A/N: Thank you so much for reading my story. And for those who reviewed, followed and/or favourited it, I am especially grateful. I'm overwhelmed by the response. To the guest reviewers I couldn't respond to and thank personally, thanks so much for taking the time to provide feedback. I'm going to slow things down a bit since this isn't a long story, but I will be updating it about twice a week until it's over, so expect another update this weekend. I hope this provides even the smallest amount of solace after last night's Paily heartbreak. Thanks again for reading.
Emily did, in fact, change her clothes, but not until after brunch, and not until after Sam left to go hiking with her boyfriend, and definitely not because she felt the need to impress anyone. She put on a darker pair of jeans, ones that hugged her skin in exactly the right way, a blue plaid button-up opened to reveal a heather gray tank top and grabbed her favourite cardigan for good measure—northern California was surprisingly cold.
Brunch had gone remarkably well, considering that Emily was distracted throughout and worried Sam would say something about Paige, either about the accident or that other thing, but Sam kept her mouth shut, much to Emily's relief. Brunch also helped to make time move a little bit faster, and Emily made it back home just after eleven o'clock. With at least an hour's drive ahead of her—Bay Area traffic could be a cruel mistress—Emily hoped she'd waited long enough because she was antsy to see Paige.
Before heading out, she called the hospital one more time, and when they wouldn't confirm if Paige had been released or not, she called Mrs. McCullers to see if she could find out from either her daughter or the roommate. Emily didn't want Paige to know that she knew yet, but regardless of Paige's whereabouts, Emily was leaving as soon as possible. She could always camp out at a Starbucks to work on her paper if she needed to kill more time.
At twelve fifteen, Paige's mom phoned Emily back to confirm that Paige was now at home. Emily thanked her and told her she was about twenty minutes from the city and promised to be in touch later that day.
"Thanks again for doing this," Mrs. McCullers said again.
"You don't need to thank me," Emily insisted.
"I think I do."
"Well, I'm happy to help. I want to make sure Paige is okay, too," Emily admitted.
Mrs. McCullers seemed to hesitate for a moment before she said, "We've missed you, Emily. Nick and I, we follow your performances, too, you know. We're so proud of what you've been able to accomplish in the pool."
"Thanks, Mrs. McCullers, that's really nice to hear." She meant it too.
They hung up and Emily, who'd already programmed the address to the hospital and Paige's apartment into her GPS, nervously gripped the steering wheel. She wanted to see Paige. She really did. She'd wanted to see her or call her many times since they'd both moved to California. And it wasn't as if she wasn't given plenty of opportunities, as they were thrown together a few times a year, but Emily had somehow avoided them all, and Paige never took the initiative either. Emily briefly wondered if she was making a huge mistake in going to see Paige now, after her accident, when she hadn't really seen her in years, showing up unannounced on her doorstep, but she wasn't turning back now.
Thirty minutes after the call with Paige's mom, Emily stood in front of a call box, looking up the code for Paige's apartment when she was spared having to reveal herself over the phone by a guy exiting the locked gate with a bicycle in tow. She slipped inside and found the correct door.
She took a calming breath to try to quell the beating she felt in her chest before doing maybe the hardest thing she'd ever had to do in her life. She knocked on the door—three strong knocks—and waited, listening for the sound of movement behind the door.
She heard the deadbolt turn before the door opened ajar, stopped by the chain that was latched to the wall. A familiar-looking girl stood eyeing her from the small space allowed by the chain. "May I help you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Hi," Emily said, invoking her friendliest voice. "I'm here to see Paige."
The girl stared at her, making Emily shift uncomfortably under her scrutinizing gaze. "Paige isn't feeling well, but I can tell her you dropped by," she said. "What did you say your name was?"
"Oh, um, I didn't. Sorry. Uh, my name is Emily." Something clicked with the girl behind the door when Emily revealed her name.
"You're Emily Fields," the girl—Spencer, she assumed—said.
Emily didn't quite know what to make of the fact that this girl seemed to know who she was, but perhaps Mrs. McCullers had called ahead. It didn't really matter how she knew, though, so she replied, simply, "I am."
"Well, like I said," the girl continued, "now's not a good time. I'll let her know you stopped by."
As she was about to close the door, Emily shouted, "Wait!" The girl widened the gap again. "I know Paige is probably not up for visitors," Emily said with urgency. "I know she just got home from the hospital and that she was in a car accident last night. I'm here because her mom called me to ask me to come see her." The girl raised an eyebrow. "I'm here because I need to know that she's okay," she added truthfully.
