Summary: Spencer and Emily acknowledged some of their problems before Emily's birthday, but still didn't really talk. Emily asked Spencer to take her dancing out of Rosewood for her birthday and Spencer realized the surprise party was a bad plan, even though she couldn't cancel it anymore.
"Sorry."
The newest apology murmured into her ear heightened her senses, even more than the sting of the handle against her lower back.
"I'm fine", she throatily assured, liberating her kidney from the extreme pressure of the car door, "don't worry."
Dinner had gone by quietly, eerily smooth inside the restaurant. The candles on the table had projected fancy shadows in the corner where they sat in a perfect representation of the intimacy they still shared with each other. It was the representation of a couple going out for a romantic dinner to a place far enough from home - the tableau of their evasive love. Spencer had chosen a dark corner in a French restaurant in Philadelphia where she used to come with her family, knowing that intimacy would blow out in their faces the minute they drove back to Rosewood and entered the café where people were waiting to energetically shout surprise to Emily before sucking her into a massive whirlwind of care and joy. This moment had been planned for intimacy. For Spencer, it'd been merely transitory, even acted out; besides, she'd kept receiving texts from Hanna informing her of different situations taking place at their destination in Rosewood, the ice was not enough, one loudspeaker was failing and Caleb was trying to fix it, the presents didn't fit in the storage room, a couple of people had arrived early (their dresses were ugly), Aria had brought the chocolate cake but had forgotten her present, Mona had found out about the party and Hanna had had to invite her and then she'd felt obliged to invite Lucas too, and so on. Well, that was Hanna in charge: making decisions but keeping Spencer on board so they could bicker about them later. For Emily, on the contrary, intimacy was true: she was glowing more than the candles. This was, finally, what she wanted, what she'd been waiting for all this time: to get out of Rosewood, to be left alone - together - in this abandoned parking lot outside the restaurant. She was looking stunning. She was looking jaw-dropping, mascara and red lips and a short purple dress Spencer had never seen before, which added a subtly inviting cleavage that was making Spencer feel light-headed and incredibly anxious. However, Spencer had also made a calculated effort to impress and she was wearing her famous navy-blue dress, a tribute to the night of their first kiss and to her indisputably winner legs. Meanings. Tricky meanings, but meanings that were also clear as day. Calls for attention. Hello, these are my legs, tonight I'm going to prove you're staring at them. The burning cheeks on Emily's face, that was the telltale reaction Spencer had been hoping to get. This glow - this perfect light. The same one she saw that first night. It had taken her a long time to decide on an outfit, but finally she'd realized nothing else would affirm itself more perfectly than this dress, even if there were others that could fit better or look sexier, because there was no other dress that could point out what it meant to be with Emily for her.
This was the one.
This was the one dress that could make it.
They were kissing in the parking lot, under the stars, leaning against Spencer's car.
As soon as they'd walked into the night Emily had tugged at her coat and had started to kiss her in a rush. Spencer knew she'd gotten the code right: a lop-sided smirk of inner satisfaction, an instant to savor when she playfully pulled away, feigning the hard-to-get pose before giving herself over to the kiss, Spencer had responded accordingly not only because she'd gotten it right but also because there were thousands of meanings planned for Emily to uncover tonight. The whole night was intended as the miraculous cave of treasures and meanings, of which Emily did not know a thing yet. Spencer had gone for French for the same reason she was wearing this dress: to pay tribute to their first official date. Everything was supposed to have a meaning tonight. There was always a reason for everything that had been planned in detail. Especially after what Emily had done for her birthday Spencer felt obliged to at least double the bet and triple the meaning. She just had to go big, bigger than life, so to speak, as if to fail even more catastrophically. This was Spencer Hastings we were talking about. She had a bit of a habit of keeping score. So when they followed the first series of kisses by stumbling out in a tight embrace towards her SVU and when later her body was thrown against the car door somewhat too vigorously, in true bold-Emily fashion, Spencer saw only a confirmation of everything she'd guessed about Emily during the preceding days. Maybe getting this right could mean that all the other plans would work as well; maybe not. However, the only way to find out consisted in leaving this parking lot for the party, which implied she had to break the kiss off at some point. But still – she'd been savoring this moment for what it was worth. Back against the handle, taking too much pressure on her kidney. A sudden lack of control - dizziness and the loss of time passing by - dizziness and pregnant clouds of rain. She didn't want it to end. She liked it. It was oddly arousing, it was addictive even when it was sort of clumsy and rough. Codes for making out, codes for sex, codes that were abruptly returning to them; body codes; breath on breath, lip to lip, teeth on flesh.
They started to kiss in an outburst of hunger and thirst.
