Alison is on a mission. She's walking fast and she's searching the school campus desperately for a particular person. When Alison spots the face she's been looking for after almost ten minutes she moves quickly towards her. Alison doesn't have much time so she gently but firmly grabs the dark-haired girl's arm and pulls her away from the three girls she was talking to before she showed up.

"I gotta borrow her," Alison calls to the group of girls after getting questioning looks and some glares from them while dragging their friend away. While walking Alison spots an empty area away from big groups of people and she smiles. After Alison stops at the desired destination, she turns to Emily and runs her hand through her hair.

Alison is nervous now that this moment is actually here but she takes a deep breath and hastily tries to explain to Emily why she took her away from her friends a few minutes ago. "I don't have much time so before you say anything let me get straight to the point. I know we haven't said anything nice to each other for years and this is a bit sudden but can you hold my hand and pretend to be my partner for the next few minutes?"

Even though Emily knows Alison probably doesn't deserve her help she humors her. "Why?" she questions the girl standing across from her simply. Emily can't deny that she's curious to figure out why Alison wants her help because they're relationship to each other is not the kind where you ask each other for such big favours.

Alison looks around the school grounds rapidly. "Cause my ex is coming over here any minute now and I can't be on my own for this so let's just pretend we aren't mortal enemies for a bit, okay?"

Emily still isn't convinced about this idea. Though, after she and Alison stopped being friends over a fight that she honestly can't remember anything about, she's heard a few things about Alison's reputation. One of which being the fact that Alison doesn't really date so the mention of an ex surprises her.

Emily wants to say she doesn't care about what's going on in Alison's personal life but standing in front of the blonde makes her more curious than she thought she'd be. More curious than Emily would allow herself to admit that she's been over the years.

It scares Emily to think that she's still so invested in what happened in Alison's life after all this time. Knowing she and Alison haven't been close in years and they've clearly hurt each other before makes Emily push away the urge to agree to something she thinks is probably a bad idea.

"Who's the ex?" Emily finds herself asking despite telling herself not to ask Alison anymore questions about her personal life.

"Alyssa Clark," Alison answers quickly with a strong distaste clear in her voice. Emily gets the impression that there's no love lost between the two of them.

Emily's eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth hangs slightly agape. She's shocked to say the least. She wasn't expecting to hear a girl's name come out of Alison's mouth and yet it did. A lot must have happened for Alison after they stopped talking. "Your gay?" Emily questions.

Alison rolls her eyes, "I'm going to ignore your shock at my sexuality while also correcting it. I'm not gay. I'm bisexual," Alison answers swiftly without hesitation.

Emily doesn't like Alison's tone but she does her best to move on from that for now. "What do you need me for?" Emily asks while crossing her arms over her chest protectively.

Alison tries to level with Emily. "Look, I know we barely know each other anymore and our experiences with each other since we cut off communication have been pretty awful-."

The last two and a half years they haven't interacted much but like Alison said, when they did interact it wasn't very pleasant. "You could say that again," Emily agrees wholeheartedly.

Emily briefly wonders if the last two years of high school will be like the first two. Ignoring each other and staying out of each other's way as much as humanly possible. Emily isn't too sure if she wants that anymore. She hasn't let herself dwell on it too much so the feeling is a bit new for her.

Alison glares at her and continues from where she left off before Emily interrupted her. "Alyssa was toxic and she broke my heart in a way that I never knew it could be broken. I want to show her that I'm over her and I've moved on from our relationship that never should have happened in the first place."

"Are you over her?" Emily finds herself asking curiously. Boy is she curious today. Emily was perfectly content not talking to Alison before this but now that she's talking to her, she can tell that she's missed this.

Emily got really good at burying her feelings for Alison during the years apart and it's hard not to realize that she wants to know as much about Alison as possible. Alison always seems to suck her back in and this time seems to be no expectation from all the others.

Alison rolls her eyes again at Emily. "Yes!" she exclaims loudly. Too loudly in Emily's opinion. They get strange looks from other people around the school and Emily glares at Alison this time. Alison gives her a sheepish look in return.

"If this is so important to you then why can't you ask one of your friends to help you with this or something?" Emily asks skeptically.