The girl stared at her silently for a moment and then shut the door. Emily waited a second, not knowing if she'd been rudely dismissed when she heard a noise from behind the door before it opened fully this time. And the girl, one Spencer Hastings, a swimmer she recognized from the Stanford team, wearing, hilariously, a gray t-shirt that said "Stanford Quidditch" across her chest, extended her arm to let Emily into the room.
Paige wasn't in the living room when Emily stepped inside, but she heard a toilet flush and understood why. Spencer didn't invite her to sit, so Emily, who'd stopped at a Starbucks along the way, now stood awkwardly with a tray of drinks in the middle of the living room.
"Spence!" she heard Paige's still-familiar voice yell. "A little help here, please."
Spencer turned and began walking towards the voice. "Um, Paige," she said, "you have a visitor." The last part of the last word trailed off to the point Emily wasn't sure if she actually finished it. Because in that moment, Paige had entered the room, hobbling awkwardly on one crutch, and looked directly into Emily's eyes.
"Emily," she said quietly.
"Hi," Emily breathed back just as quietly, mesmerized that Paige was actually standing only a few feet away and looking just as inherently beautiful as Emily remembered. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a few loose strands falling into her makeup-free face. She wore a black tank top blocked partially by a navy-blue sling, which held her arm in place, and gray sweatpants bunched up to her knee on the side that sported the boot. Emily thought she looked flawless.
Spencer moved to help Paige onto the short end of the sectional in the middle of the room, so Paige was able to elevate her boot-covered foot while also facing the TV, which was mounted on the wall. Emily still hadn't moved. She was busy staring at Paige, relieved to see that she was, relatively speaking, alright.
"I brought coffee," Emily finally said once Paige was settled on the couch, her gaze returned to the surprise visitor. It was a stupid thing to say, but it was all that she could think to say. "Grande Americano, black. At least I hope that's what you still drink."
"It is," Paige said with a small smile. "Thanks."
Emily returned the smile, relieved once more that Paige had not only not kicked her out but had also graciously accepted the proffered cup of coffee. "And, Spencer, right?"
Spencer cocked her eyebrow again and then nodded her head. "Yeah, hi," she said, smiling cheekily. "We've actually met before."
"I remember," Emily said, returning the smile. "But next time, it'll be you in second place," she finished, winking at the Stanford backstroker.
Spencer shook her head but smiled at her rival, appreciating how Emily handled her teasing. Paige laughed, too.
"Anyway," Emily said exaggeratedly, "I didn't know how you took your coffee, so I have a coffee or a plain latte. Your choice," she revealed, pulling packets of various kinds of sugar on the table and a short cup with milk for cream.
Spencer looked to Paige and nodded once, raising that eyebrow again before reaching for the coffee. "Just black is fine, thanks," she said, leaving the latte for Emily, who finally sat down on a nearby swivel reclining chair directly across from Paige and opened the lid on the latte and stirred in a packet of raw sugar.
They sat around sipping their coffee quietly, which only made each passing moment more awkward. It was Paige who broke the silence.
"I've got to say, I'm really surprised to see you, Emily. How'd you even know where I lived?"
"Your mom told me, actually. She called me a few hours ago and said you'd been in an accident. She, uh, she wanted me to check on you," Emily admitted.
"Oh," Paige said, the levity they'd reached only moments before now shattered. "You didn't have to do that. Spencer had that covered."
Emily was kicking herself for making it sound like she only came because Mrs. McCullers requested her to. And as she sat there, figuring out what to say to salvage the brief truce they'd just reached, Spencer was the first to speak.
"Since you're here, Emily, would you mind staying with Paige while I run to grab us something to eat? We haven't had a chance to eat lunch and there's not much in the fridge, and I'm not supposed to leave her alone for a few days at least."
"I thought we were ordering pizza," Paige quickly interjected.
"Yeah, we were. But that was before Emily arrived and we thought we'd be trapped here until Toby gets off of work," she explained. "Plus, I don't really want pizza, do you?"
Emily was sure something else was communicated, but it must have been spoken between the swimmers with their eyes since neither actually said anything.
"Fine," Paige said, resigned.
"Is that okay with you?" she asked, speaking to Emily. "I'll grab some groceries while I'm out. It'll take me an hour tops."
Emily looked to Paige, who was picking at a loose thread on the blanket Spencer had thrown over her after she helped her to sit. "Yeah," she finally said to Spencer. "That should be okay."