It felt surreal. They'd been talking during dinner, dragging around topics they couldn't really get into, especially on a night like this. Mostly, though, even before stepping out into the parking lot, the restaurant had been a roaring confirmation of the code of making out, because all they'd been able to do besides pretending to maintain a conversation was to eye each other in a yearning that had been postponed for too long. It wasn't only that they'd tried to look as good as they could tonight. They were both dressed to kill, and they both knew why. This was not about dinner. On the contrary, dinner had been going to happen in the parking lot and not inside the restaurant, and the restaurant had been just a set-up for what was to come later, a mere convention, a mere rule of the game, the game that ordered people to follow certain arrangements when it came to romance and dating; but the real dinner (i.e. the kiss) was going on only now between the cars, backs slammed and lips crushing. However, the kiss had never felt so weird before. Try kissing someone you've wanted to kiss for weeks now and that you've come to believe you'll never get the chance to kiss like this in a long time. Try being a camel, behaving like a camel, drinking water and eating food like a camel, Spencer thought to herself, try thinking like a camel who's never going to be allowed to enjoy the pleasure of a real kiss again; then get the starry water in the picture and it turns out she is a camel too. She's not water - she's thirsty too, she wants to drink water too. Emily was camel number two. Basically the following situation is laid out: two people are trying to reach an oasis in a parking lot in Philadelphia right before one has to drive home and offer a party to the other, who doesn't even want that kind of attention, who wants only water and food right now (but that's what you want too, that's why you're wearing this dress, that's why you brought her here to French), no bullshit, no friends, no ex-teammates who will remind her of everything that's making her life miserable instead of a swan, a flower, a star in the summer sky. Yes, so you try that out and you will see the kiss feels weird and rushed, a little surreal at that, as of it's not supposed to happen even though it has been happening exactly like that before you two entered your whole conversion into camels. This kiss belongs to the past, but right now… it's not in the present because the present is hideous, it's not in the future because the future is blurry and confused, yet it is happening right now, this feverish kiss and this rumor of hands that want too much too soon, but you don't exactly know what to make of it. You wonder if it's going to last if you say something, or if it will stop all of a sudden. You know you will have to say something eventually, you know because you are the one who planned the party and there are people waiting for you at home. You wonder if the kiss can happen tomorrow or even later tonight, once you are back there, and the answer is probably not. Probably not. It will never happen at home. Yes, try it. It won't really work out, but you'll enjoy it anyway if you're like me, if you're Spencer Hastings and you've been left without water for too long, if you're Spencer slutting it up after finding out you had never slut it up quite as good before Emily Fields kissed you in your backyard on a spring night, a few months ago, and you changed, and everything else changed around you. You are devoted to this dreamlike kiss but you're also terrified it's going to end, and you're the one who's going to end it when you pick the moment to say, for example, let's go dancing, I forgot my fake ID in Rosewood, let's go inside this café, and other people start popping up, and Paige McCullers starts popping up like a venomous dwarf (only she's also tall). And you're not sure when you will kiss her again. You just don't know. And again you'll be left in the desert - no oasis in sight.
Give it a shot.
Gracefully sliding along the car, Spencer wrapped her arms around Emily's waistline in order to balance the move without having to break the kiss.
Fifteen minutes more.
Fifteen minutes and they'd have to go.
She had the whole thing figured out in her head, she was a breathing, kissing clock and it was tick-tacking.
"We're still kinda rusty", Emily murmured after hearing Spencer was fine, "it's been so long."
Spencer opened her eyes. She felt like she was flying so high she was going to fall with her eyes open, but instead she found Emily's consuming gaze and the sense of throbbing elation got even more intense.
"Rusty?" She cocked her brow, her voice so incredibly husky. "You probably mean clumsy."
"Clumsy, rusty", Emily replied, lowering her hand to Spencer's mistreated lower back and shifting her own body to reposition herself against the car. "It's the same."
Spencer hummed in disagreement, because one thing was rusty and another one was clumsy. "No, it's not."
There was something about the way Emily rolled her eyes that told Spencer she was actually enjoying this particular lecture.
"We're not gonna do homework together until tomorrow, Spencer", she warned, "so just cut me some slack with the definitions tonight."
"This is homework too", Spencer decided, "make-out homework."
Was it?
She leaned to her left in order to plant a kiss on Emily's nose, but Emily moved slightly to receive it with her open mouth and the kiss was again deeper. How did things change so much when they got out of Rosewood's radio of evil influence?
"So it's rusty homework", Emily whispered stubbornly in between kisses, "get it?"
"There's no way homework can get rusty, Em."
"Do you ever turn off your brain?"
Not really.
Well, only sometimes while she was having sex, but there was a lot of homework to do in that area in the present.
Instead of relaxed or disconnected, her brain was pretty much accelerated.
"Is that what you want?", she challenged. "Cause maybe you should go back to hitting my head exactly like you used to."
Like it'd happened at the beginning of their fling.
"I'm gonna hit on your head tomorrow."
Spencer burst out in laughter. That was a good one.
"You got me there."
Emily smirked. "I'm smart even if I can't get straight A's all by myself."
"You know we don't really want you to get straight at anything."
"We?"
Spencer smiled crookedly. "We, you know… I."
"You."
Their teeth crashed in a clang because they both wanted to be first to get to the other's mouth.
"Ouch", Spencer complained, "teeth hitting now."
"Cause we're rusty."
And whose fault was that?
"Tutor me."
"I have to do the tutoring?"
"Tutor me in making out", Spencer clarified, "again."
Emily shot a sly smile.
"You already learned everything there was to know."
"We graduated from make-out school, yay", Spencer smiled back, "so now we probably need a different tutor."
Furrowing, Emily stopped the ever-initiating kiss abruptly, causing Spencer to chuckle evilly.
"No way."
Diagnosis: jealousy.
Given her current situation, Spencer was in need to see that kind of reaction even as a joke.
"So we'll just have to keep trying", Spencer continued to tease, "you know trial and error is important both regarding personal experience and scientific progress."
Also remembering the first surprising moments of their love affair, back when Emily had cockily announced she'd always have an advantage over Spencer in everything that concerned making out with another girl, Emily looked up to the sky in search for the best, most amusing answer, and it seemed like they were dancing an old dance they knew so well and could repeat with different variations, just like the counterpoints of a symphony were two independent lines that taunted and challenged each other in composing a single musical work that exploded with a certain, unique intensity and depth. The story of them. The song of them.
