurs as she pulls the strap of her bag over her shoulder and makes to leave the room. "Before spots at all the good schools go. No matter how much you love her, you can't let her hold you back."
It's with those words that Paige leaves her, slipping past and disappearing down the hall before Emily can bring herself to reply. She mulls them over, as she turns and makes her way to meet the other girls in the cafeteria – the reason she's been so lax about college applications is because with A hovering around every corner she wonders if she'll ever be truly allowed to leave this godforsaken town, but then she thinks of Alison's face at Thanksgiving, thinks about leaving her behind (not that that matters so much now, she thinks, bitterly) again, and can barely stand even the thought of it, because it hurts seeing her every single day and having to pretend she's little more than a stranger, but not seeing her again, or going months without her? God, she doesn't know how people do that, doesn't know if she'll be able to do that, but staying here? She doesn't think she can do that, either.
She asks the other girls about it at lunch, but they don't have any answers for her. Graduation seems so impossibly far away, so hard to reach, and Emily barely even knows how any of them have made it through the past couple of years, let alone managed to get decent grades at the same time. Hanna's still thinking about moving to New York to pursue a career in fashion, Spencer's parents still want her to go to UPen but she thinks it'd be interesting to go somewhere abroad, and Aria knows she wants to do something art-related but not where and by the end of their lunch hour Emily is almost regretting asking because they all seem to have some idea of what they want to do, if not where, but Emily doesn't even know that much.
She'd always been so sure that swimming would get her a free pass to the college of her choice, but now? Now her future is shrouded in uncertainty and she doesn't know what to do about it. Spencer sees the panic on her face as they're going their separate ways for their afternoon classes and suggests that she should go to the school counsellor to talk about it, and she thinks that that would probably be a really good idea, nods her thanks before pushing the conversation from her mind, trying to concentrate on her last two classes before heading down to the pool to get the team ready for their meet.
She misses the adrenaline and the rush of competing, but coaching has allowed her to have a little of both, just in a different way. It's a lot more nerve-wracking, watching from the sidelines, knowing that she can do nothing to intervene – and it's a lot worse today, when they're going up against their local rivals.
At their last competition against them, Rosewood had lost, miserably, and Emily has no intentions of letting that happen again. They've been training harder than ever this last week (and her break-up with Alison is partially to blame for that – she'd arranged more training sessions, had pushed the girls for longer, because the thought of going home and being left alone with her thoughts had made her feel sick), and she knows that they're ready, but she can still feel the swirl of butterflies in her stomach as her hand pushes the door to the locker room open.
It'll be another couple of hours before the other school arrives, but there's still a lot of setting up to do, and Emily busies herself with menial tasks while she tries to swallow her nerves. The time passes quicker than she expects, the bleachers around her starting to fill up with students who wanted to grab the best seats (she catches Hanna and Spencer's eye, sat in the front row with Caleb and Toby in tow, and grins, shooting them a quick wave before ducking back inside the locker room to give the girls one last pep talk).
She stands at the side of the pool as the first race begins, cheering her team on along with the rest of the school, her nerves replaced with elation as they win the first, then the second race. She can barely watch the relay, Rosewood in third place as the last swimmer dives into the pool, but Paige is too good, maybe even better than Emily had been, at her best, and they win that, too.
They take home the trophy for best team, winning seven out of nine races as the crowd around them erupts in cheering, and Emily only narrowly avoids being dragged into the pool by her teammates as they leap back into the water to celebrate. She settles for hovering on the edge, an elated smile on her face, riding the high for all it's worth because it's not often she gets to feel this anymore.
She turns her head to see if Hanna, Spencer and the boys are still front and centre, but her eyes catch a glimpse of blonde hair and her breath catches as she recognises the sweater that Alison had been wearing earlier that day, watches her slip quietly out of the room and finds her feet moving without conscious thought, following after Alison like a moth drawn to a flame.
It's quiet, in the hallway outside the pool, the noise of the crowd smothered as the door shuts behind her, and she sees Alison disappearing around a corner and hurries after her – she shouts her name, watches the blonde's back stiffen and knows that she'd heard, but Alison doesn't stop, just quickens her pace and she's nearly at the front doors of the school before Emily catches up to her, wrapping a hand around Alison's wrist and tugging her towards her, hurt that she'd practically tried to run away.