"Great," she said standing. To Paige, she said: "I'm going to Whole Foods, any special requests?" Paige shook her head but didn't say anything. "How about you, Em? You're going to need to eat something too."
The question caught Emily off guard, but she recovered quickly, and said, "You don't have to worry about me."
Spencer's eyes remained on Emily for a moment before she turned to Paige and mouthed something to her that made Paige roll her eyes. She disappeared into another room in the house and returned just as quickly with her keys, purse and cardinal-red hoodie.
"I'll be back in a bit," she said, exiting the front door and leaving Emily and Paige alone for the first time in years.
"I'm sorry about that," Paige said after another bout of silence. "Subtlety isn't Spencer's specialty."
Emily was thankful Paige was speaking to her again.
"Look, Paige," Emily said, ignoring the comment about Spencer. She had to start somewhere. "I'm sorry I implied that I came just to appease you mom."
"Don't worry about," Paige said dismissively.
"No, I'm serious," Emily insisted. She hadn't intended to have this conversation so soon. "When she said you'd been in a car accident, for a split-second I thought you were gone and it... I..." She didn't want to finish that thought. Paige's eyebrows were furrowed together. It was her confused look. Once upon a time Emily had known it well. "And then she said you were okay—relatively okay, at least—I breathed the biggest sigh of relief. I honestly didn't even know I'd stopped breathing. And then I bawled in the shower after we hung up our call. I thought I'd missed my chance, you see."
This got Paige's attention. Her eyes bored straight into Emily's, and Emily couldn't stop the water that was accumulating around her eyes.
"For two years," she continued, "I've been willing myself to talk to you, so we could talk about what happened—"
"It was a long time ago," Paige interrupted.
"Yeah, it was," she agreed. "Long enough, don't you think?"
Paige was no longer looking at her. She just sat silently.
"I just, I miss my best friend," Emily stated simply. "And I hate that you live an hour away and I only ever see you at swim meets a few times a year, where you won't even look at me and I'm too fucking scared to speak to you." She looked down for a second and then ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry this has happened to you, but I'm not sorry your mom called me. It's because of her call that I'm here now talking to you."
It felt like an eternity passed and Paige still hadn't said anything. She hadn't even looked at Emily since she saw the tears welling up her eyes.
"You look like shit, by the way," she said, gambling that Paige would know she didn't mean it seriously.
It worked to diffuse the tension in the room because Paige was laughing again—not unrestrained laughter, but just enough to allow Emily to relax a little bit. "Thanks for that," she said. "I forgot how good you were for my self-esteem."
Emily allowed herself a small laugh. "Hey! I was good for your self esteem," she said in her defense.
"Yeah, you were," Paige agreed. "Hey, do you remember that time at camp, that summer before our junior year, when you pushed Alison into the water because she insulted my body?"
Emily smirked when she looked up at Paige. "I believe her exact words were: 'Oh my God, Paige, put some clothes on! No one at a church camp should have to see what you look like with so little clothes. You look like a boy.' It would have been a lot funnier if I didn't have to rescue her from the water a few seconds later," she said, enjoying the sound of Paige's laughter. "How was I supposed to know she couldn't swim?"
Paige shook her head as much as she could with her broken collarbone. "She deserved it," she said quietly. "God, high school mostly sucked, didn't it? I'm so glad I'm more than two thousand miles away from everyone."
"Do you ever go back?" Emily asked, curiously. She hadn't been back since she moved to California. Her mom left as soon as she could to be reunited with her husband, but Paige's parents still lived in Rosewood.
"I went back for a couple of weeks last summer for my parents' twenty-fifth anniversary. But swim season, as you know, keeps me away from traveling during peak holiday times. My parents have traveled to me the last couple of Christmases," she explained. "My mom doesn't need a better excuse to escape the cold."
"I'm glad to see you're okay, Paige," Emily said seriously. "You scared the shit out of me."
Paige shifted on the sofa, wincing in pain. Emily stood up to see if she could help, but Paige waived her off and Emily sat on the sofa where Spencer was sitting before she left, now only two feet away from Paige. "The doctors told me I was pretty lucky. I'm told the car is done though."
"Your mom said as much," Emily said, giving Paige a sympathetic look. "What does this mean for your swimming?" she asked with trepidation.
"I'll be out about eight weeks, the doctor thinks," she explained and Emily, who, not for the first or even second time that day, breathed a sigh of relief. Paige may not yet be a household name, but Emily knew in fewer than two years she'd be a national treasure. "I'm going to see the team doctor on Monday to get a more thorough diagnosis, but the emergency doctor said I shouldn't have a problem getting back to where I was. I was really lucky it wasn't worse and even luckier I busted my collarbone and not my shoulder."