"Trial and error in making out."
Emily chose to repeat Spencer's leading musical line, though.
"That's it."
"It can't be that difficult to get to the point we were a month ago."
Spencer feigned confusion and oblivion. "Where was that?"
"You don't remember?"
"My memory's getting kinda rusty with time, you know."
They were joking but Emily took a deep sigh, indicating she also knew this was slippery, dangerous territory for them.
"Yeah", she said after a second of thinking, "but you know what people say about riding bikes, right?"
Apparently, she'd come up with an amusing idea to add to the tease.
Spencer was curious, so she shook her head.
"What?"
She had an idea, but she wanted to hear.
"It's easy as riding a bike", Emily asserted, her eyes a playful shadow that merged with the night. "Same for making out, kissing and all that."
And all that.
Sex.
Land of forgetfulness.
"Is that supposed to be dirty talk?", Spencer teased further. "Cause I don't totally see where you're going with your bike."
Emily's turn to break into an uncontrollable giggle came now.
"Dirty talk?" Emily breathed out the words while quietly laughing, her warmth on Spencer's cheek. "No."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"Riding bikes", Emily explained, raising her perfectly curvy brows, "you don't forget that, it's easy as riding a bike."
"It's a piece of pie."
"Yeah, that's another one."
Spencer examined the vivid features breathing so close to her.
"So you're saying it should be easy to ride this bike together."
"Yeah."
"The bike of…" She was going to say sex, but then she shyly decided to soften it in view of the recent difficulties to approach that sort of intimacy. "The bike of kissing, although it's gonna take us a little while to… let's say pedal faster."
Emily nodded a little, trying not to laugh harder at Spencer's idea of a dirty talk.
"Something like that."
"And you said you weren't creative with language?"
"Well, it's you who's giving the explanation."
"But you're the one comparing us to bikes."
"No", Emily denied funnily, "well, maybe."
"Maybe?"
Her tone was challenging and Emily picked up on it.
"I'm comparing us to people riding bikes."
"People falling off bikes."
"Rusty bikes."
"Clumsy people."
And who had won this argument about the most orthodox use of adjectives?
"It's my bike", Emily put up a fight, "so I say the bike's rusty."
"It's your bike? Says who?"
Was this really not a dirty talk? And, if it wasn't, what the hell was it?
"You just said it was my bike", Emily defended triumphally, "and I said all about the bike."
"Fine, it's your rusty bike, whatever", Spencer gave up, throwing her left hand up in the air in fake surrender, "I'm losing you here."
"I don't think you can ever lose anything here", Emily smirked joyfully, "or there."
"There?"
"Anywhere."
"You're so optimistic."
"I'm realistic."
"I've lost a couple of things", Spencer dared, "I lost my glasses once… and I lost some hockey games, as well as that hockey stick."
Emily shook her head in mock astonishment. "Tragic."
"Indeed."
"But you'll never lose me here or there."
Oh.
Touché.
Spencer's heart did a flip-flop with a double somersault in the air. If Emily knew the effect the words had on her… Maybe she knew and that was why she spoke them. Maybe she was trying to send a message.
She narrowed her eyes, examining Emily's face in the dark of the night. "You're cute."
A troubled kind of cute, but cute always nonetheless.
Queen of cute.
Cutest ever.
Winner of every cuteness contest.
"Heartbreakingly beautiful", Emily added, separating her face a little to gain a more complete view of Spencer's face, "don't forget that."
How could Spencer ever forget?
Looking back it felt like she'd almost brought it upon herself. Was she breaking her own heart all the time? Could she be doing it just because she used the wrong words to describe Emily, or rather what she felt for her former best friend? But the words weren't wrong. Perhaps they were excessive, but she knew what she meant when she used them. She still believed them. It was this constant feeling of awe at the most recent discovery. All there was to know. A scientist. She'd always been a curious person intrigued by everything real, everything life had to offer. She wasn't only a smart-ass trying to show off her knowledge to her parents, to Melissa, to her teachers and her peers. She wasn't only the Hastings who wanted to kick ass in school. She also wanted to know more about everything. And, with Emily, there was always more. It was like constantly stepping on a foreign planet, but the matter the planet was made of consisted also of her own self, it was merged with herself because there was no way (or at least she hadn't found it) she could think of her own person without thinking of Emily too. So her foreign territory was Emily, but it was also the most familiar one. And they were one. But, sometimes, it terrified her. Not just because Emily was another person who couldn't always be safe from harm. That idea – that she couldn't always protect Emily – as well as the reality associated with it lately was bad enough. Emily had quit the team and Spencer couldn't do much about it except relentlessly chase after A and against the clock. However, there was something else. This feeling of constant awe could get dangerous for someone like her. She didn't know how to deal with it on a regular basis. She didn't know how to keep it under control. And Emily had already been in love (with Alison), but her? This was really her first time. She never had the time or the guts to do it before, nor probably the disposition. Besides, when they were only friends she wasn't being constantly reminded of it because whenever it got too overwhelming she could always focus on something else. It could be Toby or some other guy. It could be her classes (mostly it would be her classes) at least until A had made its stellar appearance. Emily had her girlfriends, and they both would go home and cope with separate interests and lives. To each their own. Sure, they were keeping constant track of each other, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't this urgency, this need, this dangerous feeling that maybe she was going too far; that maybe she was way too in love, if such a thing was possible, because she could always fall deeper and go further, she had no boundaries, for real, and not in the sense other people had always imagined of her as if she were just the whimsical Hastings girl. Once they got to be one, once they turned romantic, once the friendship was acknowledged as love, such as the one she'd read about in books and poems and listened to in songs, such as the one she thought was experimenting with Toby but was really not, no matter how different their musical lines were and how perfectly they counterpointed each other in the single symphony they were (best friends and lovers), Spencer understood there was no previous ground, no treatise, poem or song that would guide her through the good and the bad. It was terrifying because there was no other choice than to live through it and accept the risks; it was terrifying because now she understood that losing Emily meant, somehow, that she'd also lose herself; she couldn't go back and pretend this wasn't supposed to happen, even when there was a time when she felt perplexed that it had happened. She couldn't escape Emily and land in someone else's territory anymore. It was too late. She was too in love. She didn't care about anything else. She couldn't escape Emily and land home. There was no escape. There was no escape from this symphonic planet that they had managed to create. And she liked it. She liked it even when it was not so good.
