A/N: This is the penultimate chapter. The last one will go up during the week. Thanks for all the reviews, faves and follows.
Emily began attending Rosewood Community Church after attending the Christmas program. It wasn't that she had been sucked into the religiousness of it; it was because it gave her an opportunity to see Paige outside of school at least two days a week, Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights for youth group. Her mom didn't the like idea, but she had meant what she said to Emily—that she was old enough to start making these decisions on her own. The increased appearances at church also put her into the path of Ben, for which he took full advantage. By Valentine's Day they were officially a couple.
Paige never hid her disgust with that particular development. "I just don't get it, Emily," she said when Emily told her Ben asked her out. "Why Ben?"
It was a good question and one Emily knew she didn't have a good answer for.
"Why not Lucas?" Paige asked.
"Lucas? Lucas Gottesman?"
"Yes, Lucas. He's nice and smart and funny—three things Ben is not," she declared. "And he's crazy about you."
Emily frowned. "Why do you think he's crazy about me? He never talks to me."
"Exactly. Because has a really big crush on you."
Emily laughed. "First of all, I've never thought of Lucas in that way. And, secondly, if he can't even talk to me, it's never going to happen anyway."
Paige looked so wounded. "Okay, so not Lucas, but Ben?"
Emily was starting to get annoyed with her friend. She knew Paige didn't really like Ben, and she knew Ben made no effort to engage Paige at church, even though they were both pastor's kids in the same church and had known each other since they were very young, but she thought she'd at least be happy for her. He was her first boyfriend. It was kind of a big deal. And Ben wasn't a bad guy. He was charming and tall and he played the guitar for the youth group praise band, which meant, of course, that in youth group he was one of the cool kids. And he was interested in Emily. Best of all, he wasn't affected by Alison's social mandates, which excluded Emily from the company of the majority of Rosewood High School students, which was more impressive since Alison attended Rosewood Community Church, too. Mostly, although it hadn't occurred to her, Ben was safe, and Emily craved safety.
With the exception of the occasional eye roll and the more often exercised act of walking away if she saw Ben approaching Emily, Paige didn't say anything else about it. And, miraculously, she and Ben had come to a sort of unspoken truce when it came to spending time with Emily. Emily spent the majority of church time with Paige. Ben was busy with band stuff there most of the time anyway. Emily spent time with Ben outside of church, which worked since Paige's time was so regulated, though the McCullers had started to relax a bit in that regard, too, especially now that Emily started going to church regularly.
But for Emily, the worst part about dating Ben had nothing to do with Paige's disdain for him. She and Emily rarely discussed him and, as he wasn't at school with them, they carried on there as normal. It wasn't until their sophomore year, shortly after Ben got his driver's license, that Alison decided to cause trouble in decidedly Alison ways.
Paige usually walked home with Emily, as she lived only a twenty-minute walk from the school and in the direction of Paige's house, from which point she would begin her own journey home on bike for another fifteen minutes. It was the routine they started their freshman year after swim season started and had continued the following year. On this particular November day, they had no reason to think their routine would be any different, until Paige saw Ben waiting across the street from the school in a parked car, honking his horn when he spotted his girlfriend. Emily turned her head to the sound of the horn and waved when he waved at her. Then she looked to Paige, who was still staring at Ben, a darkness now clouding her eyes.
"I didn't know he was coming, I swear," Emily pleaded truthfully, knowing what was going on in the other girl's mind.
Paige turned to Emily. She looked betrayed. Emily knew how sacred their after-school walk was, and she knew it mattered as much to Paige as it did to her—twenty minutes away from parents, the swim team, youth group, Alison DiLaurentis and, perhaps most importantly, Ben. Twenty minutes filled with laughter and serenity and stolen glances, spoken pacts and unspoken ones, too. Twenty minutes wherein nothing existed outside of Emily and Paige. In short, it was the highlight of Emily's day. And unknowingly Ben had stolen it away.