Alison sighs tiredly. "I've already thought about doing that but unfortunately she knows all of my friends are straight. Besides, when she and I were together she always told me I wasn't good enough for someone like you. That I would never find someone to love me because I'm unlovable. She told me that I couldn't do better than her and if I did end up finding someone one day it'd be because they were using me."

Alison needs to focus on getting Emily's help so she pushes the memories of her relationship with Alyssa and all the hurt that it caused to her mental health into the back of her mind. "If you help me, I'll tutor you in French and make sure you keep up your average so you can stay on the swim team."

Emily feels her heart break a little inside her chest at that. She knows Alison isn't perfect by any means but she doesn't like the thought that someone could be heartless enough to tell another person something like that.

She could also really use some extra help when it comes to French but she's just not sure if she's okay with lying. Though, when Emily sees Alyssa only a few feet away she makes her decision by grabbing Alison's hand and interlocking their fingers.

She doesn't know if she's doing it for Alison or if she's doing it to stick it to Alison's awful ex but after what she's heard about her from Alison, she doesn't like this girl one bit. Emily reasons she's okay with lying to this girl because she needs to be knocked down a few pegs. This seems like the perfect opportunity to teach Alison's ex that she can't treat people the way she has.

When Alyssa walks up to them, she practically ignores Alison and focuses her attention on Emily as she speaks. "Hey babe, don't you have any standards? Alison is so late summer. Trust me, I've been there and done that and you're not getting as much from dating her as you think you are."

Alison feels Emily's grip on her left hand tighten slightly and she looks over at the dark-haired girl in concern. Emily doesn't know what comes over her but she feels this strong and overwhelming urge to protect and defend Alison against this girl.

Emily has been through her fair share of heartbreaks and she can't imagine dating someone like this girl. Let alone falling in love with her and then being treated like this after. It must feel awful and it makes her want to make it clear to Alyssa that Alison is in much better hands.

It makes Emily want to push boundaries and make it crystal clear to her that Alison has moved on and is unaffected by her words. Emily knows that both of those things might be untrue but she pushes on regardless because Alyssa doesn't need to know that and Emily wants to wipe the smug smile off Alyssa's face more than anything. People like this make her sick.

"You must not have been treating her right because I get more than enough out of dating Alison." Emily turns to Alison and smiles before smirking at Alyssa. "Alison and I can barely keep our hands to ourselves so I'm surprised you caught us at a time when we weren't making out or looking for a secluded place to have some alone time."

Emily watches Alyssa's face carefully and she sees the moment when the implication of her and Alison needing to find a place for alone time clicks inside Alyssa's head. Alyssa goes from smiling confidently to scowling and Emily can see Alyssa clenching her fist at her side. "I find that very hard to believe. Ali isn't very affectionate in public. She also really dislikes people touching her."

Alison watches from Emily's side as her ex-best friend and her ex-girlfriend go head-to-head in this game that feels a lot like "who knows Ali better." When Alison sees the fire appear in Emily's eyes, she mentally prepares herself for whatever Emily might say.

She's seen Emily's competitive side come out enough times to recognize it when it's happening. Most of the time Alison only sees it when Emily's swimming but occasionally it comes out for other things. Alison never thought she'd be a cause for that strike in Emily. At least not since they stopped being friends.

Emily lifts hers and Alison's link hands up to show Alyssa. "To me, it doesn't look like she hates being touched. Maybe Ali just didn't like being touched by you. When I gravitate towards Ali, she never pushes me away. As for Alison and I needing alone time after the mood strikes, you don't need to believe me but have you ever seen that cute little mermaid tattoo on her right hip? She got that because she loves to watch me swim. I'm her mermaid."

Alyssa's eyes narrow in suspicion at the bold statement, but when she sees the pink colour in Alison's cheeks Alyssa gets the answer to her unvoiced question. She knows it's true because Alison never holds back when it comes to correcting someone and she's very quiet right now.

Emily continues on when Alyssa stays silent because she can't help herself. Now that she's started, she needs to finish strong. "Alison and I will always be connected in a way that nobody else could ever compete with. She'll always love me and I should really thank you because the way you treated her drew her closer to me and now, she doesn't have to deal with another insecure bitch like you."