Alison's skin feels like it's burning beneath her fingertips, and she can feel the frantic beating of the blonde's pulse in her wrist, jumping against Emily's thumb like it's trying to escape from her body, and Emily feels her own heart trying to do the same as her eyes meet Alison's for the first time in what feels like forever.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, almost accusingly, because she'd thought that Alison was working tonight, like she was pretty much every other Friday night, and she knows that the blonde hadn't been sat with the other girls, had watched her slink her way down the bleacher steps, all the way from the top row, and she can't comprehend why she would be here on her own, when she'd told Emily to stay away.
"I…" Alison trails off as she searches for an answer, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, shakes her head before she lets it out as a bitter laugh. "I missed your first meet. And I missed the chance the chance to ever see you swim in one… I didn't want to miss seeing you coaching one, too."
Emily feels like she's punched, as she lets the words wash over her – she remembers the guilt on Alison's face when she'd told Emily that she wouldn't be able to make it to her first competition, and Emily had smiled and wiped away Alison's frown with a kiss, told her that there would be a dozen more and thought about the blonde running to her when they won, wrapping in her arms and sharing the victory with her, and now they're here, looking at one another like they're strangers, and Emily wonders if she'll ever be able to look Alison in the eye again without feeling like her soul is shattering into pieces.
"You have no right to be here." Her voice is wooden, and she's unable to deal with the fact that Alison still cares so much, unable to deal with the fact that they aren't strong enough to withstand whatever life throws at them like she'd hoped, and it's so much easier for her to be angry with Alison for leaving her than it is to take it out on the shadowy entity that had put them in this position, that Emily fears they will never unmask.
"You were never supposed to know," Alison replies, her voice a pained whisper, and her eyes are still closed and Emily knows she will see tears shimmering in them when they open.
"That doesn't make it any better," she practically snarls, her earlier joy at their victory just a distant memory, now, as her eyes take in the face of the one person she seems to never be able to escape (and god help her, she doesn't know if she'll ever want to). "You told me to stay away from you, and yet here you are. You're everywhere I fucking turn, Alison, and I can't… I can't look at you without feeling like I'm breaking."
"I'm sorry." Alison sounds tortured, and when her eyes finally open Emily sees so much self-hatred swimming in them that she gasps, her hand tightening its grip on the blonde's wrist. "I never meant to hurt you like this. I didn't… I never should've let myself get involved with you."
Emily's thought a lot about that, recently – on whether or not things would have been better, if she and Alison had never started dating. If they'd never talked about those kisses they'd shared that night in Alison's room, so, so long ago now, if they'd just continued like nothing have ever happened. She's wondered what would have happened if she'd allowed her distrust of Alison to take over, if she'd never given her another chance.
She's thought about all of that, and decided that, if she could do everything all over again, she wouldn't change a goddamn thing, because no matter what she's feeling now, those few weeks of happiness were worth it. The only time she'd ever felt pure, true love, the only time she'd ever been really, truly happy, and even if she never gets to feel that again, she knows she's lucky just to have tasted it, even if it was only for a little while.
"Don't say that." She finds her free hand moving, cupping the side of Alison's face with fingers that tremble whenever she touches her skin. "Because I don't regret a second of it, Ali, and I never will."
"I love you." It's a ragged, whispered exhale and Emily's heart aches at the sound of it, desperate and hurting, and Alison had been so stoic and so strong on that night she'd left Emily but now the façade is crumbling and Emily sees every ounce of Alison's suffering reflected in her eyes and she wishes more than anything that she could be enough to wipe it all away. "And I don't know how to stop."
She wants to tell Alison that she doesn't have to, but she thinks it would be so much easier if they could, if it were that simple, if she could just shut down all of her emotions so that she could breathe a little easier, so that she didn't feel like a part of her was dying every time their eyes met.
She wants to tell Alison that she wishes that she never stops, but that would be selfish, if they can never be together again. But she can't help but think of the last two years, how even though Alison had been gone and Emily was sure that she wasn't coming back, that she's always been there. She'd always been there, in her heart, gone but never forgotten, and Emily knows that Alison will always, always be there, no matter what she does to try and stop it.
"When I figure it out I'll let you know," is what she settles on saying, and Alison's eyes flash with something dark, something Emily wishes she wasn't feeling, and she's hyper-aware of the fact that she's still cradling Alison's cheek, her fingertips still shaking and she can feel the blonde's every exhale on the skin of her wrist and it makes her want to shatter.
"I'm sorry," Alison says again, and Emily shakes her head because it's not her fault, none of this is her fault, and it's not fair because all Emily's ever wanted is this woman, thought she'd never have her, and she'd finally gotten the chance only for it to be snatched away, and it would be so much easier if they were apart because they weren't working but god, they'd been perfect.