He called her by name from across the street, but she continued to stare at Paige, hoping to communicate all the disappointment she, too, felt.
Paige, defeated, simply said, "I'll see you tomorrow, Em," and kicked her leg over her bike to start her escape.
But before Paige had the chance to fully mount her bike and before Emily started walking over to Ben, she heard Alison say to Paige: "Looks like you've been dumped, McCullers. Emily finally wised up and traded up." She said it loudly for full effect, and the small crowd around rewarded her effort by chuckling on cue.
Emily quickly looked to Paige, who was bravely staring at Alison despite the tears that had started to form in her eyes. "Fuck you, Alison," she spat before riding away.
Emily turned her attention to Alison. She was already upset by Ben's unexpected appearance and the pain she knew it must have caused Paige. But for Paige to have to deal with this taunting, too, Emily wanted to kill her. Instead, she asked, "Why do you have to be such a bitch?"
Alison rolled her eyes. "Don't push your luck, Emily. I've just thrown you a life jacket. Don't make me take it back."
"Fuck you, Alison," she said before finally crossing the street to Ben's waiting car.
Ben lasted another six months. The demands of school and swimming started taking a toll, and Ben, now finishing his junior year, had started to put pressure on Emily to take their relationship to places she wasn't ready to go. His insistence surprised her since he was so involved in church. His dad was the youth pastor, for Christ's sake. And she saw Ben take the abstinence pledge at the youth rally the church hosted in February. But Ben kept insisting that a blowjob wouldn't jeopardize that since "it wasn't really sex. And, I mean, we don't even have to start there," he argued one night as they were parked near the woods, the spot he often took her to make-out. "You could just touch it until I, you know," he said, loosening his belt.
When Emily insisted that she didn't want to "touch it," Ben slammed his hands against the steering wheel of his dad's car and yelled, "Damn it, Emily! Don't you love me?"
Emily didn't think it had anything to do with love and she was quickly losing patience with his good-boy-at-church/bad-boy-with-friends routine she'd begun to notice. A couple of weeks ago, she had to take his keys from him after he got wasted at Pat Lyon's eighteenth birthday party, after he sloppily made out with her and groped her over her clothes before she shoved him away. Two days later, he was front and center with the church band, leading the group in "Better Is One Day" like none of it ever happened.
Emily never told Paige about these incidents and not because she knew Paige hated any and all discussions about Ben, but because she feared what Paige may do in Emily's defense. Paige may have mastered the walk-away-endure-and-ignore technique when it came to dealing with her own bullies, but when it came to someone bothering Emily, she didn't turn the other cheek. Last swim season, a girl from Thornhill muttered an insult under her breath—some racial slur—as Emily and Paige walked by. Emily had just beaten her in the 200-yard backstroke and the girl, a senior, didn't like that this previously unknown freshman defeated her. Emily didn't actually hear what she said, but Paige heard and she went right up to the girl's face and told her to "shut your fucking mouth, you fucking white-trash bitch" loud enough for only the few people around them to hear, before Emily pulled her away to avoid it escalating into something more and ruining the team's or Paige's performance.
But talking about Ben to Paige would have been worse. She knew enough about him and his family to do real damage if she wanted to. And Emily didn't want that for any of them, but especially not for Paige, who was starting to gain some attention for her swimming, which meant she could get that Get-Out-Of-Rosewood-Free pass she so desperately wanted. And, really, Emily didn't need to talk to Paige about Ben. She knew what she had to do. So when Ben drove her home that night, the night she denied him both a blowjob and a hand job, she was ready to call it quits, and Ben managed to make it easy on her.
"I love you, Emily," he said for the first time. "And I want to be with you. But I'm going to need you to prove to me that you love me, too. I'm not going to wait around forever. There are plenty of girls who would gladly suck my dick and who wouldn't make me wait almost a year and a half."
Emily stared at him in disbelief, too shocked and grossed out to even speak for a second. Finally, she found her voice and said, "Have fun with those other girls, then." She left his car and closed the door.