But that didn't mean she was actually so prone to feel heartbroken, not when it was hurting so much.
"Didn't you totally forbid the use of that word?", she asked, her tone more vehement than usual. "I thought you didn't like it."
Doubt conquered Emily's expression. She was trying but they were definitely rusty.
"Amazingly hot's better, you're right", she conceded, her tone remaining light, "as in I steal your breath away and you feel dismayed whenever you see me."
"Dismayed? You're getting so deep tonight."
Spencer started playing with a lock of black hair in between her fingers.
"Would you like it better if I talked dirty?", Emily challenged now, because the dirty-talk joke had obviously impressed her. "Cause I can just slightly change the words."
Blood slowly crept to Spencer's cheeks at the mere mention of the possibility.
Sudden blows.
Images of real scenarios that merged with her fantasies.
The desert.
The oasis.
Camels in the night.
A foreign planet.
"I think I get it."
"Yeah?"
"You're right", Spencer admitted straightforwardly, "you totally got me."
"Nice", Emily smiled cheekily, but then her smile faded away, "it's just a joke."
Fear.
Emily was also afraid of the heartbreaking-beauty joke and all its possible ramifications. Emily was also afraid of everything that was going on with them.
"I know", Spencer replied, trying to sound reassuring, "so what's with the dirty talk?"
"You wanna hear it?"
Of course she wanted to, for god's sake. But there was no time. She had to cut it off before it got too out of hand.
"Does it have to do with bikes again?"
Emily smiled widely. "Not really."
"I'm so glad."
"I can get better than that."
"Let's get down to it."
They were silent for a long moment before Spencer leaned in for the next kiss, but Emily gently stopped her with her hand.
"It was a joke", she repeated, still worried about the previous tease, "the heartbreaking thing."
No, it was not a joke.
Emily was heartbreakingly beautiful because she'd always be like this, she'd never let it go if she thought she'd said or done something wrong. That was Emily, always worried about doing the right thing. That was Emily - Spencer's planet, Spencer's home. That was the only person in the world who could break Spencer's heart, because it belonged to Emily and no one else could ever own it even if she wanted to believe otherwise.
"I still think you're that kind of beautiful", Spencer whispered, "just for the record."
They kissed again and it lasted for enough minutes to send Spencer's inner clock into alarm mode, because she didn't want to leave, she didn't want to end it, she didn't want a party, and it'd be so good to build a cabin in the parking lot and just stay there and live happily ever after as rusty, clumsy cyclists talking dirty in strange circles of words.
The phone in her coat buzzed.
It was probably Hanna saying they were ready.
She broke the kiss off.
"Who's been texting you all night?", Emily asked, her tone a mix of mockery and real concern. "Do I have competition?"
"Unless you call Hanna and Aria competition, no, you don't." She stole a quick glance to the text (Aria; ready) before deciding to add something cocky. "Although you could use some."
Emily's eyes did widen slightly in surprise.
"Competition? Seriously?"
"So seriously."
"You're kidding."
She looked genuinely concerned, probably because it was the second warning she was receiving tonight along with the tutor-in-making-out one.
"No, I'm totally serious", Spencer wickedly but explicitly teased, "I'm already calling up the contenders for next week."
Emily frowned and Spencer chuckled again, because she knew Emily was asking her for reassurance but a part of her could not help but think Emily could use the warning. A part of her. The part of her who was terrified of losing her and slightly heartbroken about the recent changes they were both going through.
"It's not funny", Emily complained.
Maybe it wasn't.
"Says who?"
"Me."
"You."
"I don't want competition."
"And you don't have it."
They stared into each other's eyes as if they were saying words so terribly important and groundbreaking.
"You sure?"
Ha.
"Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?"
Emily rolled her eyes, as though that was the shallowest thing Spencer had ever said in her whole life: it probably was.
"For your information, I have every morning", Emily answered, her eyes fixed and constant, playful too, "and we both know that's not so important."
"Oh, we do?"
"Apparently you do", Emily fired, "cause you never noticed my amazing hotness before I planted a kiss on your face."
"I did notice it", Spencer teased back although Aria had said they were ready and she should be breaking this off, "but I was used to falling in love with brains, not with looks."
"Thanks", Emily protested, obviously feeling offended, "but I know you well enough to say you were used to falling in love with six-packs, not with brains."
"Six-packs", Spencer hummed in a raspy voice, "that's right, I'd forgotten all about them."
Emily returned a resentful look. "Yeah."
