With the finishing touches put on Paige and Emily's room, they finally took a moment to relax. It helped that they were able to do a lot of the work in advance, having decided on colors and decorations by e-mail and Skype before they left for school. Paige even geeked out and did a 3D computer model of the room that they used to move things around and get them the way that they wanted. Minus a few adjustments for measuring errors, everything went pretty smoothly.

That's the way Paige liked things: No surprises. She was about to get one from Emily, though, who started their post-decorating conversation with the question, "So, this gay/straight thing, it's really not going to be a problem for you?"

Paige just laughed, "Well, as long as you're not bringing your conquests home every night, I guess I'm okay with it."

"Paige. I'm being serious! I just don't want this to turn into something awkward."

Paige went over and sat next to Emily on her bed. She wrapped her arm around her. "I'm serious, too. I see no reason for things to get awkward. I'll make a deal with you, though. If I start to feel weird, I'll tell you. And if you start to feel weird, you tell me."

"Deal!" Emily laughed.

Paige reached over to the bedside table next to the bed and grabbed the picture of Emily with Maya that was resting there. "So, how long have you two been together?"

"Almost two years."

"And was she the first… person you dated?"

Emily laughed. "Are you asking whether or not I used to date guys?"

"Oh, no, no, no." Paige had no reason to feel guilty, but she did. She really hadn't meant to put Emily on the spot. "No, I just didn't want to assume."

"No, I understand," Emily assured her. "I'd say that Maya was my first real relationship. My first crush was a girl who just… well, she used my feelings to her advantage. She gave me just enough attention to make me feel that I had a chance with her."

"Wow, that sucks."

"It really does." Emily felt herself starting to get emotional, so she moved the conversation past Alison DiLaurentis. "After that, I dated this guy, basically because he asked me, you know? It was just nice to be with someone who was interested in me and who made me feel beautiful and loved. Especially after the experience with Alsion - my crush. And everyone else was pairing off, so…"

"I know how that goes."

"Yeah. I think I might still be with him, if it weren't for Maya. Maya let me know what it was to feel… I mean, that feeling of butterflies that I had with Alison? I never really had that with Ben. I didn't know that I was supposed to. I just thought that I felt that way about Alison because it was 'forbidden love.' So, Maya reawakened those feelings in me, and I realized that I wasn't really in love with Ben."

"How did that go down?"

"He didn't take it all that well. You know – 14 year old boy. Worried about what it means for his manhood that his girlfriend turned gay."

"Yeah, I guess I could see where that would be a lot for a 14 year old boy to process."

"Yeah. And the thing is, when I think about it, I could still have stayed in that relationship with him if Maya hadn't come along, you know? Just because I didn't know any better."

Paige got silent for a while. She kind of knew what it was like to stay in a relationship when there weren't any butterflies. "Well, I'm glad that you found someone to give you those butterflies." After an awkward silence, Paige raised an imaginary glass. "Here's to butterflies!"

"Funny thing about butterflies. They don't really last, do they?" Emily looked off into space. She quickly recovered. "So, tell me about you and Sean!"

"Yeah, Sean. I don't know. It just kind of happened, you know? Like, it was just inevitable. He was the captain of the baseball team, biggest jock in school, so it just made sense that we ended up together."

"Don't the jocks usually end up with cheerleaders?"

"That's the football team! Anyway, so, yeah, we ended up together. He's a great guy. Really nice guy. He's, like, the right guy, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Like, I always did the right thing – got the grades, got team captain, got the clean-cut guy, got into the right school." Paige didn't know why she was being so honest.

"Trouble in paradise?"

"He told me that he's afraid that I'll outgrow him over these next four years. The thing is, just between you and me, it already feels as if he doesn't fit."

Emily linked arms with Paige. Paige put her head on Emily's shoulder. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

Paige let out a deep sigh. "I don't know. I honestly do not know."

Emily nodded her head and stroked Paige's cheek. There was a moment of silence before Emily tried to lighten the mood. "And this isn't awkward at all for you, McCullers?"

Paige laughed. She jumped up off the bed as if Emily had leprosy and said, using a voice that was a couple of octaves lower than her real voice, "No homo, bro! No homo!"

Paige sat next to Emily and linked their arms again. "Is that the kind of reaction that you got from your friends when you came out?"

"Oh, shit. Are we doing this? The coming out story?"

"We don't have to if you don't want. I was just curious."

Emily gave Paige's bicep a squeeze. "No, it's okay. My friends were cool. It was seriously like no big deal with them. It was my teammates – some of my teammates – who started acting weird. You know, acting as if they had to cover up whenever I was in the locker room." Emily shook her head in disbelief at the memory. "You learn the ones to avoid. Learn to be the last person in the shower. Learn to get your laps in early or over the weekend."

Paige thought back to the locker rooms in high school. There was awkwardness and ostracism when girls on her team had come out. Some parents pulled their daughters off the team, insisting that there would have to be separate changing rooms. "It's hard to believe that people could be so petty. I mean, I can sort of see young kids being confused and feeling weird, but I know how some of the parents in my school reacted when they found out that there were gays in our locker room."

"Oh yeah! I definitely got the backlash from parents! One of them even complained that I was getting special treatment because I was gay. I mean, as if!"

Paige drew her roommate in for a hug. "That must've been so hard for you."

"It was," Emily replied. "I was lucky to have good friends who stood by me. I mean, my coach stood up for me, too, but my friends were always there for me. I miss them. Shit! Why am I going on and on about this stuff? We're in California! We're in college! We're on top of the world!"

After the first week of practice, Emily discovered how wrong that last statement had been. She and Paige quickly learned what it was like to go from being at the top of their class to being on the low end of the totem pole. Everything about swimming at Stanford was bigger. On the plus side, the facilities and the perks were much better. On the other side, the demands that were made on them were so much greater. By the end of the week, they were physically exhausted and emotionally drained – and this was before the added burden of classes kicked in. "We're going to have to get serious about how we manage our time," Paige told her. Emily gave her a tired smile and a nod of agreement. It occurred to her that Paige had the advantage in this area. Paige was used to scheduling her life and to training hard for swimming and field hockey. With Emily, swimming came easily. She didn't take the sport lightly, but she never had to buckle down and work hard at it. She was able excel even putting in a lot less work than most of her peers. Even with all the drama and distractions of Rosewood, she was still able to break school records and win championships. After only the first week, it was clear that the same wouldn't be true at Stanford.