But before she walked a few steps he opened the window and yelled, "You wasted more than a year of my life, you fucking dyke bitch!" before he drove away for good.
Paige never really said anything about Emily's break up with Ben, but Emily sensed her best friend's relief that he would no longer be around. That didn't stop Mr. McCullers from bringing it up one night when Emily was over for dinner.
"It's too bad you and Ben didn't work out, Emily," he said, not knowing he'd just made dinner awkward for at least half the table. "I thought you two made a nice couple."
Emily, who didn't know what to say to that, only smiled her response, while Mrs. McCullers scolded her husband for bringing the breakup up at all.
But things went back to normal for Paige and Emily. They continued to find success in the pool and they remained on the periphery of Rosewood High School's social scene, which was actually finally okay with Emily. Her brief hiatus with Ben had been enough time with the popular kids, and as she approached her third year of high school, she knew she had to really concentrate on swimming and school if she wanted to get a scholarship to a good school. Paige still had her sights set on Stanford. Emily's goals weren't nearly as lofty, but she still needed to work hard.
Summer provided a break from school and potential daily run-ins with Alison, who had increased the teasing since Emily's breakup with Ben. But the club swim season was only beginning, which meant Emily saw Paige everyday. On Wednesdays they went straight from swimming to youth group together. On one particular Wednesday night in July, they entered together as normal, Emily laughing at something Paige had said. But on this night they were immediately greeted by Alison, who was holding Ben's hand. They'd become a couple about a month after he and Emily broke up.
"Hi, Emily. Hi, Paige," Alison, who really couldn't help herself with it came to the two swimmers, said with a saccharin-laced smile. "Did you guys just come from practicing the breaststroke together?"
Ben and a couple of the other boys laughed. Paige just shook her head and began to walk away, past Alison, leaving Emily to stay or follow as she chose. But Emily stood there for a brief moment, looking between Ben and Alison and the fleeing Paige, and couldn't help herself. "And how are your knees, Ali?"
"My knees?" the blonde asked curiously.
"Yeah, it's just, I'm assuming you're spending a lot of time there lately, right? I mean, Ben basically broke up with me because I wouldn't satisfy his 'needs.'" she said, emphasizing the last word with air quotes before leaving to find Paige. She heard, rather than saw, Ben's friends trying and failing not to laugh.
The following Sunday afternoon, Emily was at Paige's house, laying out beside the McCullers family's pool, enjoying the heat of the summer sun and enjoying a rare moment near a swimming pool that didn't require endless laps back and forth. They'd even shed their one-pieces for bikinis. And if Emily thought Paige looked amazing in her Speedo then seeing her in a bikini was a revelation, though she did her best not to look, a move she'd practiced over and over in the locker room every day they were at the pool.
"Paige," Emily said looking at Paige, who lay on her back with her eyes closed, shattering the quiet they'd enjoyed for the last twenty minutes or so.
"Hmm?" her friend hummed.
"Why do, um, why does everyone tease you about being gay?" she asked. She'd wanted to ask this question since they'd become friends two years ago but never had the courage before now.
Paige opened her eyes and turned to Emily, squinting in the sun. She didn't speak for what felt like the longest time and then turned her head back and closed her eyes.
"Would you believe me if I told you and Ali and I used to be best friends?" she asked, not answering the question.
Emily tried not to be hurt her question was being ignored, but Paige's statement was ludicrous, so she couldn't help be laugh.
"I'm serious," Paige said, raising herself up to lean on her elbows and look directly into Emily's eyes. "In elementary school and through half of seventh grade."
Emily, who lay on her stomach, turned into her side, supporting her head with her right hand. "You're serious?" she asked, still not believing her.
"I'm not lying," Paige insisted. "You can go ask my mom if you don't believe me."
"Okay, I believe you," Emily said. "But you never said. And she hates you," Emily said like Paige wasn't already aware, which made Paige laugh.
"Yeah, well, she's a bitch. Anyway," Paige said, lying back down, "Ali started the rumour in seventh grade."