"But you do have a beautiful brain."
"That needs tutoring."
"And beautiful abs."
Another eye-roll. "Not funny."
"And you have a beautiful nose and beautiful eyes", Spencer enumerated, kissing the nose and taking Emily's palm to her lips, "and a beautiful hand and a beautiful heart. Not to mention the beautiful ass too."
"Cut it out, Spencer."
"Yessir", Spencer winked, "anything you want."
Emily separated from her, surprised with Spencer's heartfelt but teasing tone.
"Stop it."
"I love your brain", Spencer assured, "I love your bikes' references."
"Spencer."
"It's true."
"Will you shut up?"
"Your brain's hotter than any six pack, really", Spencer insisted, "and cuter and… you know."
"You don't know what you're saying."
"Trust me, I do know."
"What do you know?"
She touched Emily's forehead to indicate what was inside and then proceeded to stretch on her toes up on her heels so she could put her lips on it too.
"I know there's a lot of dirty talk in there waiting to come out."
Emily finally broke into a smile. "You do want to hear it, right?"
Another kiss flourished in the middle of the parking lot.
It was slow.
So slow the clock thickened inside Spencer's veins, tick-tacking in the distance far away, the loss of every timely reference, although she knew the moment to stop it was coming but she didn't know how to do it and she didn't want to.
Tick-tack.
Emily's hand traveled down to the point where Spencer's dress left way to her thigh.
Tick-tack.
Sex-tacking.
Heat up.
Cleaning up the rust.
Ride this bike.
"Em, it's a parking lot", Spencer mumbled, unwillingly having to stop it, "we can't."
"Let's go in the backseat."
"It's still a parking lot outside a restaurant", Spencer shot the last bullet, "where my parents come all the time."
The mention of the Hastings seemed to do it, although Emily couldn't hide the disappointment.
"Can't we go somewhere else?"
To a party full of people.
To a party with Paige McCullers.
"We're going dancing."
Emily nodded and looked at her watch. "But we still have time…"
"Yeah, let's go."
Those were the words Spencer used to end the kiss, and it was her who killed their dirty-cyclist dream.
It was her.
During the ghostly ride back to Rosewood Emily sat in the passenger's side growing increasingly quiet and looking more and more confused, but when they actually landed in Evil Town she seemed downright puzzled.
Surprise.
Spencer made her best lost-puppy face. "I forgot my fake ID but Aria's got it for me."
"Spencer", Emily protested, "I… Why?"
"I'm sorry", Spencer apologized, "she's got it, it's just… it's gonna take only five minutes."
"It's my birthday."
"I know", Spencer tried again, stabbing her own heart once and again while she parked in front of the Black and White café, "and I'm so sorry."
"How could you forget it?"
"I have a lot on my mind, Em."
The retort was effective, because Emily knew (and felt guilty enough) about that.
"We're not even in Philly anymore."
"But the club's not in Philly", Spencer recited the lame excuse, "it's sort of in between towns."
"And we're gonna dance for how long?", Emily replied, annoyed. "And you don't even wanna…"
She trailed off, unsure of how she should continue. But Spencer knew what Emily meant. She meant bikes. She meant sex.
"Let's go get Aria."
"Could you stop going Team Sparia for at least one night?"
Diagnosis: jealousy.
Spencer didn't know if she should clap her hands about it. Probably not. It was Aria, after all.
"This isn't about Team Sparia."
"Right, but it's about A."
She could see Emily biting back more of her anger.
"It's not about A, Em."
"I don't wanna go there and discuss our latest clues."
"I'm just picking up my ID, Emily."
"I don't wanna see Aria tonight", Emily complained heatedly, leaning further against her seat, but Spencer could see she was immediately regretting her words about Aria. "It's not Aria, I just wanted to see you."
"And I'm here."
"I know."
"Let's go get the ID", she offered, grabbing Emily's hand for encouragement, "we'll be out in five minutes."
Sure.
Emily seemed doubtful - but Emily was too good. Emily always understood. Emily was kind. So she opened the door, apparently resigned to forget about her own perfect birthday idealization that had to take place out of Rosewood and out of their most familiar world, and hopped out of the car without saying another word.
Emily.
Surprise.
They entered the café and there were strange people around them. When Spencer mentioned Aria was probably downstairs, in another floor, she held her breath while Emily followed her steps down in the dark of the staircase, hand in hand.
Blinding light.
Roar of voices.
A massive form advancing as if to close the gap between the plan and the surprise.
Surprise!
Opening her mouth in immediate shock, Emily gasped and turned to Spencer to smile her brightest smile before stepping into the loving people's embrace. She started hugging everybody, and everybody started hugging her.
They parted ways.
Emily was sucked into the crowd of care and joy, pronouncing hello's and thank- you-for-coming's and I-had-no-idea-about-this' to everyone she hugged, and Spencer started greeting people too as she discussed important matters with Hanna, Aria and Caleb. For once, the ice: there was enough. She had to agree with Caleb and not with Hanna on this one. Then there was the storage room, which Hanna and Aria had managed to organize better but that looked like a mess when the task at hand was to select the concrete present that a person was going to hand out. The speakers were apparently working again, but they wouldn't be completely sure until they got on stage. As she solved the last details, walking from one place to another in true hyperdrive mode, saying hello to this person, stopping by to hug this other person, Spencer missed Emily so badly it hurt again. She'd lost her in the crowd. They'd parted ways. This party was about the worst idea she'd ever had relationship-wise, and the only thing she was hoping to get… it wasn't sex, it wasn't real joy (although maybe Emily would feel it after all) but it was a meaning to the whole situation and also a solution to the swim-team conflict between them and A.
