A/N: In my opinion, this is the best chapter of this story yet! :) I hope you guys like it, and I hope that you'll review if you do. I got lots on the first chapter and have been getting less since then. I'm just worried that people don't like it as much now :S
Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!
PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!
"Hanna, someone's knocking on the door," I said from across the room. We were both doing the makeup work that Spencer had taken the liberty of bringing us when school ended. "Make sure you check who it is before you answer."
"Paranoid much?" Hanna asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I glared at her; she knew perfectly well why I could afford to be paranoid. "I'll be right back." She disappeared out the door of her room, and I stayed glued to her desk chair. I felt a little bad for the idea of "better her than me" that was running through my head, but I didn't have anything to be worried about. She appeared back less than a minute later, with Emily in tow. I tried not to get too excited when I saw the brunette.
"Hey," I greeted, and she returned it with a hasty nod.
"Paige gave me two names," she stated, getting straight to the point, as though she thought something would happen to her before she could tell us the names.
"Only two?" Hanna demanded.
"She said she didn't know the other people's names," Emily answered.
Hanna rolled her eyes. "And you believe her? Okay, Paige hates Ali, and she already told you that she wasn't ratting anyone out! So why now would she suddenly give you names, and why only two?"
"I really don't think she's lying, Han," Emily insisted. "I know what she did and what she thinks of Ali, but she wouldn't lie to me."
I swallowed silently and bit my tongue. Maybe that Pigskin was going to be more a problem than I thought she would be. Especially if Emily still liked her. She had just said earlier that she didn't trust her, not entirely anyway. But would she get back with that bitch?
"Whatever," I said, shaking it off. "What names did she give?"
"Lucas, for one," Emily answered, looking pointedly at Hanna, who nodded as if she weren't surprised. "And… Melissa."
"Some people never change," I muttered, shaking my head. "We should probably call Aria and Spencer."
"Aria's at Radley. Apparently, she's got an internship there or something. She's trying to find out more about this Bethany girl," Hanna answered. "She texted about an hour ago."
"I'll call Spence. I don't think she's busy with anything," Emily stated, producing her phone from her pocket and speed dialing a number. We all sat there in silence as it rung a couple of times, and then we heard her pick up.
"Yeah?" came the muffled voice on the other end of the line.
"Come to Hanna's. We have news," Emily stated.
"Be there in five." The call ended and Emily slipped her phone back in her pocket. She sat herself on Hanna's bed, next to the other blonde, and then she looked over at me.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded. "As okay as I can be, I guess."
"She's crazy paranoid, though," Hanna added.
"Yeah well, maybe that's not a bad thing," Emily pointed out. "I'd rather all of us be paranoid. Maybe then we wouldn't do as many things without thinking."
"Okay, we have all thought plans out thoroughly before and still had them blow up in our faces," Hanna reminded me. "A is just always outwitting us and he or she is always one step ahead."
I nodded in agreement. "Or two, or three."
"Not helping," Emily muttered. I sighed, and then there was another knocking from downstairs.
"Make sure it's Spence before you open it," I reminded Hanna as she stood up.
"Yeah, I know, I remember from ten minutes ago when you said the same thing about Emily knocking," Hanna snapped, rolling her eyes. She left the room, leaving me alone with Emily.
"I'm sorry," Emily said suddenly. My eyes immediately snapped over to where she was sitting, but she was looking down at her hands. When I didn't say anything, she looked up at me. "For insinuating that you've never told the truth."
I shook my head. "It's okay. I've told a lot of lies in my life. Maybe a few too many."
Before either of us could say anything else, Hanna and Spencer walked into the room. "What happened? Did somebody get another A text?"
"No, but we know two more people on Mona's Team of Ali Haters," Hanna answered.
"Is that what we're calling it now?" I growled.
"Never mind that," Emily interrupted, waving that away. I inhaled through my nose. "Lucas and… Melissa."
"Melissa? My sister Melissa?" Spencer demanded. "She's working with Mona?"
"According to Paige, yes," Emily answered.
Spencer narrowed her eyes at the other brunette. "Wait, I thought you and Ali just said this morning that you don't trust Paige?"
"Spencer, Paige is still in love with me, and she's not going to start handing me big fat lies. Trust me, she wouldn't lie to me right now," Emily answered. Spencer just sighed and shook her head.
"I can't believe that Melissa would be working with Mona," Spencer muttered. "Do we even know what Mona and her team of Ali Haters is doing?"
"Seriously, can we stop calling it that?" I snapped. Once again, though, everyone just shrugged my request off.
"Not for sure, but for all we know, Mona is the new A," Emily said, shrugging.
"I don't think so. If she was, she wouldn't have to do anything outside of being A to mess with us," Hanna pointed out.