Emily was surprised Paige brought the conversation back to her original question. But it didn't fully answer the question. "Why would your best friend do that?" she asked.
"Brady Larson."
Emily smirked. Paige was being coy. Emily decided to play along. "Who's Brady Larson?"
"He was the cutest boy in our class: blonde, shaggy hair, blue eyes, dimples when he smiled, star soccer player. Every girl had a crush on him."
"Including Alison?"
"Especially Alison," Paige said with a smirk.
"Did you?"
"Every girl, Emily. Of course I had a crush on him," she said, turning to lay on her stomach.
"So what happened?"
Paige rested her head on her hands and looked at Emily. "His family moved to Phoenix after the school year ended." Emily shook her head and rolled her eyes, which made Paige laugh and acquiesce. "Brady liked me," she said. "I'm not really sure what he saw in me compared to the other girls, but he asked me to go to the movies with him."
"And you went?" Emily asked. She couldn't imagine her parents approving that.
"I asked my parents and they said no, of course, so I had to tell him I couldn't go. I think he took it to mean that I didn't like him or want to go out with him," she continued. "So he went to my best friend to see what she could tell him."
"Oh no," Emily said, guessing where this story was going.
"Yeah," Paige said, answering Emily's unspoken questions. "Rather than telling him the truth, that my parents barely let me out with my friends, so they'd never let me out a boy who liked me, she told him that I didn't like boys and to not take it personally."
"What a bitch," Emily gasped.
"You wanna know the best part?" Paige asked, her eyes finding Emily's again. Emily nodded. "I had to try to figure out what was going on when Brady came up to me the next day and in front of everyone said, 'Alison explained everything, and I just wanted to tell you that I think it's cool you like girls, Paige.' And I just stood there, silently, looking like an idiot because I was so confused by what I'd heard that I didn't even try to deny it. And that silence? That cemented it in everyone's minds," she finished.
Emily couldn't help but notice that Paige's eyes had watered up again, like they often did when she felt embarrassed or ashamed.
"Fuck, that's awful," Emily said, fully aware it provided no solace. "I'm sorry that happened to you."
Paige tried to shrug her off. "It was a long time ago. Plus, it made me see that Alison was really no friend of mine. She even became Brady's girlfriend after that," she laughed. "She was devastated when he moved at the end of the year."
Emily tried laughing too, to help shatter some of the tension she'd stirred up. "Ali's really something else."
Paige looked at her, cocking one eyebrow up, which made Emily laugh for real. "It's just," Emily started, "she always second choice. First Brady, then Ben." This made Paige really laugh.
The following year, in quiet moments, Emily often came back to the question of Paige's sexuality. It wasn't that it mattered in any real way, and Emily knew Paige's parents well enough to know that, even at sixteen, they would never allow her date. The thing was, Paige never challenged them, but then Paige never really challenged anything at all. And she was focused, spending most of her energy and time making herself attractive to Stanford by training religiously and studying hard. But, Brady aside, Paige never expressed even a minor interest in boys. It was just weird.
As for Emily and those thoughts she dwelled on at fourteen? Well, those never went away; she just learned to deal with them. She explained it to herself in many ways when she let herself actually think about what was going on, her favourite being that she'd never had a best friend before, so of course she would feel the inexplicable adoration. But she didn't have an excuse for the thoughts that still came to her at night, when she was in bed, remembering how after practice, as Paige stood facing her locker, how mesmerizing something as innocuous as a person's back could really be, the way a stray drop of water clung from her shoulders before creeping slowly over her shoulder blades and free-falling to the ground. Or that moment not long after when she stood there in a bra, sometimes black, sometimes white, and occasionally a light blue or a purple, but always somehow less innocent now, partially clothed, than she had been mere moments before. And even more innocent, but no less agonizing to Emily in those solitary moments were images of Paige just showered, but fully clothed, when she'd removed the towel from her head but hadn't run a brush through her just-washed hair. Emily didn't know what was so memorable about that particular moment, but that version of Paige often flashed through her mind.