Was that all she was hoping to get?
Maybe also sex, at some point.
Maybe also love in the form of verbal communication.
Peeking through the crowd that had stolen her girlfriend, Spencer couldn't catch a glimpse of Emily at first, but after a while she saw a smile flaring like a sparkler in the middle of the night and she knew it was her. She was standing in a group of swimmers, animatedly talking with them.
The plan was working then.
Maybe, maybe.
She was smiling.
Spencer knew Emily well enough to know she was grateful for everybody's presence, but she also knew her well enough to know she was impersonating her sweetest, most presentable self in order to please everybody who had come. Because that was Emily. Because that was Emily's mode of survival. But whatever was inside that head of hers that a while ago had been full of cyclists and dirty invitations to the backseat of the SVU (which she used to hate), Spencer couldn't know now and would have to find out later, if Emily actually decided to speak her mind and open her heart to her. Their last words had been sort of tense. And now she was smiling in the distance. Smiling to a group of swimmers. Smiling to Paige McCullers, who was also in the group with such an admiring look on her face the whole world could see she was melting in front of her girlfriend. Spencer realized she could've destroyed McCullers the other day but she'd lost her chance, and now McCullers was here drooling all over Emily and feeling she had the bitchy-Hastings seal of approval to do so.
Good job, Spencer.
Good job.
A bad sensation gripped the gut of her stomach and she felt nauseous.
Diagnosis: jealousy.
Diagnosis: type-A personality, excessive love of competition, hatred of psychotic individuals who had hurt Emily even if Emily didn't see it that way, envy, greed, lust, love, love, love.
She turned around searching for Hanna's curls, which she spotted in one corner next to Caleb, Lucas and Mona. Hanna had something that could help her straighten herself, so she broke through the ocean of people until she reached the group, greeted Mona and Lucas and sneaked her hand into Hanna's purse.
"What are you doing?", Hanna asked, noticing Spencer's sneakiness. "You want money?"
Spencer rolled her eyes.
"Yes, that's exactly it."
But Hanna knew what she wanted and she grabbed Spencer's wrist, which was already masterfully extracting the vodka flask Hanna usually took to every other place under the excuse of a perpetual cramp pain.
"Spencer", Hanna scolded, "you can't drink, you have a dinner with the Fields tomorrow."
It wasn't so usual that Hanna and Spencer exchanged their roles like this.
"It's just a shot."
They had grown a little distant from the rest of the group, but Mona's bubbly laughter was a clear indication of her attentive presence.
"Way to go", Mona cheered Spencer's insistent move on the flask, which was already out of the purse and on Spencer's hand. "I always thought you were a bookworm but it turns out you're, like, a superwoman lady killer."
"You truly can't imagine."
Spencer's sarcasm managed to sound somewhat nice because right now she hated McCullers, not Mona, and it was McCullers she wanted to kill with her superwoman powers. But, since she couldn't, she gulped down the one vodka shot she wanted inside.
"In one word, Spence", Hanna advised, "Pam Fields."
"Those are two words, Han."
"Pam."
"And that is one."
"That's the sound your head's gonna make against the ground if you keep drinking."
Spencer lifted her index finger. "You're good with metaphors, you should talk to Aria."
"Can't you relax some other way?"
Spencer didn't bother answering. If there were some other way to relax, she'd be using it for sure. But the truth was that she just wanted that sinking feeling out of her stomach.
A tiny hand lacking a body wavered hello in the distance, cornered between different backs and heads.
"Aria."
"Between vodka and Aria", Hanna shouted after her when she was already leaving, "you should definitely go for Aria."
Spencer cut her path to Aria's corner, stealing another glance to the group of swimmers.
There were only three left in the group, including Emily and McCullers.
Emily looked more serious but was still deeply engaged in the conversation with them.
What were they talking about?
Maybe about that Hastings girl Emily used to date approximately forty minutes ago.
Aria suddenly appeared in between the crowd.
"Do you need me to rescue you?", Spencer asked. "Or are you happily crammed like this?"
Elbowing a couple of people to get closer to Spencer, Aria lifted her head in suspicion.
"Why do you smell like Hanna?"
"You mean vodka."
"I mean Hanna's vodka."
"I've been making out with her."
Aria wasn't expecting that, but she didn't buy it. "How much did you take?"
"Pretty much all of her."
"You did not just say that."
"Tell Caleb about it."
Aria smiled widely. "I'll tell Hanna and Emily."
"Oh, you can tell Emily, I don't think she'll mind."
Now Aria frowned. "You're exploding."
"I'm exploding."
"I thought you guys were working things out."
"We were working things out an hour ago, can you believe it?"
"So what happened?"
"This party happened."
"But she's loving it", Aria argued, "and she's not seen the best yet."
"I hate this party."
Aria grabbed Spencer by the arm. "What's going on?"
"I hate the psycho freak."
"Me too, but we're getting close."
"Aria", Spencer called, "for god's sake."
Aria opened her mouth in realization, but only after looking around in search of Emily.
"Okay, yeah, get it."
"Hanna's getting better than you with words, Ar."
"Cut the bullshit, Spencer", Aria warned, "you can't tell me you're jealous of McCullers."
"I'm not jealous."
"Right."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Cause she's been talking to her all the time since we got here!"
"So you're jealous."
"I don't fucking care about her existence."
"You invited her!"