"You don't have anything to apologise for." She knows she shouldn't, but Alison is so close that she can feel her breath ghosting across her lips, the closest she's been for days, and she's missed this, missed Alison, missed the feeling of her mouth moving against her own, and it's so, so easy for her to lean down and brush their lips together.
It's barely a kiss, lasts less than a second, but she feels Alison stiffen against her and steels herself for rejection, for Alison to push at her shoulders before tuning and walking away. She's not prepared for the shuddering breath that Alison lets out against Emily's mouth before a hand tangles in the brunette's hair and brings their lips together in a harder, bruising kiss.
Emily feels her self-control shatter, her hand dropping from Alison's wrist to grip at her hip, instead, turning them to press the blonde against the row of lockers at her back, sliding a thigh between her legs and groaning when Alison bucks against her and this is so wrong, this is going to hurt so much more than Alison walking away from her would in the morning but god, she doesn't know how to stop, not when Alison is kissing her like the world will end if they do (and really, for them, it might as well be), her mouth hard and demanding as she parts Emily's lips with her tongue and licks at the back of her teeth, Alison's free hand lifting to palm at one of Emily's breasts through the thin material of her shirt and Emily's eyes roll into the back of her head, her fingers gripping Alison's waist hard enough to bruise.
She tastes salt on her tongue and kisses Alison harder, as though she can take away her sadness with the press of her lips. She groans when teeth close around her bottom lip, nipping at the skin roughly before Alison's tongue soothes the sting, and her hips grind against the thigh that's tucked between her legs and Emily knows that they should stop, that they're in the middle of a hallway in a plain sight, that half the damn school will be walking down any minute now but god, she doesn't know how to, not when Alison's moving against her so desperately, not when she's making those sounds that Emily loves, that send liquid heat straight down to her core.
Emily doesn't think that they ever would have stopped, if not for the sound of a door clattering open somewhere behind them, the sound of a crowd of people surging out from the pool and into the school hallways echoing around them, and for a second Emily is tempted to grip Alison's wrist and drag her into the nearest classroom, to press her against the wall and lose herself in Alison like she had done so many times before.
But then she catches sight of Alison's tear-stained face, the agony she can see etched into her expression, and she knows that she can't. They've already gone too far, tonight – Emily has a hard enough time trying to forget the heat of Alison's mouth and the feeling of her skin beneath her fingertips as it is, without refreshing the memories like this, but she knows that if they're alone together like this again, the same thing will happen.
Because they're drawn together like a moth to a flame, the fire hot enough to burn (Emily is surprised that Alison's fingerprints aren't burnt into her skin, because when she touches her, the heat is smouldering), and she thinks that maybe one day it will destroy them.
She looks at Alison and she can see on the blonde's face that she doesn't have the strength to walk away, not this time. She'd used it all that horrible night, and Emily knows that if she asked, if she took Alison's hand, then she would follow her without protest and it is so, so tempting. So tempting to drown in Alison like she's the drug Emily needs to keep breathing, but she doesn't think that they'd both survive it.
So she takes a deep breath before she leans forward, brushing her lips against Alison's forehead in the ghost of a kiss, and when she opens her mouth to speak, the words are whispered against Alison's skin.
"No matter what happens, I'll never give up on us."
It's the closest thing to a reassurance she can offer, because she's waited three years to be able to call Alison her girlfriend, and even if she has to wait until she's thirty she'll do it – because no matter how much it hurts, she will be in love with Alison DiLaurentis until the day she dies, and she's clinging on to the hope that, though they can't be together right now, it doesn't mean that this is the end.
She feels Alison draw a ragged breath that's little more than a sob, but she can't bear to see it, can't bear to see her cry anymore, so she takes one last second to breathe her in before she forces herself to turn and walk away, not allowing herself to look back because if she does, she knows her resolve will crumble into dust.
In the parking lot, people mill around, still buzzing from the victory, but it's the farthest thing from Emily's mind as she stumbles her way to her car. She drops the keys three times before she manages to unlock it, and her hands tremble as she pulls out of her parking space and begins to make her way home.
She gets halfway down the street before she has to pull over, unable to see through the haze of tears that cloud her eyes, and she doesn't know how long she sits there, wiping away the tears with a sleeve of a jacket that's tinged with the lingering scent of Alison's perfume, her lips still tingling with the memory of Alison's kiss.