But there was a lot to distract Emily from those thoughts, too, and it was easier to ignore them than try to make sense of them.
Junior year brought college recruiters to town to see the handful of Sharks that lurked in Rosewood's waters. The team won state the previous year, and in an unprecedented stroke of good luck, Coach Fulton had three swimmers who could land division one scholarships: Paige, Shana and Emily. Expectations were high going into their third year, and the Philadelphia Inquirer article that previewed the upcoming high school swim season, "What's in the Water in Rosewood?," which featured a picture of her, Paige, Shana and Madison—the members of the record-breaking relay team—only raised the hype.
Stanford came calling for Paige, as did a host of other schools, which didn't stand a chance if Stanford offered her a scholarship. Shana had her eyes set on Penn State and a few schools expressed interest in Emily, including Texas A&M and Texas, which were her parents' choices, but Cal was definitely tempting. And, while it would make her Paige's rival if she went to Stanford, at least they'd be close and get to see each other once in a while.
It was an exciting junior season, and one they delivered on by shattering their previous relay record and bringing home another state championship. And while they still had their final season to look forward to, life, for the moment, was good. Alison had even left them alone for the most part, which probably had a lot to do with all the attention the swimmers had received over that last year. The currency of small-time celebrity bought more than Alison's ire did.
The summer before their senior year produced a handful of memories, and Emily narrowed her choices down to Texas and Cal. She was leaning towards Cal, though, because it was a really good school and was one of the best swim programs in the country. Plus, it promised more Paige, who had recently officially voiced her intentions to attend Stanford, which was only about an hour's drive from Berkeley. Paige loved the idea, even if she had fun mocking the other school. They would be rivals, after all.
Paige's parents had even let up a bit now that she achieved the goals they'd set for her many years ago. She was even allowed to attend a few football games, which provided more of a venue to hangout than actual quality football to watch. The football team only won two games the year before, and there was little hope there would be any improvement this year. It was after one of those Friday night games that Emily went Paige's house, as she usually did after a game and often slept over. The Sharks lost forty-two to ten to Thornhill's formidable team, but that didn't matter to Emily or Paige, who hadn't watched much of the game in the first place.
"How was the game, girls?" Paige's mom asked when they walked through the door.
"Brutal," Paige answered. "We got killed."
"Oh, well, I'm not surprised," her mom said offhandedly. "Are either of you hungry? There's some leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes in the fridge."
"Thanks, mom. We had nachos at the game."
"Okay. Well, if you need anything, we'll be here," Mrs. McCullers said as they headed up the stairs to Paige's room.
In Paige's room, they sat on the bed with Paige's laptop between them, watching a Harry Potter film, something that they'd started over the summer and were nearly finished with now. It wasn't the first time Paige had seen the films. For Christmas freshman year, Emily wrapped a small box for Paige that contained a flash drive. "For when you're parents aren't around," she said with a wink. On the drive were all eight Harry Potter films, which she devoured over the break while Emily and her mother were in Texas visiting her dad. It was the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given her.
Harry Potter had sort of been their thing from that point. They talked endlessly about which houses they'd be in-Emily was definitely Hufflepuff, but Paige was harder to place. Paige argued in favour of Ravenclaw because she was on the honour's track at school, but Emily leaned towards Gryffindor because Paige was the bravest person she knew.
"That would mean I'd room with Hermione Granger," she said with a smile on her face. "That would be amazing."
Emily loved teasing her about her Hermione crush, but Paige owned up to it proudly. "She's fucking badass, Emily. She's the hero of the entire story!"
"It's not called the Hermione Granger Series," Emily argued.
"No," Paige consented, "but it should be. Harry Potter would have been dead in the first book if it hadn't been for her."
"I think Ron gets some credit, too, don't you think?" Emily asked, laughing.
"If you insist," Paige said, relenting.
