"I know you want to kiss me." She said teasingly, grinning up at me because she knew, and that knowledge gave her power.
I started to walk up to her, but before I could try and kiss her she turned to grab the snow globe she gave me off the shelf. It was sitting next to the bracelet she had made. This is always what it was like with Alison. Just when I thought I had her, she slipped through my fingers. Like when you go to hold a butterfly, and despite its lazy speed you see it floating away from your closed hand a minute later.
"I love you too, Ali." She looked up at me, surprised by my confession. "I've loved you against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be." I had looked that quote up every now and then over the years, cementing Alison's uncharacteristically sweet words into my skin.
My feelings for Alison had sat like a stone somewhere in my heart, skin and tissue growing over it, creating a knot of unresolved tension. I had to know. I had to know if this could be what I thought it was years ago. If we had a happy ending.
And Alison was here. She was flesh and blood and hot and she was here. And I had to know. She was leaning in now, planting a kiss on my lips.
"I'm scared." She said, so quietly. So brokenly. I tilted her chin up so she would look me in the eyes.
"You don't have to be. I'll protect you."
"You're all I have, Em. The others…"
"Don't worry about them. They will come around. Especially if you are…my girlfriend."
"I've wondered…I mean I'm not sure if I'm…but I want to try. With you. No pressure?" At the time, all I heard was her saying she wanted to try. But thinking back, the rest of the words tasted bitter in my mouth. At the time I just took her hands and assured her.
"No pressure." Even though I wanted pressure. I wanted this to be something real, and not a casual aside till Alison found a guy to settle down with.
Alison was still sleeping when I got upstairs. I threw on my running clothes and got outside. I still didn't know to feel about Paige's confessions and the fact Alison had purposely blocked me from seeing Paige when she finally had reached out.
Part of me understood. She had been trying to protect our relationship. She had always been worried about Paige. But she had taken away my autonomy, and prevented Paige and I from getting closure and possibly being friends again. No wonder Paige was so distant when she had first come back; she assumed I had wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
I ran down to the same trails were I used to go with Paige. We used to race with our swimsuits underneath our shorts, hopping in Paige's pool when we finished. It was hot and I could already feel my skin grow hot and flushed, despite keeping a slow pace since I barely slept.
After a painful few miles, I came around to my street again. I was running past Alison's old house when I saw her dad walking towards his car to leave for work. He was clutching a leather brief case in one hand and a coffee in the other. His suit was light gray and seemed light, but I could imagine it must be hot to wear in the summer heat.
"Emily! How are you?" He smiled and gestured for me to come over. Since he still travelled so often for work, he readily agreed to Alison staying with me. After all the other tragedies in their lives, Alison shacking up with a girlfriend was nothing to him. It was oddly refreshing.
"Good Mr. DiLaurentis. How are you?"
"Not too bad. I've just been busy, meeting with clients outside Rosewood. Listen I know you guys started looking at apartments." I was caught off guard by the sudden way he directed the conversation to a specific topic. I began to feel a little knot of worry in my stomach.
"Yeah we have. Hard though, trying to find something that matches our budget but seems decent." I thought back to some we had looked at despite knowing they were out of our price range. One had a breakfast nook I thought would have been perfect, especially for the rare lazy weekend mornings we had. But Alison had been quick to remind me we couldn't really afford it, with her dad and my parents insisting we earn our own way.
"I'm surprised." He commented, looking generally perplexed. He sat his coffee down on the hood and started to fish his keys out of his pocket as he spoke. "I mean, as far as I'm concerned you don't really have a budget. I'm happy to pay whatever you guys need, and Alison knows that." The knot in my stomach twisted tighter, and my jaw dropped. Maybe I didn't understand right.
"What?" I had to have misheard.
"Don't feel like you have to be embarrassed to get more help from me. Alison's safety is important to me. The money really doesn't matter." He repeated. He had just unlocked his car door, and when he looked at me he must have realized this was news to me. "Emily, are you okay?"
"Yeah…sorry just have to go get ready for work." I jogged away as he said goodbye.
"This is crazy." Spencer finally said, breaking the shocked silence.
"Spencer…" I started to groan in protest, but Aria instantly cut me off.
"No Spencer is right, this is nuts." Aria added, her eyes wide after listening to my story.
"It's a huge insult at the least, and a betrayal at the most." Hanna quietly said, reaching over to touch my knee. We had met at the Brew after my shift ended. We had all gathered around one of the more isolated tables in back.
"And you didn't talk to her?" Spencer asked, taking a sip of her decaffeinated coffee. She had asked for regular, but I wasn't about to supply her with any caffeine for this conversation. She kept eyeing the mug suspiciously even though there was no way she could tell the difference in taste with and without caffeine. Right?
"When I got back from running, she was already gone somewhere for the day. And with how angry I am, I didn't want to text her. I have to talk to her in person." I said, just staring at my drink but not touching it.
"I can't believe you didn't tell us. She's still playing games with you, Ezra was right." Spencer said matter-of-factly, looking me straight in the eyes. Aria and Hanna just looked shocked. I started to tear up. Spencer grabbed my shoulders and squeezed me to her. Aria was sitting on my other side, and touched my knee reassuringly.