"So what? Let her have it. Maybe she should be the one planning this party and getting on the stage to make a fool of herself."
"Spencer, it's gonna be all right."
"And love will triumph and the good ones will win the war."
"Stop drinking", Aria warned scornfully, "and, seriously, don't blow up this party, Spencer, it's Em's party and we worked too hard to get it right."
Get it right, get it wrong.
Spencer leaned to whisper into Aria's ear. "I won't."
She wasn't drunk, she was just going out of her mind. But she did know about the importance of this party she'd planned with Hanna and Aria, and she wouldn't crack under the pressure of her own heart. She wouldn't crack. She would survive.
Aria's phone beeped.
"Ezra", she informed, picking it up, "hey."
Spencer felt sorry for Ezra, who couldn't get an invitation to the party because it was still too risky for Aria and him to be seen together, especially because, well, it'd be awkward to have him hanging out with his former students. Really awkward. Although she could get used to it. Not to McCullers, though. That was just not her kind of awkward.
She looked around.
McCullers had Emily for herself now.
Congratulations, freak.
You got her.
You'd better put her back on the swim team.
She decided to check on the candles they were going to light later, in another perfect representation of beauty and love that they'd prepared in their global search of meanings, before getting a Coke at the bar.
Maybe they were still talking about her.
Maybe Emily was mentioning some other team she could join.
Maybe tomorrow she should interrogate McCullers again.
It sucked.
She returned to Hanna's side to pour some more vodka on her Coke, and this time Hanna didn't really notice because she was kissing Caleb. At least they were happy.
Someone touched her elbow and said her name.
A guy from the swim team. She didn't remember his name. Brian? He was sort of cute. All swimmers were cute, but she didn't necessarily like them… probably because of Ben. She didn't like Ben ever since he tried to pull that awful move on Emily… Emily again.
Emily again and again and again and again…
Twisting inside of her like a tornado, crashing the waves inside of her like a tsunami.
And there she was still talking to McCullers.
Lady Gaga started singing the song that sounded that night in the car when Emily wisely advised her not to fall in love (but then why?) and that sounded again the night when she said she was going to get her heart broken but that it would be perfectly fine. The night she put her heart on a silver plate for Emily to just feed on it. Was it that night? Or was it later? And who even cared, if not for her, who was obsessed with the timing of things? Then again, it was Emily, it was Emily who had offered her heart also on a silver medal. I want your drama, Gaga sang,the touch of your hand. Yes, that was it. Drama was all she was having lately. Don't fall in love. What did Emily know to tell her so, and what had changed? Memories started collapsing her brain and her heart sunk in her chest and a fire burned in her gut, even if she hadn't really drunk more than two swigs of that crappy Marin vodka.
Caught in a bad romance.
Yes, yes.
It was exactly like that.
She had to bow her head and make a reverence in front of Lady Gaga's utter glitter wisdom.
Somehow Brian asked her and somehow she found herself saying yes, and they ended up dancing together, and she knew what she had to do, and a part of her was wicked enough to find the excuse to do it. She was flirting back with this Brian guy because she wanted some kind of revenge. How sad and lame, right? How bitchy to speak of competition a couple of hours ago and to throw this in her face, but would she even see it, would she even care about it? Of course she would. She was possessive regardless of how many McCullers were talking to her about teams and swimming and who knew what else. Revenge was foolish but also fun, at least in this twisted way she was finding within herself, because she was a good dancer and she knew the effect the right moves could have on the guy. So she gracefully danced: spinning around with an evil sense of discretion, not like a freak, because she just knew the guy would be falling at her feet by the end of it, the firm touch of a hand on her waist indicating the edgy proximity of modern courtship. It'd been months since she'd felt the slightly brusque, decisive grip of a person of the opposite sex and she moved with the music to enjoy this instant of selfish satisfaction. It felt good to be wanted. It felt better to know it'd be pissing her off. Only it didn't feel good at all, anyway.
Logic.
Love, love, love.
When the song was over, she just started to move away.
Brian caught her hand in a rather bold move.
"Hey, another one?"
"That's my girlfriend over there", Spencer cockily replied, disentangling herself from the grip, "so I think this is it for us."
"I know Emily."
"Really? Me too."
The guy laughed. "I've got good intentions, I swear."
Sure, everybody did.
McCullers too.
"Well, you should definitely save them for someone else."
"But you're the best dancer around."
That was quite a compliment and a rather interesting way to try to hit on someone whose girlfriend's birthday he was here to celebrate. She shouldn't have invited this guy. She shouldn't have offered this party.
"Yeah, it's a personal trait of mine."
She turned around, walking away when their eyes finally met for a long moment.
Time stopped.
Emily held her gaze with a concerned, pained expression.
The ground trembled under her feet, a little earthquake shattering everything inside of her.
What was this?
What was going on, and why couldn't she really understand it?
She, of all people?
Emily didn't move a muscle while McCullers' mouth opened to let out more words.
Was this how it was going to be?
Was Emily just going to stand and stare at her in a silent accusation or a plead instead of just moving and talking to her?
It was final.
They had to have a serious conversation after this.
It was enough.
She took her cue and looked away, walking straight to the restroom to check out her make-up when she heard the familiar buzz of her phone.
"Surprise, Spence. How does it feel to know you'll always be second best? – A"
Tightening her grip around the cell, she felt like throwing it against the toilet.
But she didn't.
A was playing this game against them.
A was here, somewhere.
"You're gonna fall soon", she muttered enunciating every word, "you bitch, I promise."