If Alyssa were a cartoon character, smoke would be coming out of her ears with how mad she is. "Do you know who you're talking to?" Alyssa advances threateningly into Emily's personal space. "I'll destroy you," she adds angrily.

Emily doesn't back down from the challenge. She holds still and doesn't let Alyssa intimidate her one bit. Emily can tell this girl is all talk. She knows she's all bark and no bite.

"Try me," Emily replies as Alyssa huffs in annoyance before just walking off without another word. Emily smiles in satisfaction at seeing right through Alyssa's fake toughness. Emily knew she'd back down first.

Alyssa's very fast pace makes her friends run to catch up to her. Emily uses that time as a distraction to calm down and by the time the girls are out of her line of sight, she's calmed down considerably.

"She'll probably be back," Alison grumbles from beside Emily. The two girls are still holding hands but neither of them seems to take notice of that fact.

Emily rolls her eyes at the thought of Alyssa. "Yeah, I don't doubt that she will," Emily responds evenly.

Emily is still watching the spot Alyssa's retreating form went in and Alison uses the chance to study Emily carefully. When they were friends, Alison always had a way of reading Emily like a book. It seemed the brunette was bad at hiding her feelings from her.

The thought that maybe Emily never tried to hide what she was thinking or feeling from her has crossed Alison's mind a few times but that possibly seemed far-fetched because their mutual friends knew when something was bothering her but couldn't always guess what exactly it was that was upsetting her.

Alison often knew how to tell what was bothering Emily because she liked to think she knew Emily and her body language better than they did. It was in the subtle things Emily did that gave away when she was nervous versus when she was angry. Alison always found herself drawn to Emily and that made her pay closer attention to the way Emily reacted to or did things.

As Alison studies Emily's face she can't help but take notice of the facial features that have grown sharper and stronger than the last time she saw her up close and personal. Emily looks calm on the outside but Alison can feel the fingers of Emily's hand, the one still holding her flexing. It tells Alison that Emily is probably anxious and Alison wants nothing more than to be able to help ease Emily's anxiety.

"Thank you," Alison speaks softly with sincerity.

Emily turns to face her. Emily's brown eyes are searching Alison's face now. Emily takes note of the way Alison's eyes look in the sun of the late afternoon. The small freckles on her neck that weren't there before. "For what?" Emily questions.

Emily's kind of in awe of how beautiful Alison looks at that moment. It's nothing about her physical appearance that catches Emily off guard. It's the fact that when Emily locks eyes with Alison, she can see the softness in them. She can see a speck of the way Alison used to look at her. It's thrilling and overwhelming all at the same time and suddenly Emily's heart is racing too fast for her liking.

Her palm is starting to sweat and she drops Alison's hand so Alison doesn't know just how much the blonde girl still makes her feel. Alison's face falls when Emily drops her hand but it doesn't last long. Alison puts on a fake smile and even Emily can tell that it's a little forced.

Alison takes a shaky breath. "Thank you for helping me with Alyssa. I couldn't have faced her without you beside me."

Emily nods slowly. "You're welcome." Emily looks around and catches her friends waving her over. "I have go but I'll see you around. I have a French test coming up soon so I could use a tutoring session as soon as possible. You have my number, text me when you're free and want to meet up."

She's sad Emily is leaving because she wants Emily to stay and hang out with her longer but she knows she can't force the other girl to stay. "Sure," Alison replies disheartened. Alison tries to cheer herself up with the thought of seeing Emily again to tutor her in French.

Emily waves goodbye to Alison, albeit a bit awkwardly before leaving and heading off towards her friends. Alison surveys her surroundings before deciding to head to the school parking. After finding her car, she gets in and drives home to sort out how she feels about everything that Emily has made her feel in such a short amount of time. She needs to write in her journal and reflect on what this means for moving forward.

She knows that she'll probably be spending more time with Emily in the near future and her head needs to be on straight in order to do that without embarrassing herself over how much she still likes Emily after all this time. She hopes the way she feels for Emily will go away since her chance with Emily, if she ever had one, has come and gone. Alison knows she can't afford to mess anything up with Emily if she wants Emily's help to get Alyssa off her back permanently.

/

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