"I feel like I screwed up. Like I just went wrong somewhere." I admitted. It had felt awful to think about telling my friends, but now I felt strangely relieved not carrying the weight myself. I surprised myself with how conflicted and emotional I felt. I had desperately wanted things to work with Alison, to believe she was actually committed to being with me.
"You didn't screw up. None of us have it all together." Aria said.
"That's the point of college anyway. And we know how much you love Ali. I think…she can be blinding at times. Like you don't see the full picture of who she is because you are up too close." Hanna fidgeted as she spoke, not seeming to want to look me in the eyes.
"What are you going to do?" Spencer asked in a low, serious tone. I felt the blood rush to my head and mouth grow dry.
"I need to talk to her. If it's true…if she is still playing games about living together and purposely stopped me from seeing Paige last year…" I felt my eyes tear up again, and dabbed them with a napkin Aria handed me. "Guys I'm sorry. I feel like I closed myself off from you. When you have Alison in your life…it's like you don't have room for anybody else."
"Knock it off!" Hanna exclaimed, jarring me from my apology. We all looked at her, not understanding her outburst.
"Again with your remarkable level of tact Hanna." Spencer slowly said. Hanna shrugged her shoulders in a defensive gesture.
"We've all made mistakes Emily. I mean…I'm not saying Ali is a mistake. But even if she wasn't A, she was still shady. We all know it. That is why most of us distanced ourselves. You think she will fall apart if you break up? Wake up. She is Alison, she can live through a nuclear war. She practically has already." Hanna leaned back.
"Is there a cockroach metaphor buried in there? Because that might be too far…" Aria shook her head and tried to refocus her energy. "But I kind of agree with Hanna. Do what you need to do. We want you to be happy. And I don't feel like Alison manipulating you and flirting with guys at bars is making you very happy." Aria finished.
"It has felt a bit like you are Alison's pitbull." Spencer hesitantly added, almost looking fearful when I shot her a look. "You do know about that nickname right?"
"Yes." I rolled my eyes. Even when Alison was at her worst, I was considered her guard dog: a loyal, stubborn companion. Spencer raised her hands in mock surrender.
"I'm just saying she pulls you from us. And we are all a team. We have been for a long time now. That won't change. Ever." I let out a little smirk, before my face tightened in worry again. I knew part of the reason my relationship trouble with Alison was bothering me so much was because I didn't feel like I was living up to my potential in other areas. But that isn't what I needed to tell my best friends about now.
"There's one more thing. I…kissed Paige." Hanna started choking on her drink, and Spencer hurried over to smack her a few times on the back.
"You what? Emily!" Hanna spat out when she regained a breath. Aria just let out a heavy breath.
"I asked you once if you could fix things with Paige. You tried, and you still ended up with Alison. Don't mess around with her again if you don't mean it Em." Spencer's voice had a protective tone in it.
"Wait Spencer; give her a chance to talk before scolding." Aria countered, holding a hand up and motioning for me to elaborate. "Did she reciprocate?"
"Was this before or when she visited you in the middle of the night?" Spencer barked before Aria physically held a finger over Spencer's mouth to shush her. Spencer softened a bit after that.
"Before. We were catching up and decided to go for a swim. I got a cramp…" Aria groaned, Spencer just arched an eyebrow, and Hanna tried to hide her smirk with her hand. "Damn guys I'm being serious! I really did get a bad cramp." I flushed red in embarrassment before continuing.
"Paige grabbed me and pulled me out the water. And it just happened. And I feel terrible. Alison and I had gotten into it a bit before I left to meet Paige, and right after Paige stormed off after kissing me, Alison wrote me a text saying how sorry she was for our fight. So I didn't tell her, thinking it was just a fluke with Paige. A stupid fluke. But I…"
"I wish you would have told us about this first." Spencer growled, her voice low. "You cheated on her, Em. You need to come clean with Alison." Hanna and Aria just made it a point to look intently in their drinks. Hanna looked especially lost in her thoughts. Then she spoke quietly.
"You and Alison are poisonous together. Slow acting and subtle, but over time the insidious parts of your relationship have taken their toll. On both of you." Hanna noticed our shocked faces, and shrugged her shoulders again. "What? Don't look at me like that. We're all in college. I do read and analyze."
"You continue to be a beautiful, contradictive mystery Hanna Marin." Spencer commented.
"It's not cool what you did with Paige, especially if you didn't mean it. Especially since you are with Alison. But I do respect you for being honest. When I thought Toby was A, it nearly shredded me apart to not just tell you guys what I was going through." Spencer confessed.
"I felt terrible when I kissed Ezra while seeing Jake. But if you think, like I did, that person could be the one…you have to fight for it." Aria justified.
"We've all done things we regret. But you have to be honest with Alison. And you deserve honesty from her, even if you don't get it." Hanna said.
"Lies have never gotten any of us anywhere." Spencer thought out loud, biting her lip. Then she sipped her coffee and glanced up at me.
"Is this decaf Emily?" My deer-in-headlights response must have said it all. Spencer got up and marched to the counter, cursing under her breath before requesting a red eye.