She needed some fresh air, so she opened her way through the crowd to the stairs and out in the street.
The night was still and quiet but cold, and her muscles immediately clenched in response. She started shivering, wanting to cry but holding it back because there was no way she was going to destroy her make-up tonight. She'd done enough wrong already. The best was yet to come. All the hard work, all the meanings and codes, all the presents. All for Emily.
Emily.
For the first time in her life an abyss threatened to swallow her entirely.
Uncertainty.
What to do.
What to do now.
What to think.
She couldn't let A play this game on her anymore, but she needed to have a talk with Emily soon.
Maybe on Tuesday when dinner with the Fields and the real birthday had passed.
She wondered if she could wait two more days.
She was shivering, but she was burning as well.
Cold, heat.
World, me.
"Spencer?"
Jumping, she turned around to find Caleb.
"Hey."
"What are you doing here?"
"I needed some fresh air."
"Hanna told me to go looking for you and tell you Aria needs to start with the candles."
Spencer nodded, trying to collect herself. "I'll be there in a sec."
Instead of going back inside, Caleb took a couple of steps in her direction.
"Can I tell you something?"
Spencer shot him one of her famous cutting stares. "I hope it's not one of your relationship tips, Caleb."
It was.
She could see it on his face.
"It's none of my business, I know."
"You're right", she bitchily smiled to him, "it's nobody's business."
He smiled back confidently. "You know", he stated, as if fueled by Spencer's bitchiness, "the truth is I never figured you'd be the kind of girl to just run out to the street to breathe some air."
"And what kind of girl do you figure I am?"
"The kind who'll stay and make everybody shut up."
"That's pretty much me", Spencer agreed, slightly surprised, "so maybe you could just, like, shut up now and leave?"
"Or maybe you could be you and go back inside to take what's yours."
She grimaced at the thought of her being transparent also for Caleb.
"It's not that easy."
"You planned this whole thing for her", Caleb defended his point, "so it should be that easy."
It should, right?
"But it's not."
"Why are you guys fighting again?"
She exhaled all the air in her lungs. "We're not fighting again."
"Then why does this weird not-fighting-again always happen to you two?"
"It's complicated." She shot him a sideways glance. "And we're not fighting."
"You guys have been friends forever", he argued, "so that should make it easier, while with Hanna and me it's…"
"No, it makes it worse", she interrupted him, "cause we've always been best friends and now we're not, we're…"
"Girlfriends."
"Yeah."
"So?"
"So I don't really know when I'm supposed to act like the friend or when it's the girlfriend who's gonna take action."
"What's the real difference?"
"You mean besides the obvious?"
"I think we can skip the porn."
She chuckled at his joke. He really was under Hanna's influence.
"I want her to be happy", she shrugged, "I need her to be okay."
"And you want her to be miserable when you're taking the girlfriend role?", he joked. "It doesn't make sense."
She stared at him, wondering if she should tell him. But why not? It wasn't really a big secret, and he'd seen right through her already.
"I want her to be happy with me."
"And that's different?"
"Sometimes it is."
He nodded, thinking about it.
"Then you should go inside and show her it's really the same."
She smiled faintly.
Wasn't that the point of this whole party?
"I'll be there in a sec."
She waited until he went inside the bar thinking she wished she had a cigarette to play with something in her fingers. But she wasn't a smoker. She was just the girl who had to make everybody shut up in the party. In a second.
The air filled her nostrils and her mouth.
It was cold and lonely outside.
She breathed in the world before she made her return to the cave of treasures inside.
A/N: indonesian first: LOL! Oh, Number One Fans. Gotta love that.
IRuleUK: :))) "they were talking but they weren't really talking", yes, that was basically what I was trying to show. And here it's sort of... better, but then it gets worse? Don't hate Emily, please! She is making her mistakes, obviously, but she's going through a lot in this fic (although it's worse in the show). Poor thing. I'm gonna use a lot of Hanna, but I think Aria plays a important role regarding Spemily, especially because of her friendship with Spencer, so I'm trying to use her more too. As for the outline, for me it's the opposite, I can't really write "original stuff", I have no imagination to create a plot. What I do is outline the most essential chapters, the ones that are really going to be there. I also take notes on the main plot and on the secondary themes, as well as on the development of the main characters. Then everything changes while I'm writing, but the skeleton sort of remains.
theninemuses7: Thank you and... I'm a fan of yours. For real. Everybody should read your fics. Now.
go-sullivan: Yeah, that was crazy! The girls have no idea about how to get rid of evidence. Not even Spencer... haha. Dorky and cute is my kind of cute
LaughLoveLiveXx: You seriously are the best. You're a better reader of my fic, and probably of every fic you read, that I am. Regarding this fic and what I'm trying to write for Spencer, that is really her problem, not only her need for control but also that kind of nostalgia for something that she believes she's losing. Maybe not in the show. But in this fic I'm definitely working with that anxious vibe from Spencer that relates to her fear of losing things.
dmpanda5: Oh, yeah, trouble! But they're both suffering, you got it right.
Craycrayforshay: :) In terms of the presents Spencer's planned, we're gonna see that next chapter. And there will be more presents than the ones she got from Emily.
SpeM: working on it as fast as I can, but I know I'm not being very good with updating lately :)
Spicy Emily: I'm gonna try to do my best to write your request, and you can already see it sort of announced in this chapter... I still can't tell you what song I'm using though. And maybe it'll be a disaster, I don't know how I'm gonna write next chapter yet!