"Has your coach been to see you?"
"Yeah," she said yawning. "He came to the hospital early this morning. When he found out I was okay, he chewed me out for being out so late, so that was fun."
"What time was it?"
"Just before three."
"Why were you out that late?" Emily asked. It's not that Emily thought it weird a university student would be out until three, but Paige had always kept to a meticulous training schedule, which included early-morning workouts and a strict bedtime. But that was high school Paige. She didn't know if Stanford Paige was different.
Paige grimaced. "I was getting dumped."
"Oh," Emily said, raising her eyebrows and turning her head to face the TV, which probably looked weird since it wasn't on. "Well, you had a really great night, then."
"Yeah," Paige said with half a laugh. "I've had better."
Emily didn't know what to say, even though her curiosity to know more about that particular subject tempted her to ask questions she had no right to ask. Paige was staring at her when she finally looked back. She said nothing out loud, but her eyes—her deep brown eyes—were daring Emily not to turn away.
It was Paige who broke their eye contact first, but only her eyes moved. Emily used the opportunity to look away again, this time finding her hand a most interesting object. Then Paige said, "It's really for the best, though. She was a bit of idiot."
Emily's head snapped back up. Paige was looking at her again, the slightest grin plastered across her face. She was expecting Emily to respond in some way.
"Still, no one likes getting dumped," Emily said stupidly. "How long were you together?" she asked. She couldn't help herself.
"Since May," she replied, her eyes not hiding her amusement.
"Swim team?"
"No. God, no!" she quickly exclaimed. "I don't need that kind of drama anywhere near the water."
Emily nodded. "Does she know about the accident?"
"I can't imagine how she'd know. Spencer would definitely not have told her, and I hadn't really introduced her to anyone else who would tell her," she said. "Spencer's thrilled she's out of the picture." Emily's mouth turned up on one side along with Paige's. "I mean, she wants to kill her, but she's stoked she doesn't have to see her anymore."
"Protective of you, is she?"
"You could say that, I suppose," she said. "Or controlling. That works too," she said laughing, without the slightest bit of malice. "She thinks I have horrible taste in women."
"Do you agree?" she asked, immediately wishing she could take it back.
Paige knitted her eyebrows together for the briefest moment before tilting her head up and smiling again—a full smile this time—when she turned back to Emily. "I don't have the best track record," she admitted.
They returned to safer topics until Spencer returned, as promised, within the hour. She'd picked up a couple of salads and some sandwiches and insisted Emily stay for lunch at least. Paige, who'd been up all night and was in visible pain, was fighting to stay awake, but Spencer insisted she eat before falling asleep. Spencer was yawning, too, but she kept the conversation going as they ate lunch.
When they finished, Emily rose to leave, but Spencer asked her to wait until after she helped Paige to bed.
"Emily," Paige said just before she left the room, "thanks for coming by today. It really meant a lot to me."
"You're welcome," she replied, blushing. "And thanks for not kicking me out."
Paige laughed. "And why would I do that?" she asked, winking at Emily before disappearing down the hall.
Emily was lost in thought and hadn't noticed Spencer had returned.
"I'll walk you out," Spencer said, getting Emily's attention.
"You really don't have to do that."
Spencer looked at Emily, raising that left eyebrow again. "I know that," she said in the same tone she used when she answered to door. "I want to walk you out."
Emily grabbed her bag and walked with Paige's roommate out of the apartment.
"Thanks again for lunch," Emily said trying to break some of the tension she was gleaning from the brunette beside her.
"Listen, Emily," Spencer started, ignoring Emily's comment. Emily's heart started beating the way it always did when she felt nervous. "Paige has been through a lot, and it's only going to get harder from here as she works to get better and move on from that vapid of a ex-girlfriend of hers, so if you're only here for your sake or her mom's, then don't you dare come back to see her again. I care way too much for that girl to see her disappointed or let down."
So this was the Spencer Paige had told Emily about, she thought, as she considered what, if anything, she should say. Emily kept her eyes unflinchingly on Spencer's. She knew it wasn't an empty threat, even if she technically hadn't threatened her and even if she didn't know how much Spencer actually knew about Emily's history with Paige. "I'll see you next weekend," she said as she opened up her car door and got inside.
When she looked back to Spencer as she started up the car, she saw the Stanford swimmer smirking at her as she drove away.