"Of course she would," Emily argued, "if she's torturing us behind the scenes, she knows that we aren't going to tell anyone. AKA, nobody knows except for us. She has to something out in the open so that people can see us being humiliated or belittled. There's no other way to get everyone to turn on Ali."
I took a shaky breath. There was an awful amount of talk of people hating me, and all it did was make me feel more and more insecure about everything. Being back in Rosewood was making me into an entirely different person. I swallowed thickly. "Well, whether she's A or not, she's obviously getting ready to cause some kind of trouble," Spencer stated obviously. "Maybe I can talk to Melissa and see if she'll say anything."
"She won't," I muttered, but no one seemed to hear me.
"I can try talking to Lucas," Hanna suggested, "but I'm pretty sure he hates me now. After all that's happened."
They continued to talk about Team Mona theories, and I just watched and listened. These girls, who had once followed my every move, had become so independent since then. Sure, I'd watched them do some of that growing when I came to Rosewood after Hanna was first hit by a car. I was really impressed, honestly. There was a time that Hanna had seemed so insecure, that just saying anything against her opinion would've kept her from saying anything else. A time that Emily wouldn't talk much around me unless she was spoken to first. In some sort of way, I felt as though I'd helped to create them into these people. When I "died", it had made them all stronger, and had forced them to grow into new people. If I hadn't run away two years ago, who knows what would have happened?
"Ali?" Emily asked suddenly. "Are you okay?"
I blinked and shook myself out of my thoughts. "Yeah," I answered, nodding. "I've got to go to the bathroom."
EEE
Ali excused herself and left the room, and I watched her walk out. "What do you think is on her mind?"
"I think the better question is what isn't on her mind," I corrected, shaking my head sadly. "So much has happened to her after all of this time. Way worse than us, in some ways."
"But in some ways, we had it a lot worse," Spencer added, and Hanna and I nodded in agreement. "Do you think we should just call Aria and try to catch her up real fast? Maybe she can take a break from what she's doing."
"Go for it," I said, shrugging, and Spencer took out her phone to call Aria. I kept an eye on the door the entire time, waiting for Ali to walk back in.
"She's not answering. I'll be sure to tell her tonight, though," Spencer promised.
"Okay," I said, nodding. I wasn't going to stop being on edge until Alison walked back into this room in one piece. After seeing her nearly be strangled, even if I only saw half a second of it, I was terrified of what might happen to her. I was slowly starting to realize that no matter how many time I'd tried to find closure with what happened between me and Ali, I wasn't going to get it. I told Paige, before Ali came back, that I was finally starting to say goodbye to her. If that was true, I definitely hadn't finished saying that goodbye. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to finish it.
I had a bad feeling that I wasn't going to be alone with Ali for four more nights, though, because I had her over the night before. That meant four more nights without talking Alison about this weird situation we were in.
When Ali walked back into the room, I let out a silent breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "What did I miss?" she asked, taking a seat back on the desk chair she'd been sitting on before.
"Aria's not picking up, but I'll fill her in later," Spencer answered. "I think we should wait and talk to her before we make any plans, though."
"Plans?" Alison demanded. "Spencer, we have nothing to go on right now. Lucas and Melissa are working with Mona. Okay, but what is Mona doing? What is A doing? Are the terms A and Mona interchangeable? We don't know anything else. How can we possibly form a plan from that?"
Spencer sighed. "I don't know."
Spencer left a little while later, claiming that she had to go unpack her stuff back into her house. She hadn't completely explained to us what was happening with her family, but I didn't blame her. Weird things were always happening in her family, and now that Melissa was working with Mona, I could completely understand why she wouldn't want to talk about anything.
"Em, do you want to stay for food?" Hanna asked me, but I shook my head.
"My mom's expecting me home," I explained. "I should probably leave now, actually."
"Alright," Hanna said, nodding.
"Call us if Paige dishes up any more names," Ali reminded me. I locked eyes with her for a split second, nodded, and then broke the eye contact. I gave them a quick goodbye and left.
AAA
"I should probably get back to my homework," I told Hanna.
"Aren't you hungry?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Not yet. Maybe in an hour?"
"Sure," she agreed, nodding, and going back to her school book. I picked up my own school binder, and opened it up to where it was before. Sitting there inside the book was my Emily Journal. I had only managed to read a few words before Spencer showed up with schoolwork. I finished that quickly, though, and now I was ready to read some.
I opened it up to the first entry.
Dear Diary,
I'm going to get straight to the point of this. Emily Fields is one of my best friends, but there's always been something different about her. After a while of us being friends, I realized that it was the way she looks at me. It's different than how Emily looks at other people. Different from how other people look at me. Something about her eyes, and her smile.
Actually, it didn't take me long to realize why she looked at me differently. She was totally into me, and she still is. I don't know if she even really realizes it, but I do. I'm debating whether or not I should bring it up to her sometime. Not necessarily about her liking me, but about her possibly being into girls. It hurts when I think about the fact that she may be hiding a part of herself, even from herself. I can't imagine doing that.