"You just think Emma Watson is hot," Emily argued innocently and then, once she realized what she said, felt bad she'd let that slip. She really didn't mean anything by it.
But Paige didn't flinch. "She is," she admitted easily. "I mean, if my choices are between Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, then it's really no contest."
Emily laughed again. "I guess you have a point."
They quieted again, paying attention to the film, marveling at how Hermione always managed to be one step ahead of her best friends. Well, Emily wasn't really watching. She was still thinking about what Paige said about Emma Watson. Eventually, Emily asked, "Do you ever think other girls are hot? Besides Emma Watson, I mean?" She didn't know why she asked, exactly, but she was curious. Admitting someone was hot—boy or girl—was something Paige never really did.
Paige tensed up next to her. "I think lots of girls are hot," she said after a moment. "But there are plenty of guys that are hot, too."
Emily didn't quite know what to do with that information. Paige answered the question but evaded it just as quickly.
"Is there something you want to say to me?" Paige asked when Emily failed to continue the conversation.
"Hmm?" Emily hummed distractedly.
"I just... I don't know what you're implying," Paige said vulnerably.
When Emily looked at her, Paige's eyebrows were furrowed together and she could see her chest rising and falling. Emily supposed there was no going back now.
"I'm just curious if you've ever wondered if you might really be gay." She said it. She'd actually said it. Her heart was beating rapidly; she knew she crossed a line.
"How could you even ask me that, Emily?" Paige asked, her eyes unable to mask the hurt Emily just caused. "You of all people! You know what I go through on a near-daily basis. Why are you asking me this? Why?"
Emily didn't have an answer for her—not one she was willing to say out loud. She just needed to know, even if she was being cruel.
"It's just, you've never had a boyfriend—"
"I've also never had a girlfriend," she argued. "What does not having a boyfriend prove?"
Paige was starting to get angry, but she kept her voice down since her parents were downstairs.
"You're right. It doesn't prove anything," Emily said. "But, I mean, you never even talk about guys—"
"Do I talk about girls that way?"
"No, you don't—"
"Then why are you bringing this up?"
"Because," Emily said, not knowing what she was going to say, not when Paige was looking at her like Emily just committed the biggest betrayal. "Because," she tried again, her eyes moving slowly to Paige's lips and then quickly back up to her eyes.
The anger that had enveloped Paige was now replaced by confusion as she continued to stare at Emily. And Emily, as if powered by something outside of herself, started to lean closer to Paige, licking her lips when she was just a couple of inches from Paige's mouth. She looked back into those deep brown eyes, the eyes that she saw every night before she went to sleep, and said, "I just need to know," before she closed the distance between her and Paige and kissed her like it was the only thing she was meant to do.
It took a moment for Paige to react to what Emily had done, but when it finally did click, she pushed back a little bit and tangled her right hand in Emily's hair as she opened her mouth to try and deepen the kiss, which Emily obliged by slipping her tongue into her mouth and pressing Paige back against the headboard, smiling when Paige gasped mid kiss when Emily's tongue found hers. They continued kissing for what felt like the longest time, neither in any hurry to break whatever spell had befallen. Emily placed one hand on Paige's arm and the other against her left cheek in an attempt to feel more of her. And she kept kissing her, even when Paige pulled her closer so that Emily's weight was mostly supported by Paige's body. It wasn't until she heard Paige moan and depend the kiss further that Emily finally pulled away, panicked and panting.
"Shit," she said unable to look at Paige. "I'm sorry," she added, removing her hand from Paige's shoulder and quickly getting off the bed.
"Emily," Paige said softly.
"I have to go," she said, looking for her keys.
"Emily, you don't have to go," Paige said, getting to her feet. "It's okay."
Emily ignored her and pulled her jacket on, desperate to flee.
"Please don't go," her friend pleaded. She could hear in her voice that Paige was going to cry.
Emily finally worked up enough courage to look at Paige and saw the tears that had started to fall. "I'm sorry," she said again and she left the room and escaping through the front door.