I know that I have to help her, but I don't know how, and it's driving me crazy.
I sighed silently as I finished reading the entry. Little had that Alison known that one day, she would be seriously considering some sort of relationship between her and Emily. I bit my lip carefully and turned to a random page.
Emily is getting more and more obvious with her staring. When we all have sleepovers and try on each other's clothes, she never takes her eyes off of me. At first, I liked the attention a lot. The more I think about it now, though, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. Not that a girl is staring at me, but that Emily is. I'm not exactly sure why it makes my stomach squeeze and twist inside of me.
I'm not sure how everyone else doesn't notice it. Maybe I've just got a special eye for catching onto what Emily is thinking and doing. I can't imagine why I would, though.
I wet my lips and flipped to another random page. My palms were starting to sweat, and I wasn't sure why this was making me so nervous. Maybe the idea of someone else seeing these.
Emily kissed me in the library today. We were talking about Great Expectations, the book. I read her one of my favorite quotes from it, and then she smiled at me and kissed me. I was honestly really surprised about how simply she did it.
It wasn't as weird as I thought it would be, kissing a girl. Her lips taste sweet, for one thing. Plus, they're really soft. I kissed her back, I think. Of course, it only lasted about half of a second. I'm glad that she did kiss me, though, I think that she needed to do it for herself. How else are you supposed to accept that you're different if you've never had any evidence to back it up?
Maybe that's not true for everyone, but Emily is the kind of girl who has to prove things to herself. And even if she didn't know it, she'd just proved to herself what she is. Whenever she admits it, I'll be really proud of her. I really hope that she shares her realization to us when she realizes it. I don't like to see her hide any part of herself, when the real her is so beautiful and amazing anyway.
I swallowed thickly. Flipped to another page.
It's been six days since I left Rosewood, no longer Alison DiLaurentis, but Vivian Darkbloom. I hate being away. I hate being someone else. I wonder if this is what Emily feels like when she pretends to not like girls. Like she is hiding under a mask that people aren't perceptive enough to see through.
Now that I'm gone, I don't know if she'll be able to accept herself sooner or later. On one hand, I won't be there to remind her of her feelings, but on the other hand, maybe her feeling of loss will be enough to admit it to herself.
It's going to be hard to stay away. I'm so glad that I brought this with me though. This is something real to hold onto. One of the only journals I have that are filled with truths instead of lies.
I'm going to miss Emily the most. Sure, I love the other girls, but Emily was different. She always cared about me. No matter if I was being a bitch, or if I was being selfish. She somehow managed to see the best part of me. She made me feel more special than I am. I hate that I hurt her such a short time ago. I didn't really mean to snap at her as badly as I did when she kissed my shoulder. I was just scared and surprised.
The more I think back, the more I realize that whatever feelings Emily had for me, they weren't one sided. They couldn't be. Sure, I loved attention. But when guys did that to me— when they were super obvious about liking me— I always told them off unless I thought there was something to gain. I could've done the same thing to Emily so long ago if I wanted to. But a part of me never wanted to, because a part of me was sure that one day, I could start giving away those feelings instead of always accepting them.
Not that I can do anything about any of that now. As far as they are concerned, I'm gone for good. A made it clear that he or she wants to kill me, and Mona was nice enough to help me devise a plan to stay away. I wasn't going to ruin my chance to live by going back to Rosewood. Not ever.
It hurts to say goodbye, especially since I didn't get to say a real goodbye to any of them.
They might be sad at first though, but they'll eventually realize the good parts about me being gone. I played with them a lot, even though I really did care about them.
Even if I could come back one day, I doubt that they would ever accept me back.
I blinked, and a tear fell from my eye, startling me. I quickly wiped it away and closed my journal. Then, I closed my binder and looked over at Hanna. "Han, how about that food?"
First reveal of what's hidden in Ali's journal! There should be entries in every chapter... Ali skips around a lot when she reads them though, so don't let that confuse you!
Like it? Love it? Hate it? Please tell me in a review, or a PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!
So this story is, at the moment, the one I'm most into, which is why you got two updates before I updated anything else. Tomorrow I'm going to try and at least update CD before this. However, I may not be able to manage any updates tomorrow, I'm afraid. I'll be busy. And... As I've previously stated, IDDA is on hold for now.
Tomorrow I've got to be up really early ugh :( Got that school thing I was talking about before. I have another school thing for most of next weekend, so don't expect any updates on Saturday or Sunday either. :(
Ugh I'm actually kind of excited/nervous for the school thing I have tomorrow, which means it's going to be super hard for me to fall asleep early enough to get up at 6:30 AM tomorrow. Ugh, I'll have to figure it out soon. I've actually gotta head to sleep soon, because or else I'm going to never get up on time. Lol...
So goodnight lovelies! Please review :)